Stevens: Passive-Aggressive?


Stevens seems to take delight in keeping Miss Kenton at arm's length; such as, in the Book scene, and especially in the Crying-In-Her-Room scene, which was almost sadistic.

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i agree with you. He was a cruel coward who wasted his entire life because he was so egocentric. He was aggresively disrespectful of Miss Kenton but in a very passive way, and most of the scenes between the two of them show this quite explicitly. He felt so entitled to demean her, in the things he said to her & in ignoring her, that he wasn't even aware that he was doing it!

He was so full of himself, he couldn't even bring himself to listen to her advice concerning his old father, resulting in serious injury. He treated his father poorly as well. Evidently, he was so superior to her that anything she said was disregarded, since she was "beneath" him, both in her position as a housekeeper & as a woman.

He definately deserved his fate as a pathetic old man, who'd die alone with nothing to show for his life.

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Good points, Artisandy. He pretty much kept EVERYONE at arm's length, including himself.

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He may have been passive-aggressive, but I think he was also just extremely shy and socially inept. I think he truly didn't know how to develop a relationship with anyone that was any deeper than an employer/employee rapport. I saw an interview with the author in which he said that Stevens cuts himself off from the world so that he can avoid being hurt, but doing so precludes him from experiencing life's joys. I actually felt really sorry for him at the end. You can see that he's realized his mistake and he's aching for another chance with Miss Benton/Mrs. Benn, but sadly it's too late.


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When I first saw this movie, I was angry with Stevens as well. The more times I watched it though, the more my attitude changed.

Stevens was her employer/boss. Today we have a term for bosses who come on to their employees, it's called sexual harassment. Too, Miss Benton seemed to be around 35. If she was so hot on the idea of marriage, what had she been doing for the past 15 years? She did her best to dissuade the young maid from getting married when she herself seemed to want it with Stevens. This doesn't speak too well of her character does it?

Speaking of character, she agreed in her interview that it was wrong for people to go from post to post looking for romance yet apparently no more than a few days after this there she is picking flowers to redecorate Stevens private office so as to send a message that she wants that exact thing from him.

If a woman wants a relationship with a reserved man like Stevens, she has to give him time to get to know her and to get comfortable around her and to learn she respects his privacy. That incident with the book showed she didn't respect his privacy, and a lack of respect for the man himself can't be far behind.

Also Stevens seems to be about 55. The older you get as a man, the greater the odds are that you may not be around at some point. If he died leaving her with kids, well that would not be an ideal situation.

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Where do you guys get all these impressions of him? That was not my perception at all! & why such great fuming hatred? Did you meet a similar character in life & projected it towards Stevens?


OPEN YOUR EYES! dailymotion.com/video/xbi2hi_1993-chandler-molestation-extortion_news

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He's not egocentric - quite the opposite- in fact he sacrifices his whole life in service.

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But he was so dedicated to service that he felt he could not engage in a relationship with her. Its obvious he wanted to marry her and even his American boss really didn't mind if he had.
He didn't get over her until the very end of the movie. The symbolism in the pigeon leaving the mansion through the window indicated that. He had finally made the decision to let her go from his heart.

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Hm, not quite sure about your interpretation of the ending (but it's certainly one of the strengths of this ending that you can interpret it in many ways).
In my opinion it shows that Stevens, unlike the pigeon and in spite of the hurtful truths he has faced, is still imprisoned in his old frame of mind (i.e. Darlington Hall; note how he closes the window) and will never be able to break out of it. There are many scenes in the film in which, just like in this last one, you see him looking out of windows.
That would also fit with the novel. There the end is quite different, but the message is the same: At the end of the day, to be able to go on living without breaking down after he has realized his mistakes with regard to Lord Darlington and Miss Kenton, Stevens has to repress his feelings again and return to his usual servant-self.

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I agree with this^^^, another film I found very similar in terms of character is a film with Al Pacino titled 'Bobby Deerfield'.


OPEN YOUR EYES! dailymotion.com/video/xbi2hi_1993-chandler-molestation-extortion_news

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I saw it more as him looking wistfully at the bird, because it is free to fly away.
He knows he'll never be free.
And he has actually devised his own prison.

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He wasn't passive aggressive at all, and he certainly wasn't sadistic or deriving any joy from how he treated Miss Kenton. If you watch the earlier part of the film before they fall in love, there is plenty of character exposition to explain his behaviour.

* His father told a story of a butler who found a tiger in the dining room, killed it, disposed of its corpse, and then went to tell his boss that dinner would be ready as if nothing had happened. The father is clearly portraying this tiger-killing butler as an ideal.
* When his father was getting too senile to do his job, he refused to acknowledge it even as he was going to great lengths to hide it.
* When his father died, he kept on doing his work as if nothing had happened without even taking a moment to sit down.

This man was extremely repressed, and that seems to be because it had been taught to him as the ideal way to behave. It was his job as the butler to hide anything that was at all messy, like emotions or even death. It was how he had been taught. It was how he lived his life. It was what was expected of him as a butler. It was what made him such a good butler.

The early scene where Miss Kenton tries to get him to acknowledge the Chinese statue but he flat out refuses to even look at it foreshadows many scenes later on where she tries to get him to acknowledge his feelings for her.

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I whole-heartedly agree with this 10 year old post. Stevens has absolutely no idea how to live a life.

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I don't think he delights in it at all!
He can't escape from his incredible repression.

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