must always come first: “Lord Darlington wasn’t bad man...And at least he had the privilege of being able to say at the end of his life that he made his own mistakes...He chose a certain path in life, it proved to be a misguided one, but there, he chose it, he can say that at least. As for myself, I cannot claim that...I can’t even say I made my own mistakes. Really one has to ask oneself what dignity is there in that?” (Ishiguro, 243)The great irony is that Stevens’ realization of these pitfalls. He should have made his own decisions and followed his own thoughts at least then he could have accepted his own mistakes but rather he can’t even do that. Because it is this loyalty that denies him own opinions on what, he sees by the end of the book, were very scary, Nazi-sympathetic, views of his employer. Stevens has to admit to himself, that Darlington had been a political pawn of fascism and the Nazis. Misguided no doubt, but hardly the “great man” that Stevens had deceived himself into believing he served. And as for trying to make small contribution count for something true and worthy, Stevens fails. He admits that his own dedicated and deeply considered “professionalism” has had no real part to play on the stage of world history but rather spent his entire life serving and admiring a man who made many political mistakes and was actually a shameful person. The source of Stevens’s pride is also, after all, potentially the source of his shame, which is very sad in itself. Trying to justify in his mind Stevens concludes that the sacrifices made in life to pursue aspirations should in itself arouse feelings of pride and contentment. “The great butlers are great by virtue of their ability to inhabit their professional role and inhabit it to the utmost; they will not be shaken by external events, however surprising, alarming or vexing. They wear their professionalism as...
