An Exploration of the Ford Within The Remains of the Day

Abstract

Vehicles cross borders every day, carting people and objects across time and space. Vehicles also propel people across mental borders, taking the act of moving across time and space and making it tangible and real to those it moves. In this essay, I will investigate the prominence of the Ford within Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day, taking into consideration the previous yet minimal scholarship already completed, and break down the symbolism of mobility and the lack of it, wealth and status, and freedom that the Ford exudes in this text. In doing this, the Ford’s obvious prominence parallels America’s own upcoming prominence in Britain and influences not only Stevens’s own story, but a historic narrative as well, as it mentally, physically, and metaphorically crosses borders. Looking at this specific vehicle in this specific text can help others see the usability of writing vehicles as characters, characters that can cart people across both physical and metaphysical borders.