Similarly, both Ono and Stevens, under the garb of professionalism, remain dead silent by not speaking a word even when other characters point out their wrongdoings. For instance, when Mr Cardinal worries that Stevens does not “understand” Lord Darlington being used as a pawn by Hitler in his “propaganda tricks” (Ishiguro, 1989, p. 224). Moreover, he was told by Miss Kenton that what he was doing was not only “wrong” but he was committing “a sin as any sin ever was one” on dismissing her two Jewish maids (Ishiguro, 1989, p. 107 emphasis original). Unlike Stevens, Ono recognises that his art had been used for the wrong ends of the state, as he is comforted by his daughter that he “must stop believing he has done some great wrong” because he was “just a painter” (1986, p. 111). However, he defines his position in the Imperial Japan thus: ‘I am Masuji Ono, the artist and member of the Cultural Committee of the Interior Department. Indeed, I am an official adviser to the Committee of Unpatriotic Activities (Ishiguro, 1986, p. 182). Being an official advisor, Ono does not even spare his pupil producing art that violates the standards set by the Committee. What he does to his pupil recasts in fact what had been done to him by his own master when he had produced a painting that had somewhat departed from what the rules of his master had set. Why does he do this to his pupil when he had the first-hand experience of the act he was opposing? The answer to this might be seen in the position itself he is holding now, for instance, as a member of an official governmental committee whose definition of what might be considered proper art was narrow and nationalist and imperial.