HERE'S A SECOND ESSAY FROM the Modern
Fiction course I took during that same stone age period, and that was well-received
by the professor. I include it here for anyone interested. One of the things I look
at, the imagery of dust that Waugh quotes from T.S. Eliot’s great poem, is
one that I have always kept in mind, and it crops up from time to time in various books or essays I read, or else
I am reminded of it in different contexts. Most recently, I was reminded of
what is truly fearful in life, in a CBC Sunday Edition interview that Michael Enright conducted with American author, Patrick deWitt when deWitt states: “I think the
most fearful thing for me is a substandard life. I'm not afraid of death,
particularly.”
I
like re-reading my essay and I find the discussion and analysis of Waugh’s book
helpful and productive, and perhaps a worthwhile endeavor, after all. And I
hope the reader does, too.
The Absent
King: Problems of Ambiguity of Motivation and Its Effect on Narration in A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh
The
central image of Waugh’s novel, and one he uses for his title—a handful of
dust—is aptly suited to the anonymous and sterile world he depicts of England
in the 1930s. His title comes from T.S. Eliot’s poem The Wasteland. In the poem Eliot describes someone walking east
toward the dawn. The walker’s shadow is behind him in the morning but, as the
sun rises and moves westward and begins to fall behind him, gradually his
shadow begins to grow in front of him until it seems to rise up and meet him.
The speaker says he will show the walker “something different” (Eliot, The Wasteland 1.27) from either of his
morning or evening shadow. He will show the walker where fear lies: It lies “in
a handful of dust.” (1.30) The journey Eliot describes suggests that death (our
‘shadow’) is always present but in the morning of our lives it is behind us. We
are not aware of it. As we continue our journey through life, and as evening
approaches, our shadow grows up before us until we become aware of its looming
presence. This potentially dark image is in fact a joyous and life-affirming
one: our eastward journey is toward the ascendant, toward the rising sun. The
shadows which accompany us are not to be feared; they are a necessary part of
our journey. Finally, in the evening of our lives we greet that which has
always been with us. If Eliot suggest that death is not to be feared, why then
should we fear a handful of dust? We
need to examine this image more closely.
Dust is
a product of decay. Its function is to settle. All over the world the dust of
yesterday and today settles anonymously, silently, timelessly. It remains
motionless, inert and lifeless. It is sterile, no longer a part of what it was
and incapable of being a medium to create anything new. Interestingly, the
image of dust in the palm of one’s hand initially suggests a merging of
opposites—the inorganic with the organic. However, to examine the image
further, one asks: How do you hold a
handful of dust unless you, yourself, become as motionless, as passive as the
dust that settles there? Thus, when Eliot’s speaker says that fear lies in a
handful of dust he is saying that fear lies in the possibility of becoming like a handful of dust.
I have
examined this image in such detail because I feel it is central to our
understanding of the motivations of Waugh’s characters. If the image of a
handful of dust can be applied to the characters of the novel then we are more
able to understand the reasons why they act the way they do. Most of the
characters, (especially the male characters), are seen to be passive;
anonymous, (in the sense of lacking distinctive identities—everyone seems to do
and feel, and say much the same things. They seem for the most part to be
interchangeable). They seem subject to the whim of outside forces, (they
‘settle’ like dust on the prevailing social currents of air. They seem sterile,
non-procreative. Oddly, for a book so concerned with the lives of married
couples, children rarely appear. They are either an unaffordable expense, as
with Marjorie and Allan; or they die, as with John Andrew. Or they appear, as
at the novel’s end, not so much a new generation— a regeneration—but more like extensions of their parents, fitting
into established patterns of routine and expectation.
Their
whole world as depicted by Waugh seems insubstantial, anonymous. The novel’s
settings are for the most part interchangeable. Is there any real difference
between Hetton and London, or finally, between England and Brazil? As Jock
said, “The whole world is civilized now.” (Waugh, 172). The modern world Waugh
describes is lifeless, sterile and settled—like dust. If Waugh is describing a
society of human beings without passion or substance, and who lack internal
motivation and desire, who are instead acted upon by forces outside themselves,
then this is the ‘what’ of his novel. I should now like to examine the ‘how’
and the ‘why’.
One of
the striking aspects of Waugh’s work is his preoccupation with dialogue. At
times he uses dialogue almost to the exclusion of any description or narrative
comment. His novel takes on aspects of drama. We read what his characters say
and we strive to interpret why they say it. But unlike dramatic dialogues that
provide background, motivation, action and setting as cues in their speeches,
Waugh’s dialogues are often no more than overheard conversations with little or
no context supplied, and with minimal narrative commentary. A case in point is
the opening dialogue between Mrs. Beaver and her son John. Waugh deliberately
begins his work with a dialogue and without any preliminary description. The
reader receives information in terms of a recorded conversation and only one
description of Mrs. Beaver ‘gobbling’ her morning yogurt. The reader is put off
balance by receiving information but being unable to interpret most of it: Why
does Mrs. Beaver say no one was hurt except
two housemaids? Why was it lucky that the house she describes had an old
fashioned extinguisher that ruined everything? Why was she disappointed that
the fire didn’t reach the bedrooms? And why doesn’t John have as much to do as
his mother? Her comments and John’s apparent inactivity are puzzles that the
reader is unable to make sense of yet. By introducing his work in such a
fashion Waugh sets the tone for the remainder of the novel. Motivations of
individual characters will remain—from a psychological perspective—unknowable:
That he or she did such and such because they are this or that type of person
with these qualities, and they react thusly to particular sets of
circumstances. We have none of that from Waugh. His characters have no
psychology. Again, the image of dust is helpful. What ‘motivation’ can dust
have? It floats about in the currents of air until it settles. That’s all.
Before I examine these ‘currents’ which suggest the ‘why’ of his characters
actions, I should like to continue to examine how Waugh creates his dusty
world.
The
imagery of dust is a motif that occurs, with variations, throughout the novel.
Waugh uses it to suggest the passivity of his characters, (particularly the
male characters), and to suggest the futility of their actions in the sense
that nothing much changes, and the patterns of their lives just keep repeating.
For example, Tony is introduced to us “Lying in bed in the grave ten minutes
before waking” (15) with the image of dust, (as found in: ashes to ashes, dust
to dust), suggested by the word “grave”. The reader also notes the “grave eyes”
(163) of Therese on board the ship and the “grave eyes” (219) of Tony’s cousin
Agnes at the novel’s end. (It is interesting that both are female and I’ll
suggest why in my conclusions.) Tony’s son John Andrew, of course, literally
goes to his grave.
The word
dust occurs throughout the novel, for example in the “great cloud of dust” (86)
of Princess Akbar’s description. It occurs in the “soft dust” of Tony’s cycling
memories; in the “white dust” (165) of the West Indies, and finally, in the
“gold dust” (214) hanging in the pouch of Tony’s prospective rescuer. As well,
it is not too great a step to suggest that the dust imagery also occurs in the
“opaque depths” (161) of the Atlantic waters which begin Tony’s westward
journey to Brazil. The waters change into a “blue water that grew clearer and
more tranquil (164) only to again become “opaque and colourless, full of mud”,
(167) and finally to become “brown water” (168) as they approach their
destination. The image of clearing is momentarily hopeful, with the suggestion
of a potentially genuine and passionate relationship between Tony and Therese developing
on board the ship. But I suggest the nature of the journey, because Waugh
depicts it as a westward on—toward the descendent, the setting sun—is
ultimately futile and sterile. It begins with muddied water and it ends with
it.
Waugh’s
descriptive passages and his use of imagery are particularly important for our
understanding of character motivation because the premise Waugh envisions for
his characters is, as I suggested earlier, that they have no individual
psychology. His novel instead examines the forces which act upon them and shape
them as passive ‘components’ of a process. Tony’s journey ends the way it began
because Tony cannot act in any significant way to change anything about
it. Variations of his dust motif are
suggested in the collections of Tony and Beaver: the bits and pieces from their
past they collect and add to on their bureau tops. There is a sense here of
fragmentation, as in Waugh’s description of Hetton which provides numerous
details but gives little of the “general aspect and atmosphere” (14) of the
place. (What Hetton ‘felt like’ as a home for Tony and his young family remains
vague and elusive.) And Reggie’s archaeological collection, his “fragmentary
amphora...splinters of bone”, (146) and the Greco-Roman head “ground smooth”
(146) with time similarly suggests dust and passivity. Inertness is suggested
by the fact that they are collections
that simply sit and collect more dust. (Though Beaver’s elderly maid “also
dusted” (7) his collection.) The quarried marble monument dedicated to Tony at
the end of the novel is another such example. Dust is also suggested in the
renovation projects of both Mrs. Beaver and Tony, and I’ll suggest the
significance of renovation versus new construction in my conclusions.
Passivity,
another ‘trait’ of dust, is also suggested in dialogues concerning time. One of
the most puzzling moments in the novel is Tony’s reaction to the death of his
son. In the normal course of things, the reader expects a certain numbed
response to such a tragic event. His rehearsal of the day’s events, of the
hours leading up to his son’s death, and his speculation on what Brenda must
have been doing in London—at the time—seem like a reasonable reaction of shock.
However Waugh, in providing Brenda’s response to the news of her son’s death,
(and I’ll comment on her less than motherly reaction later), suggests that
there is another reaction in play for both Brenda and Tony besides shock. I’ll
discuss Tony’s reaction in a moment. With respect to time, Brenda makes an
interesting comment. Informed by Jock of her son’s death, she begins
preparations to leave London and return home. After packing and before she and
Jock catch the train back to Hetton she says: “There’s still too much time.”
(119). When we compare Brenda’s comment with Tony’s ‘filling up the time’ by
playing cards with Mrs. Rafferty, and also with Tony’s ‘final sentence’ as
decided by Todd, of measuring time in terms of how long it takes him to read
and re-read the novels of Dickens, then time is seen as operating differently
for Waugh’s characters. Time is something to be filled up with endless rounds
of luncheons, parties and conversations. Time is also something that one does
not engage with alone. When Tony began to remain more and more alone at Hetton
while Brenda pursued her affair with Beaver in London Waugh tells us that Tony
“had not realized how many hours he used to waste” with her (77). Time is
apparently something you waste. For such characters as Waugh depicts occupying
his modern world—passionless, passive, inert and sexless—time is something to
be gotten through with, filled up, wasted.
To mourn
his son would mean Tony must act. By acting, he would move from a state of
non-mourning to a state of mourning. In mourning, he would acknowledge his own
personhood by his emotional response to his son’s death. Like Eliot’s walker,
he would move forward through time, motivated by his individual human emotions.
Tony of course cannot do this. He remains static, like a handful of dust, doing
his best to ignore the passage of time by playing cards, (“Animal Snap”), with
Mrs. Rattery. It is in keeping with the passive nature of his character and his
inability to grow that he plays the only card game he knows—a child’s card
game. And while Tony struggles to maintain his passivity, Mrs. Rattery,
‘muse-like’ moves their cards “like shuttles across a loom”. (110) Waugh
depicts her like a witch from Shakespeare, ‘weaving’ Tony’s fate, keeping him
from brooding on his son’s death and becoming emotional—something that’s not
allowed by the rules of the game—and chiding him that he didn’t know how to
play “patience.” (110).
Compare
the images from Eliot’s poem of the action of the walker with the image of
inertness and passivity suggested by the handful of dust. The sun rises and
sets over both but while one journeys
through time the other merely records its passage. For one the journey is the goal. For the other there is no
journey; there is only time and changelessness. Dust is also anonymous. One
particle is about the same as another no matter from what time or what part of
the world. Anonymity is another aspect that Waugh brings to his novel’s
characters and settings. He carefully limits description and dialogue that
would suggest significant individual traits or major differences between
settings. Even in the jungles of Brazil, for example, Tony moves from one base
camp to another preoccupied with waiting, and occupied by such trivial pursuits
as guarding sacks of sugar. Even in his delirium he talks to Brenda just as he
did back in England. Tony seems the same no matter where he is.
As with
dust, one character is more or less the same as another: Is Beaver so different
from Tony? Both are preoccupied with entertaining, with filling in their time
with social events. Both have widowed mothers. They belong to the same clubs.
Both travel west in the end. Even Brenda seems to respond to them the same as
if they were interchangeable. She kisses them both in that “way she had.” (48)
Tony’s family seems undifferentiated as well, with one poor set of relations at
the beginning of the novel (the Lasts) being substituted at the end for another
set of poor relations (unnamed, interchangeable). When visiting Hetton, Allan
and Marjorie are equated with “another married couple whom Tony had known all
his life.” (94) The other couple are never named. Conversations too, are
virtually identical. Waugh has “the other married couple” (66) say basically
the same things as Marjorie and Allan say to each other. In doing so, Waugh
gives the reader a sense of interconnectedness where everyone seems to know
what’s going on with everyone else; almost like a ‘shared consciousness’
between the couples in the novel that makes any differences between them
negligible. And most of the novel takes place in rooms that are as
interchangeable as the standardized, renovated apartments of Mrs. Beaver.
Chromium plating decorates the walls in London as well as at Hetton. It also
coats the “City” (207) of Tony’s fevered imagination in the jungle of Brazil.
Settings are more a place for dialogue than action: One asks, for example, how
different is Tony’s room at Todd’s camp from any of the other rooms he has
occupied, in England or anywhere else? Tony merely exchanges one set of ‘house
rules’ for another, one set of conversations for another.
Just as
one setting is as good as another and one character about the same as another,
so too is the time seen as interchangeable and lacking distinctive
characteristics to make it unique. There is little reference in the novel to
society at large. The novel focuses on what is an essentially undifferentiated
group of couples. They enter rooms and leave them. They attend dinner parties.
(What do they eat there? Food is never mentioned.) They go to their clubs and restaurants.
Mostly they talk, and talk, and talk but they have very little to say about the
larger world outside their social circle. Beaver, for example, sat at Bratt’s
and “turned over the pages of the New
Yorker magazine” (11) but doesn’t read it. Waugh’s England seems as narrow
and cut off from the events of the rest of the world as Todd’s settlement is
cut off from the governments of Brazil and Dutch Guiana, both of whom claim his
territory. Finally, we learn the date of the novel’s setting only at the end
from the inscription on Tony’s memorial—it is 1934. Waugh has created an
anonymous world peopled by anonymous beings. His world is indeed like a handful
of dust, passive and inert; everything is the same. There is no change or
growth.
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I would
like to discuss two more narrative techniques that Waugh uses to create this
sense of interchangeability and one-dimensionality in his characters: His use
of parallel dialogue and bracketing. By parallel dialogue, I refer to Waugh’s
practice of placing two dialogues, one after the other, occurring, however, in
two different settings (and perhaps times) but without any intervening
description or introduction to separate them. For example, Brenda’s telephone
conversation ends with Tony telling her: “You are an angel to be so sweet about
last night.” (75) The next line is Brenda’s: “Nothing could have been more
fortunate.” (75) However, her line is
addressed to Beaver who may have been sitting with her in her room in London as
she spoke to Tony on the telephone. (The time frame is deliberately unclear.
Brenda’s conversation with Beaver may have occurred later in the day.) Waugh
provides no introduction; no description of setting or action to alert the
reader to any transition: One conversation flows into the other. Another
example of this technique occurs later in scenes depicting London and Brazil.
Waugh places a scene with Brenda in London immediately followed on by a scene
with Tony in Brazil. Here, the action of one parallels the action in the other.
In London, Brenda is hungry and despondent; in Brazil, Tony is also hungry and
despondent. Again, the interpretation the reader makes is that while the
settings and characters are nominally different, they are basically the same.
What is the difference between Tony and Brenda, or between London and Brazil?
By such techniques, Waugh suggests of course that there is really very little
difference. (I will mention in my conclusion the difference in roles between men and women in Waugh’s
novel. I suggest that, while the roles Waugh depicts for men and women are
different, he nevertheless sees both sexes as ‘of a piece’ in his modern world.
In his
use of brackets, Waugh presents the non-psychological aspect of his characters.
When a reader sees a bracket, the conventional expectation is that they will
receive more precise or more complex information about character, setting,
motivation, and so on. Within the brackets we look for explanation and
clarification. Initially such bracketed information seems more direct. For
example, within brackets we learn that Mrs. Beaver was “lonely” (15); that
Tony’s parents were “inseparable in Guinevere” (15) the name of one of Hetton’s
bedrooms. Brenda is described in brackets as a “nereid emerging from...clear
water” (16) and so on. But most of the information involves either recorded
conversations or pure descriptions. Information concerning motivation or
character is not forthcoming. In his longest bracketed section, during Tony’s
sea voyage, Waugh provides a description of Tony’s previous trips to France,
including a description of his honeymoon. Interestingly, as detailed as these
descriptions are—the most detailed bracketed sections in the book—they include
no descriptions of Tony’s feelings. Information of events is recorded but their
effect on Tony is absent. Earlier, in an un-bracketed description, Waugh states
that one evening Tony tried to make sense of the turn his life had taken. He
began “reliving scene after scene in the last eight years of his life” (132)
looking for clues. Waugh wryly comments that all this did was to keep Tony
awake. Again, we have nothing about Tony’s feelings, conclusions or his
motivations. Information neither inside the brackets nor outside helps the
reader to understand what kind of person Tony is, (nor by implication, any of
the other characters). Waugh’s characters are not self-motivated, nor are they
initiators. They are like the natives of Brazil he describes, whose motivations
come from forces outside themselves—from “water and evil spirits,” (180) and the
cycle of the Cassava plant. Waugh’s Englishmen are also primarily motivated by
outside forces. They are acted upon, as dust is acted upon by the wind. I
should now like to examine those outside forces that have created Tony and the
rest—the ‘why’ in other words.
A good
place to begin is by examining where there are
differences between the characters. Earlier, I have suggested the difference in
the levels of passivity between men and women in the novel. The Women appear to
do what they want while the men follow the rules. Women conspire and plot
amongst themselves. They lapse “into jargon of their own; a thieves’ slang.”
(80) It is they who do the ‘chucking’ of their husbands and lovers. Men sit
despondently at the Bratt’s Club, having “been abandoned at the last minute by
their women.” (64) Men appear helpless before them. Women are the ones who
arrange the parties, the affairs—they set the tone in the relationships. Men
are seen to obey, to do what “was thought convenient,” (128) or, for example,
to do what seemed to be the “conduct expected of a husband.” (80)
Public
opinion seems to impinge upon and regulate them: Tony’s innocent attempt to
have Winnie swim becomes the occasion for his public ridicule. He cannot act
without the possibility of public censure. Nor can he act without public
approval. He must follow the No Bathing rule in Brighton as well as in
Trinidad. And even as he lies delirious on his cot in Brazil: “No bathing in
Brazil! No bathing in Brazil!” (202) he is told at the town council meeting he
imagines as the result of his fever. The question of rules seems to emerge
here, and we ask ourselves what set of rules is Tony following? To answer this question it is helpful to begin
by examining Waugh’s chapter headings. What is the significance of the “gothic”
Why does he entitle three of his five chapters “English Gothic I, II and III
respectively? The reader reflects on Tony’s home, “rebuilt in 1864 in the
Gothic style” (14), and of his quest for the City in Brazil which he envisions
as a gothic creation. The reader next recalls the names of the bedrooms in
Tony’s home, “each named from Malory.” (150) The ‘rules’ Tony lives by are now
clear: Tony follows the rules of chivalry.
Tony and
the others follow the courtly ideals envisioned in the legends of Arthur. They
are the modern equivalents of the Knights of the Round Table. However, Waugh
sees to it that their armour is tarnished and their reputations debased.
Instead of the Round Table at Arthur’s court, they sit around tables at dinner
parties and their clubs. Instead of being members of Arthur’s court, they are
members of the Bratt’s club. (And I don’t think Waugh missed the opportunity to
pun on a word which so well suits to portray the childishness and immaturity of
the men in the novel. They are ‘spoiled brats’ who are in the charge of women.)
They frequent the “Old Hundredth” (70) club: Arthur’s court, depending on which
story tradition you examine, had either a dozen knights at the Round Table or a
hundred—hence the Old Hundredth is the modern (and debased) version of Arthur’s
court.
Marriage—particularly in Tony’s case—fulfils the
knightly requirement of unrequited love. Tony loves Brenda, or at least he had
the “habit of loving and trusting” (125) her. Brenda for her part is also true
to the requirements of the courtly love—she does not return it. Tony is her
knight; she is his lady, and in true chivalric fashion he loves her and she
denies him. Tony is her knight, however, only until she fancies Beaver and opts
for his service instead. Again, true to the tradition, the power in the
relationship rests with the woman. These rules of courtly love suggest why
divorce is a more traumatic event for both Brenda and Tony than is the death of
their son.
As an
aside, John Andrew’s death is, in one sense, the most real event of the novel.
As an act of fate it lies beyond the scope of the rules that Brenda, Tony and
the rest Waugh’s characters live by. Waugh underscores the event and draws out
its significance by stating: “Then this happened:” (104) as a preface to his
description of the accidental death of John Andrew during the fox hunt. He
emphasizes the event in his narrative in such a way that suggests it is of a
different order than the other events of the novel. As an accident it is more
‘real’ than the carefully balanced social events orchestrated by the women.
I’ll now
return to the question of divorce and its significance for the couples in the
novel. I’ll begin by first examining Beaver’s popularity within the London
circles: He was popular, initially, before his involvement with Brenda, not
because of any personal qualities he might possess but rather because he was always available, even at the last
minute, to attend dinner parties or other social events, as an escort for women
whom circumstances had left them temporarily without a dinner companion or date,
(their ‘knights’, in other words). Beaver’s services were invaluable because he
always ensured that there would be a balance at such events—every lady would
have her knight. I am suggesting that Waugh depicts a social order based on
couples. Power lies with the balance between women and women, and between women
and men stabilized by couples. To have unattached women is to throw the system
out of kilter. A woman who doesn’t have her knight lies outside the system of
power and control. An unattached man is the same. That’s why there is such an
emphasis on pairing in the novel. Everyone must be harmonized within this
system of chivalric rules, rules, as Waugh depicts them requiring the dominant
female and passive male. Thus divorce can now be seen as the great danger it
represents to the stability of such a system. Unless you have a
‘Beaver-in-waiting’, or bring in a Princess Akbar to balance things out,
divorce creates an intolerable instability. The death of John Andrew is of an
entirely different order. It does not affect the social relations of either
Tony or Brenda, hence the reason why their son’s death becomes an event that
seems to be forgotten almost as soon as it happens. For characters such as
they, who live lives exclusively of and for a social order, the death of a son
is relatively insignificant when compared to their need to remain within their
system of chivalric rules, (or as Tony discovers with Todd, to be within any system at all).
As I
have said, power lies with the structure of the couple and is orchestrated by
the female. Widowed mothers such as Mrs. Beaver are not outside the system,
however. They are the matriarchs, the ‘queen mothers’ overseeing the system’s
smooth operation; continuing to renovate and update it so that it continues to
run efficiently. Therese, as a future bride of the system, awaits her
initiation into it. This perhaps suggests the reason for her rejection of Tony
in the end. She is aware that he will have divided localities between herself
and Brenda. Tony is in the process of getting a divorce and as such he is
neither free to become Therese’s knight, nor is he free, as a safely married
man, to become her lover. (Lovers are acceptable provided they don’t interfere
with the relationship between a lady and her knight.)
Outside
the system lay the Absent Kings. I’ve entitled my essay using this image
because I think it is a determining one for Waugh. In the chapter English
Gothic I, Waugh provides the reader with the detail that Tony’s bedroom—the one
he has had since childhood—is named for the evil half sister of Arthur, Morgan
Lefay. One would expect the male scion of the household to have a bedroom which
reflected his position. Instead, he has a bedroom more suited for a female.
Tony has slept all his life in a room named for a character from the Arthurian
legends that was thought to be a witch and a threat to men, (and to the
chivalric code). In a house whose bedrooms are named from Malory one asks:
Where is the bedroom named for Arthur? Of course, there is none. Waugh’s
suggestion is clear: Arthur is absent. He has always been absent. I thing the
image of Arthur can be seen as representative of centrality, of authority, of
authentic order. Perhaps Waugh is suggesting Arthur represents the centrality
of individual passion or will, as opposed to the life of an individual who
‘lives by the rules’, by something outside of himself? Certainly, the Arthurian
legends would be lacking without the unifying image of King Arthur at the
center. If Arthur represents a kind of authentic life then it is appropriate he
be absent from Tony and Brenda’s nineteenth century gothic reconstruction.
Their home is as inauthentic, in terms of its tradition, as Tony is a ‘knight’.
My point is that Tony and the rest struggle to live by an ideal that is removed
from the reality of their lives. In trying to live by the ideals of chivalry,
Tony fails to remember that these ideals are just that—ideals. They are based on tales and stories whose true gothic
reality was probably very different. Waugh suggests—not that modern English
society bases its norms on a close approximation to the chivalric codes of
Arthurian legend—but rather, he depicts the result of what happens when people
live their lives in-authentically. He shows what happens when people literally
practice what they preach instead of living lives based on their own individual
passions and wills. If you practice what you preach, you then live by a rigid
set of ideals. If you preach one thing and you live your life another way
(authentically, being flexible and open to change) then your rules become
guiding principles and not scripts to be slavishly adhered to.
At the
end of Malory’s tale Arthur is wounded and goes on a journey to be healed. Like
Arthur who was wounded in a battle with his wife’s lover, Tony is ‘wounded’ by
Beaver and journeys to be healed. Unlike Arthur’s Avalon, Tony’s ‘Avalon’ is
anything but a place of healing. In a sense, Tony is wounded by the rules he
followed all his life, and he journeys to be healed of them. But Todd’s regime
becomes simply another set of rules for Tony to follow. Initially, Todd’s
preoccupation with the novels of Dickens suggests, ironically, an anti-gothic
sensibility, for when one thinks of Dickens, one thinks of novels concerned
with social criticism and individual liberty. The gothic as represented in
Nineteenth Century literature suggests the opposite: limited societies;
repetitive and obsessive cycles, and brooding claustrophobic atmospheres. Tony
believed in the medieval gothic tradition of Arthur. In Brazil, however, he
comes to live in the Nineteenth Century gothic world of obsessive rules and the
suppression of individual passion. Todd’s world, in fact, is as gothic as any
found in the genre’s novels. His rules are as rigid as those Waugh depicts for
his modern, chivalric England. Yet, oddly, there is very little “brooding” in
either.
One of
the chief characteristics of gothic novels is, of course, the fact that many of
its characters spend much of their time brooding—brooding
over their situations, or their passions, or whatever. In Waugh’s England, Tony
is reminded not to brood. If he were to adopt this authentic trait from the
gothic tradition and take some genuine gothic brooding to heart, why then he
might just discover genuine emotion and passion; which, of course, is not
following the rules—hence the reason why any pastime that might lead to
brooding is discouraged for Tony. He is encouraged to pass the time. At Todd’s
camp Tony follows the rules and continues the required reading of Dickens, and
as long as he doesn’t brood too much he’ll get along—just as he always had. A
little personal obsession is probably
better, Waugh seems to suggest, than the obsessively social and ordered response to life that Tony and the others
practice. Interestingly, Tony’s most ‘lucid’ brooding occurs when he is least
capable of acting on it—when he is mad with fever in the Brazilian jungle. He
perceives the reality of his world in his most articulate and passionate
vision, only to lose it when he recovers.
A final
point on the novel’s end: We come full circle back to Hetton. Renovations are
underway but, as at the beginning, financing is difficult because, just as at
the beginning of the novel, “death duties” (14; 218) need to be paid. The sense
is that the present owes a debt to the past. Tony and the rest are debtors to a
past ideal, and it seems the debt will never be paid off. And with his imagery
of renovation—such a dusty business!—Waugh suggests that the present will go on
forever remodelling the past, repeating the cycles of slavish adherence to
idealized social norms. But it will never create anything new. Its children
will take up the banners of the fallen, as Teddy takes up Tony’s cause to
restore Hetton to its former glory, and the women will organize and control the
whole process, (remembering the images of the “grave eyes” of Agnes and
Therese—images of menace and power—and the image of Mrs. Rattery weaving Tony’s
fate, like a witch, as they played cards). All of them, however—men, women and
children alike—will live by the rules. None will make the difficult journey from sunrise to sunset. All will remain static and sterile—like
handfuls of dust.
Works Cited
Eliot, T. S., The
Wasteland and Other Poems. Faber and Faber. London, 1975
Waugh, Evelyn, A Handful of Dust. Penguin Books.
London, 1951
Professor’s
Comments:
Don—once
again, my risk is in pouring on the praise and therefore seeming excessive. So
I’ll be (somewhat) restrained. Once again, a superb job—despite a fairly
eccentric sense of punctuation. Your command of the subject is extraordinary.
You get to details in a remarkably honed, meticulous way. To the point where
I’m not sure I’ve even read the book before. Your exploration of the dust
(metaphor)? Is first-rate. Also the Arthurian links. A+
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