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einforcement due to the degree of extra regularity brought in by means of repeated
elements.
Foregrounding may occur at any level: phonological, grammatical, semantic and
pragmatic. In each case, the effect is one of “heightened psychological attention” (Peer,
1993: 50) as a particular referent is established in the foreground of consciousness while
other discourse referents remain in the background.
Hopper and Thomson have argued that foregrounded clauses are high in
“transitivity, a complex notion involving verb tense or aspect, the number of participants in
the clause and their case roles as well as other grammatical factors” (qtd. in Brown, 1983:
165).
We certainly do not profess that the reader should be baffled by theories and
concepts to highlight her/his awareness of the text, since any moment in a text beyond the
immediate beginning and close, can and must be read both prospectively and
retrospectively.
However, it remains for us to prove that even beginnings tend to be open and to
indicate significant emphases. This is readily apparent with the opening paragraph of K.
Ishiguro’s novel The Remains of the Day — the winner of the 1989 Booker Prize.
Foregrounding and textual interrelationships: an exemplary beginning
Our argument intends to demonstrate how through a technique of foreshadowing, the
thematic hypersignification of the novel’s larger discourse discloses itself from the very
first paragraph. In other words we will try to highlight how the very beginning of the novel
may suggest the outcome of the novel, thus ensuring the structural and thematic unity of
the whole.
It seems increasingly likely that I really will undertake the expedition that has been
preoccupying my imagination now for some days. (1) An expedition, I should say, which I
will undertake alone, in the comfort of Mr. Farraday’s Ford; an expedition which, as I
foresee it, will take me through much of the finest countryside of England to the West
Country, and may keep me away from Darlington Hall for as much as five or six days. (2)
The idea of such a journey came about, I should point out, from a most kind suggestion put
to me by Mr Farraday himself one afternoon almost a fortnight ago, when I had been
dusting the portraits in the library. (3) In fact, as I recall, I was up on the step-ladder
dusting the portrait of Viscount Wetherby when my employer had entered carrying a few
volumes which he presumably wished returned to the shelves. (4) On seeing my person, he
took the opportunity to inform me that he had just that moment finalised plans to return to
the United States for a period of five weeks between August and September. (5) Having
made this announcement, my employer put his volumes down on a table, seated himself on
the chaise longue, and stretched out his legs. (6) It was then, gazing up at me, that he said:
[...] (7) (Ishiguro, 1989: 3).
The “turbulence as immense as it is slow” (Rushdie, 1991: 34) lying below the
understatement of the novel’s surface is envisaged through a masterful handling of
foregrounding strategies. The very first extraposition of a clausal subject in the opening
line signals a brilliant subversion of the fictional modes to which the novel seems to align.
It further signals that the novel’s larger discourse will move back to a previous point in
time to attempt to explain this present moment. The formal stiffness and stillness
introduced through the phrase “It seems increasingly likely” (1) will become crucial both
for understanding the narrator – narratee relationship and the major theme of the novel.
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