Abstract

With the Fall of Communism around the late 1980s, the European nations experienced a subsequent rise in neoliberal economic policies. The Conservative Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher ignited the air of economic liberalization, deregulation, and privatization, which led to the onrush of neoliberalism in England. This article critically interrogates how Kazuo Ishiguro’s booker-prize-winning novel, The Remains of the Day (1989) appropriates neoliberal ideals, exposing the tensions between individualism, meritocratic duty, and ethical compromises within the framework of its socio-political narrative. Ishiguro situates the action of the narrative in the timeframe of 1922 Spring to 1956 marked by Egypt’s decision to nationalize the Suez Canal. The novel may be regarded as a timely rejoinder that highlights the moral crises of the narrator, Mr. Stevens, stemming from his internalization of neoliberal idealism. Following the methodology of close textual analysis, this article seeks to examine the manifestation of neoliberal values in the protagonist, Mr. Stevens. Ishiguro’s literary representations of the internationally significant March 1923 conferences within the four walls of the fictional country house have been assessed to trace the anti-democratic and pro-Nazi tendencies of Lord Darlington, in particular, and the bourgeois English upper class, in general. The study also posits that Mr. Stevens’s repression of emotional needs and the inhibited relationship with the housekeeper, Miss Kenton, encapsulate the neoliberal emphasis on subordinating personal fulfillment to professional obligations.