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@article{202080,
        author = {R.GUNASEKARAN and Dr.Arul and Dr.L.Komathi},
        title = {Dignity as Self-Deception: Narrative and Ethics in Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day},
        journal = {International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology},
        year = {2026},
        volume = {12},
        number = {12},
        pages = {5738-5745},
        issn = {2349-6002},
        url = {https://ijirt.org/article?manuscript=202080},
        abstract = {This paper examines Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day (1989) as a confessional narrative in which the protagonist Stevens's repeated invocation of "dignity" functions as a strategic mechanism of self-deception rather than an authentic professional ethic. Through close narratological analysis, it argues that Stevens's discourse of dignity enables him to evade responsibility for his complicity with Lord Darlington's fascist sympathies, suppress his emotional life and avoid confronting the moral vacuity of his unquestioning service. It demonstrates how the gap between Stevens's narrator functions and his disclosure functions reveals the self-deceptive nature of his central value. This analysis traces verbal tics over justifications and contradictions between story and discourse that undermine Stevens’s professed norms. In the end, the paper argues that Ishiguro’s novel critiques the ethical bankruptcy of conflating emotional suppression with moral dignity, instead offering a model of accountability grounded in self-awareness and response ability.},
        keywords = {Dignity, Self-deception, Unreliable narration, Ethics, confessional ethics.},
        month = {May},
        }