[Also Emma spoilers!]
QUOTE(Buckeye Jones @ Aug 3 2006, 01:56 PM)
Any, what did you find dissatisfying about the end? I note your desire to wait until the thread grows to really participate, but as it is a 13 yr old film, and probably one which has not been seen very recently by many, I don't expect it to grow much quickly (if at all).
No, not really regarding the alternate scene. More on that at the end. The rest requires me to spout off on some length, but since you asked....
I often try to introduce undergraduates to simplified or entry-level models of theoretical approaches so that they can practice approaching literature from different critical orientations (rather than always being Formalist or New Critical). I find this novel provides a good example for undergraduates to practice a psychoanaltic approach to literature, which in this case can simply mean acquiring a broadened vocabularly for the way they talk about character and character development.
Although psychoanalytic criticism in the Freudian tradition is basically dead as far as serious academic publishing, many of the concepts and terms from it are firmly embedded in the cultural conscious and are very useful as shorthand labels for talking about behavior (even if, like me, you don't buy Freud's--or whoever's--explanation for the cause of some, most, or all of those behaviors).
When I first encouraged students to familiarize themselves with some of the terms of psychoanalytic approaches and to try to apply them, it became apparent that Stevens's dominant character trait is his
isolation. Dictionary.com defines this psychological term as:
QUOTE
3 : a psychological defense mechanism consisting of the separating of ideas or memories from the emotions connected with them
The text I use sometimes (Steven Lynn's
Texts and Contexts) describes it simply as not showing or manifesting emotion, even when doing so would be considered normal or appropriate.
One of the interesting points of tension that runs throughout the novel is that Stevens's quest to be a great butler is defined by him as maintaing a dignity in keeping with his profession and it is clear that he has defined "dignity" as a stoic, external lack of affect in the face of tumultuous circumstances. (If you were in my class--and aren't you glad you're not--I could flesh this out with textual examples where he talks about or illustrates what he thinks "dignity" is--the Hayes definition, his father's story about the tiger under the table, his own conduct on the night of his father's death, etc.)
That is to say, Stevens's concept of greatness, what he aspires to be--is shockingly parallel to some people's defintion of a form of mental illness (or at least a description of an emotionally unhealthy person). (Aside, sometimes the Psychoanalytic approach gets merged here with some cultural or Marxist approaches that can lead to discussions about to what extent that damaging conception is self (or family) imposed and to what extent it is culturally or socially imposed based on class, race, or gender differences.)(Aside to the aside, the language used to describe Darlington Hall, especially the Butler's pantry, is very consistent with your reading of the compartmentalization and trapped-ness. Remember Stevens's objection to the intrustion of flowers--organic material--into the "heart" of the building.)
For me, there is a lot of ambiguity in the novel, because as Stevens gets closer in his drive to the climactic encounter with Ms. Kenton, he tells a history that shows a pattern of repressing or sublimating emotions, but he also shows signs of
perhaps being ready to change those patterns. (For example, he is able to admit his association with Lord Darlington to the guy who drops him off and to admit he was a butler and not a gentleman) Although he is still repressing or avoiding emotionally painful subjects, an argument can be made that he is becoming more self-aware of how he is acting and more receptive to the possibility of change in ways that he was not earlier.
The climactic scene with Miss Kenton (excuse me, Mrs. Benn
), is, I think ,more ambiguous in the novel than the film, because in the film it plays out well on the literal level in showing they will not be getting together. But the book allows for a possibility that correctlng past mistakes may mean something more than simply changing the outcome/external situation. It may mean changing something internal. In that case, although the exterior circumstances would still be bitterly, bitterly painful, there is some hope for me that Stevens might have turned a corner towards being a healthier and better person for the Remains of the Day and not just had the last nail driven into the proverbial coffin.
The climactic scene(s) in the novel are made more ambiguous by the first person narration, and so key elements towards understanding or revealing the psychological nuances of the characters' states can be tantalizingly close yet still elusive. Who speaks first? What
precisely is said? (Is Stevens's recollection accurate and reliable here, or could he be repressing or shading it in the way he initially did with some of his other recollections--like the wording of her letter?) Stevens's isn't the most reliable narrator throughout the book, so those who chose to can even doubt his version of events here in a way that is harder to do in film (where lots of ambiguity as to meaning is possible but ambiguity as to what happened is a bit harder).
I've alternately read the climactic scene in very different ways. One in which Stevens makes the whole journey and then, at the moment of truth, sees that she is not going to return to Darlington and retreats yet again. One in which he sees she will not return but has a breakthrough and is able to, finally, express his feelings in some faltering way rather than simply push them down again. One in which he starts to do the former but she, in an act of extraordinary kindness, enables him to respond to her professed disappointment by admitting, yeah, I felt something too, but in a context where he is instructing her as a friend about her feelings rather than being transparently vulnerable about his own. [Aside--sometimes the gender readings poke in here, too. I often end up comparing this scene to the climactic declaration at the end of
Emma in which it is obvious that Knightley wants Emma to pry the declaration out of him rather than be in the emotionally vulnerable position of declaring his feelings first, even though he knows full well that that the cultural expectations are for the female to be the respondent rather than the declarant and that for a woman to do so exacerbates her emotional and cultural vulnerability. Further aside--I sometimes like to underscore that fact because it addresses the question of whether Emma completes or complements Knightley or is just going to be ruled by him as the benign patriarch. I think Emma has a sort of emotional courage that Knightley lacks, and I'm willing to say that that history colors my reading of the Stevens-Kenton relationship and, especially, their last encounter.)
Because of the ambiguity of the climax, I'm especially interested in the return, not just as an anti-climax but for hints about what happened in the climax (and, if I interpret the climax as an emotional breakthrough, whether it will stick). In the book he obsesses throughout about his American employer's expectation for some form of "bantering," a practice he is deeply uncomfortable with as it is both informal and (more to the point, I think) requires a state of emotional easy-goingness that he finds both professionally distatefull and personally difficult. (It's pretty much the antithesis of "dignity" as he's heretofore defined that term.) He resolves, upon returning to Darlington Hall, to "work" at improving his bantering, and this, too, raises a host of possibilities. Is he intellectualizing (another avoidance strategy)? Earlier he said he read books to improve his vocabularly. Here he speculates that perhaps he could carefully study and imitate the television for clues on how to "banter." Is this an almost immediate retreat into old patterns or is it an indication that he is taking baby-steps towards enacting a goal, willing to start on a new path of continued development even though it is late in the proverbial day and it would be easy enough to simply bide out his time in an arrested state?
The ending of the film, to me, doesn't have that tension of ambiguity. The penultimate shot, of the shutter closing, is much more explcitly pessimisstic, connoting that he has returned to the cage and is shutting doors, emotional and literal, forever. [I have had students argue for an optimistic reading of the ending, suggesting the bird is a symbol of Stevens and his freeing it a symbolic or hopeful image. I'm not totally against that reading, but I find it unconvincing.]
So how would I handle the end of the film? I honestly don't know. Somehow some small talk about the telly show with Christopher Reeve probably wasn't going to work. And while I don't object to a pessimistic reading of the end, I'd be more satisfied with one that was a bit more cryptic and suggested a possibility for
either growth or death. Perhaps Reeve could make a joke or dig about Stevens's rendevouz with his "girlfriend" to which Stevens could give a bantering but emotionally honest or revealing reply...hard to say. Translation to another medium is so difficult.
So, anyway, all that is left is for you to write me a 6 page research paper, run it through turnitin.com, and send a tuition check to the Distance Ed. office of Campbell University for three hours of undergraduate credit. (oh, yeah, and read
Emma,
Hard Times,
Heart of Darkness,
The End of the Affair, and
The Fifth Child and post on each). [Yes, I'm kidding.]
(And you might want to save this post as one that could very easily get deleted. The last think I need is some actual scholar to come in here and reveal how totally igorant I am and how shameful it is that someone actually gave me a degree considering how stupid I am...and academics are just the type to do it.)(Then again, I might need to leave it so that any high schoolers tempted to plagiarize it might be assured that turnitin.com's search engines would find it and bust them.)
Peace.
Ken
P.S. I love Ishiguro's prose. He conveys such complexity of emotion and situation with language that is so simple and unpretentious.
P.P.S. I think cutting the deleted scene that was mentioned is just fine. It may have been in the book, but as I say, Stevens is not a reliable narrator, so I'm not sure it matters. I don't remember that scene in the book, though there is one (which I remember in the film) where one of the guests asks if he is crying on (I think) the night his father died.
P.P.P.S. I'm reminded of a (perhaps apocraphyl?) comment that either Merchant or Ivory (or maybe even Jhabvala) was supposed to have made about how unlucky they felt that Lean, with his studio money, was able to snag the rights to
Passage to India, forcing them to have to settle for lesser material. Their version of
Passage is one of those great movies that never got made that I would love to have seen, if for no other reason than I was pretty disatsfied with the Lean version and have wondered how "filmable" it was, given that significant portions of it's plot reside in amibiguity and uncertainty.
P.P.P.P.S. My obvious love for this film made my experience of the
White Countess all the more disappointing. Then again, perhaps my hopes/expectations were too high. In a post
Phantom Menace world, it is so very rare that I allow myself to get my hopes up in anticipation of any film.
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