The Remains Of The Day

This paper sets out to examine the obsessional and his desire through an exploration of Kazuo Ishiguro's novel The Remain's of the Day. It focuses on the protagonist of the novel Stevens, butler of Darlington Hall and his struggle with his desire. In The Ethics of Psychoanalysis Lacan says of the obsessional: (What the) behaviour of the obsessional reveals and signifies is that he regulates his behaviour so as to avoid what the subject often sees quite clearly as the goal and end of his desire.[1] In other words what the obsessional (in this case Stevens) fears is an encounter with his desire and he engages in compulsions and rituals in order to protect himself from such an encounter.…