The butler in (the) passage: The liminal narrative of Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day

Abstract

This paper considers Ishiguro’s novel in the context of Victor Turner’s work on pilgrimage, and seeks to interrogate the apparently fixed opposition between the structural rigidity of Stevens’s position (his situation in the passage as an index of his situation as butler) at Darlington Hall and the liminal anti-structure of Stevens’s journey (in passage). The article will then offer some speculation about how the novel’s thematic preoccupations are underscored by liminal narrative techniques. This intimate relationship between content and form is reflected, in particular, in the structure and title of the text.