Moral status and dignity in The remains of the day

*A new political view on the individual*

The postmodernist novel is digging out caves of memory and of the past behind the present appearance of the characters. Steven Connor

 The postmodernist novel fiction + world INTERPENETRATION postmodernist fiction OLD SYSTEM OF VALUES

You gentlemen here, forgive me, but you are just a bunch of nave dreamers. And if you didnt insist on meddling in large affairs that affect the globe, you would actually be charming. Decent, honest, well-meaning. But his lordship here is an amateur. He paused at the word and looked around the table. He is an amateur and international affairs today are no longer for gentlemen amateurs. The sooner you here in Europe realize this, the better. All you decent, well-meaning gentlemen, let me ask you, have you any idea what sort of place the world is becoming all around you? The days when you could act out of your noble instincts are over. Except, of course, you here in Europe dont yet seem to know it. You here in Europe need professionals to run your affairs. If you dont realize that soon youre headed for disaster. A toast, gentlemen. Let me make a toast. To professionalism.()What you describe as amateurism, sir, is what I think most of us here still prefer to call honor.()I believe I have a good idea of what you mean by professionalism. It appears to mean getting ones way by cheating and manipulating. It means ordering ones priorities according to greed and advantage rather than the desire to see goodness and justice prevail in the world

Questions:
1. What does professionalism refer to in the fragment above? 2. What do you understand by You here in Europe need professionals to run your affairs. If you dont realize that soon youre headed for disaster. in the context of a discussion between an American and English gentlemen?

() what is a great butler? () I have no wish, let me make clear, to retract any of my ideas on dignity and its crucial link with greatness. () In fact, a comparison of how I might interpret a distinguished household with what the Hayes Society understood by that term illuminates sharply, I believe, the fundamental difference between the values of our generation. When I say this, I am nor merely drawing attention to the fact that our generation had a less snobbish attitude as regards which employers were landed gentry and which were business. What I am wanting to say () is that we were a much more idealistic generation. () we tended to concern ourselves much more with the moral status of an employer. What I mean is that we were ambitious, in a way that would have been unusual a generation before, to serve gentlemen who were, so to speak, furthering the progress of humanity. () for our generation, I think it fair to say, professional prestige lay most significantly in the worth of ones employer.

Questions: 1. How is described the moral status of the employer in the fragment? 2. Select from the text information which perfectly describes the characters the characters generation.

You can tell a true gentleman from a false one thats just dressed in finery. Take yourself, sir. Its not just the cut of your clothes, nor is it the fine way youve got of speaking. Theres something else that marks you out as a gentleman. Hard to put your finger on it, but its plain for all to see thats got eyes. () Dignity isnt just something gentlemen have. Dignitys something every man and woman in this country can strive for and get. () Dignitys not just something for gentlemen.

Questions: 1. What does the character understands by dignity? 2. Make the profile of a true gentleman.

If Hitler had had the things his way, wed just be slaves now. The whole world would be a few masters and millions upon millions of slaves. And I dont need to remind anyone here, theres no dignity to be had in being a slave. Thats what we fought for and thats what we won. We won the prize to be free citizens. And its one of the privileges of being born English that no matter who you are, no matter if youre rich or poor, youre born free and youre born so that you ca express your opinion freely, and vote in your member of parliament or vote him out. Thats what dignitys really about ().

Questions: 1. Describe freedom as it is presented in the text and correlate it with another feeling. 2. We live in a democratic society, but do you think we enjoy enough being free? Dont we sometimes forget of the fact that we ARE free citizens?

Thank you for your attention!