SerranoNotes+-+Remains+of+the+Day+-+Character

List of major characters – Remains of the Day

//Stevens// – The major character of the plot is Mr. Stevens, an English butler at Darlington Hall. He lives to work, and thereby forgets to live his private life (does not recognize the feelings of Miss Kenton). He gets in a very big conflict with his fellow men and himself about dignity, duty and denial.

//Miss Kenton// – The other major character besides Mr. Stevens is Miss Kenton, the housekeeper of Darlington Hall (until she married). She is not the exact opposite of Mr. Stevens, because she works scrupulous and proper, but knows that there is a private life and therefore falls in love with Stevens, who tragically answers her feelings, but actually does not show them to her. A lot of years later, she and her feelings for Mr. Stevens are the reason for the “turning” in the protagonist’s attitude but he is not able to show them again.

//Lord Darlington// – An “old-fashioned English gentleman” who owns Darlington Hall for whom Stevens worked until Lord Darlington dies. Besides this, he is a supporter of the appeasement-politics and therefore is often described as a Nazi-Sympathizer. In Addition he arranges some parties with Nazis and other advocates of the “progerman-attitude”.

//Mr. Farraday// - The new owner of Darlington Hall after Lord Darlington has died and with this, he is Mr. Stevens’ new employer. He is, in contrast to Lord Darlington, more an easy-going gentleman than really following strictly the rules. He and his American humor are not common to Mr. Stevens who gets confused about the jokes of his new master.

//Stevens's father// - He was a world-class butler in former years and thereby is some kind of a “guide” for his son, who quests to be dignified enough to be accepted in the “Hayes Society”. Perhaps this is the reason why the father and son’s communication is very formal all the time, until the night the old Stevens is going to die. When he finally starts to work at Darlington Hall he is already very old and ill (arthritis).

//Mr. Reginald Cardinal// – He’s Lord Darlington’s godson. After the death of Reginal’s father, Lord Darlington takes care of him as a kin. Though, they act for widely different political opinions. Reginald Cardinal is a journalist, and it not only angers him that the Nazis have used L. Darlington and his noble manner to apply him as one cogwheel into their fascist regime, but also that Darlington has not recognized it. Cardinal is later killed in the war, in Belgium for a unimportant matter.

//Mr. Lewis// – He is a participant of the conference of 1923 at Darlington Hall and represents the American ideology. He is very congenial usually, but in his last speech, he calls the other representatives “amateurs” whose views and opinions are not contemporary and practicable in the modern world.

//Rosemary and Agnes// – Two German Jewish chambermaids who are hired by Lord Darlington, but finally fired again, because of their religion. They symbolize the attitude of Lord Darlington?

Pledged: (Uli Kaulfuß)