A writer usually attempts to create a bond of trust between writer and reader. How and to what extent have Kazuo Ishiguro and Dalene Mathee been able to elicit your trust in Remains of the Day and Fiela’s Child?

A writer usually attempts to create a bond of trust between writer and reader. How and to what extent have Kazuo Ishiguro and Dalene Mathee been able to elicit your trust in Remains of the Day and Fiela’s Child?

In addressing this question, one must define what creating a ‘bond of trust’ is because this concept is an ambiguous one and may be taken in more than one way. Therefore, for the purpose of this essay, ‘a bond of trust’ connotes the idea that the author seeks to make the reader feel a connection with the novel on an intellectual as well as an emotional level, thereby allowing the author to convey his personal message to an audience that is more likely to consider this message a valid and justified one. The reason that the statement given is a valid one is because I am of the opinion that every author believes they have an insight, which they wish to share with the world. Perhaps its an insight into the capabilities of the human mind, or an insight into the workings of human relationships. Nevertheless, from the perspective of the author, it is a certain subjective reality that they seek to impart.

One way in which Ishiguro and Mathee have managed to elicit the trust of the reader is to gain their confidence by means of narrative techniques. While one might expect that a reliable narrator is of utmost importance, in Remains of The Day, Stevens is the polar opposite of a reliable narrator. The reason for his unreliability is that Stevens’ life has been based on the ‘suppression and evasion of truth, about himself and about other’ (D. Lodge). His narrative is much like a confession that had been permeated by much self-justification; not until the end of the novel when Stevens’ is on ‘the pier’ does he realize his wasted life and resolve to live out what little ‘remains of the day’ in a different manner. What adds to his unreliability is his ‘butlerspeak’- a painstakingly precise, rigidly formal verbiage. “The thought provoked a strange feeling to arise within me…” His language is neither witty nor sensuous, let alone original yet its effectiveness is such that the more one reads, the more one realizes that despite his prim and...