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A Handful of Dust
biblical visions. Christie ultimately became the model for Mr.
INTR
INTRODUCTION
ODUCTION Todd, and the entire experience, together with the marital
breakdown and humiliation that preceded it, became the close
BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF EVELYN WAUGH autobiographical model for A Handful of Dust, which Waugh
Evelyn Waugh was born in 1903, the second son in a family wrote between Morocco and England upon his return. Thus the
whose ancestry drew from throughout the British Isles as well seemingly incongruous, even unbelievable, third act of the
as France. Evelyn’s father Arthur, a publisher and literary critic novel in fact had its roots directly in Waugh’s recent activities.
of note, always favored his older son Alec, and their tight The implicit critique of a wayward and debased secular society
relationship habitually left the young Evelyn feeling shunned. In that the novel offers reflects Waugh’s embrace of Catholicism,
his schoolboy years Evelyn was something of a bully, and this a pointed move in a country with centuries of Catholic-
instinct toward cruelty would stay with him throughout his Protestant tensions.
adult life and frequently color his writings. Waugh attended
Oxford, where he behaved rambunctiously, experimented with
RELATED LITERARY WORKS
homosexuality, and developed a drinking problem that would
follow him his whole life. He came close but ultimately failed to Waugh’s first two novels, Decline and Fall and Vile Bodies, were
earn a degree. After college, he chose to become a writer and scathing and uproarious satires of the interwar London social
sparked a sensation with his first few novels: these mercilessly circle he ran in. A Handful of Dust is often considered Waugh’s
satirized the chic scene in interwar London to which he himself crucial transitionary book, since it retains the merciless and
belonged, popularly referred to as the “bright young things.” often funny depictions of contemporary London socialites that
Following a disastrous first marriage and growing he had become known for, but humor is not as much of a
dissatisfaction with what he saw as a debased modern world, priority. Instead, a deeper critique of modern
Waugh converted to Catholicism in 1930. Catholic themes, and civilization—reflecting his conversion to Catholicism—enters
the clash of tradition and modernity, would remain central to the novel, a critique that would come to dominate his later
most of his work thereafter—much to the disappointment of work more and more. Highlights of this more serious later
some fans of his earlier satires. In the 1930s, he visited far- period include Brideshead Revisited
Revisited, often called one of the best
flung regions as a travel writer. He chose to fight in WWII when novels of the century, and the Sword of Honour trilogy, derived
the time came, subsequently writing a trilogy of novels about from his time fighting in WWII. Waugh’s clique that he satirized
the war. He continued to write, sometimes to great acclaim, in A Handful of Dust were known as the “Bright Young Things,”
until his death in 1966. However, his later years were marked and among their ranks were other noted novelists including
by premature health issues and alcoholic decline, along with Henry Green, author of similarly autobiographical novels like
increasing bitterness towards the modern world. Today, his Party Going, and crime novelist Dorothy Sayers, whose popular
reputation stands firm as one of the 20th century’s greatest works included Murder Must Advertise. Waugh’s title and
English novelists and prose stylists. epigraph for this novel were taken from T.S. Eliot’s poem The
Waste Land, which similarly reflected on the crisis of faith and
HISTORICAL CONTEXT meaning in modernity and is often considered the century’s
most significant poem. The Amazonian misadventure in A
A Handful of Dust drew heavily on Waugh’s recent personal
Handful of Dust alludes to Joseph Conrad’s 1899 novella Heart
experiences at the time of its writing. Waugh married his first
of Darkness
Darkness, which similarly follows a harrowing journey up a
wife, also named Evelyn (Gardner), in 1928, but the marriage
jungle river and confrontation with madness. Conrad was also a
lasted only a year before she declared that she loved John
significant influence on Eliot, so Waugh’s evocation of them
Heygate, her and Waugh’s mutual friend. While finalizing their
both was intended to place himself in a recent literary tradition.
divorce, Waugh was also preparing to be received into the
Roman Catholic Church, which he did in 1930. Flailing in the
humiliating collapse of his marriage and subsequent KEY FACTS
disappointing sexual affairs, Waugh fled his problems on a • Full Title: A Handful of Dust
journey to South America, where he intended to arrive at the
• When Written: 1933-1934
remote Amazonian city of Manaus. This ultimately proved
impossible, and he spent much time in boredom and discomfort • Where Written: England and Morocco
in the jungle with little to read. During this time, he met an • When Published: 1934
eccentric elderly man named Christie, who told Waugh of his • Literary Period: Modern

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• Genre: Novel, Satire to entertain him while Tony flees to various chores. To her
• Setting: 1930s England; Amazon rainforest surprise, she and Beaver hit it off and have a nice weekend
• Climax: Tony realizes he is stuck reading to Mr. Todd forever. apart from the awkwardness Tony imposes. Brenda relishes
hearing updates from Beaver on London gossip and her old
socialite crowd. After Tony gives Beaver a proud tour of
EXTRA CREDIT
Hetton, Brenda admits to Beaver that she detests the house
Alternate Ending. The episode with Mr. Todd was actually but hides her feelings from Tony.
written first as a short story and published in an American
On a day trip to her sister Marjorie’s in London, Brenda admits
newspaper. When Waugh incorporated it into the novel, he
that she’s romantically interested in Beaver. Running into him
couldn’t publish it in the United States due to a copyright
again while discussing the rental of a London flat from Mrs.
dispute, so he had to write an alternate ending for the
Beaver, Brenda eventually convinces Beaver to escort her to
American edition, in which Tony happily returns to England and
Polly Cockpurse’s upcoming party, a major social event. Beaver
reunites with Brenda!
successfully kisses Brenda on the way to the party. Their
dalliance has already become the talk of the town the next day,
and it soon becomes a real affair. Beaver enjoys increased
social clout from the affair, which his mother strongly endorses,
Highly Ranked. A Handful of Dust was one of three novels by while Brenda annoys Tony and disappoints John Andrew by
Waugh to make the Modern Library’s respected list of the 100 returning days late to Hetton. She promptly goes to work
best novels of the 20th century—the others being Scoop and wearing down Tony to agree to rent her one of Mrs. Beaver’s
Brideshead Revisited
Revisited. Waugh is one of just seven writers to have London flats. He caves in, and soon Brenda is telephoning him
that many works on the list. from the flat to gush about it while John Beaver lies beside her
in bed. Over Christmas, Tony’s poorer relatives, the family of
Richard Last, come to visit Hetton and discomfit Brenda with
PL
PLO
OT SUMMARY their earthy ways. Brenda fears Beaver has lost interest in her.
Tony unexpectedly accompanies her to a friend’s house over
In 1930s London, John Beaver is an unemployed 25-year-old
New Year’s, and Beaver is also a guest there. He and Brenda
Oxford graduate living at home with his mother, Mrs. Beaver.
intentionally steer clear of each other, but Brenda then tells
John is a charmless and unimpressive young lad, who spends
Tony she will start economics courses as a pretext to spend
his days looking to score a free lunch from among the London
more time in London.
socialite crowd whose ranks he is eager to ascend. Widely
regarded as a social climber and pest, John is nonetheless Tony goes to London one evening to surprise Brenda, but she
tolerated at gatherings when more desirable guests can’t be can’t be reached. He runs into his old friend Jock Grant-
found. Mrs. Beaver is a ruthless interior decorator who keenly Menzies, who has also been stood up. The two drink heavily
assists her son’s lackluster social climbing efforts. John has together as Tony becomes morose about Brenda’s increasing
fastened onto a passing and insincere invite from Tony Last to absence from Hetton. They go on a drunken spree, and Tony
Hetton, his country estate, for the weekend, and he makes several drunken phone calls to Brenda’s flat, where
intentionally telegrams of his imminent arrival with too little Beaver is with her. Jock, who knows about the affair like the
time for the invite to be revoked. rest of London, helps divert Tony. Tony’s hungover shame the
next day allows Brenda to become more flagrant in her
At Hetton, Tony Last surveys the deteriorating neo-Gothic
disrespect for Tony: she invites Polly and other ruthless friends
décor of his beloved ancestral home, and he and his slightly
to Hetton, where they mock the house and Tony’s dull habits.
younger wife Brenda Last read the morning mail. Tony
Fearing that she’s gone too far, Brenda attempts to arrange for
dismisses all social invites they receive, preferring never to
her apartment neighbor Jenny Abdul Akbar, a crass American
leave Hetton or host guests, despite Brenda’s desire for
widow, to seduce Tony and take the pressure off her own affair.
company. Their young son John Andrew learns horse jumping
Tony despises Jenny and her visit to Hetton fails spectacularly,
from the stable master Ben Hacket, whom the boy loves but
though John Andrew does fancy her.
whose gruff influence on the child disturbs his prim nanny.
Being a member of the landed gentry, Tony lives comfortably on The day of the annual Hetton fox hunt arrives, eagerly awaited
passive income and passes his time in the same small circuit of by John Andrew, who is reluctantly permitted to ride along.
local routines, like going to church—despite his lack of interest Jock and his austere girlfriend Mrs. Rattery join the hunting
in religion. The sudden news of Beaver’s arrival horrifies Tony, party. During a minor traffic jam, the villager Miss Ripon’s
who knows him only in passing as a freeloading pest, and he unruly horse kicks and instantly kills John Andrew. Jock
plans to make Beaver’s stay as uncomfortable as possible to volunteers to deliver the news to Brenda, who skipped the hunt
ensure his quick departure. When he arrives, Brenda steps up for a party in London, while Mrs. Rattery stays to keep company

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with the quietly distraught Tony. She and Tony play cards to Mr. Todd nurses Tony back to health, but his care soon turns
distract him while Jock tracks Brenda down to a fortune-telling sinister: Mr. Todd loves the works of Dickens that line his walls,
party at Polly’s. Brenda at first can’t process Jock’s news, but but he can’t read, so he forces Tony to read to him endlessly—as
when she realizes that John Andrew and not John Beaver was he did to a previous visitor, whose grave is on the ranch. After
the one who died, she blurts out “Oh thank God,” later claiming several months, a search party comes looking for Tony, but Mr.
that she was delirious when she said it. Brenda returns to Todd drugs Tony during their arrival and convinces them that
Hetton, where Tony is ordering affairs, but she quickly leaves Tony has died. Tony awakes, horrified at his last lifeline being
again to a friend’s for the weekend, where Beaver is. She severed and at his fate of having to read Dickens aloud forever.
declares her love for Beaver, and telegrams Tony the same, With Tony presumed dead, Richard Last and his family have
saying she will not return to Hetton. Tony is stupefied, and Jock inherited Hetton, being Tony’s closest relatives. They have
must reveal that everyone but Tony has known about the affair. economized by closing several wings, laying off staff, and
Tony spends a few weeks at Jock’s as he processes the shock. introducing fox farming. After a dedication ceremony for a
Intermediaries inform him of Brenda’s satisfaction with the fair monument to Tony, Richard’s son Teddy goes to tend to his
sum of 500 pounds annual alimony, but due to divorce laws of foxes, whom he proudly views as the means to restore Hetton
the time, Tony must collect “evidence” of his own adultery for to its glory days as under his cousin Tony.
the split to proceed. He arranges a weekend at Brighton, a
seaside resort, with Milly, a prostitute he and Jock met during
their drunken night out. Detectives follow him to collect staged CHARA
CHARACTERS
CTERS
“evidence,” but Milly unexpectedly brings along her horrible
young daughter Winnie, threatening the whole conceit. The MAJOR CHARACTERS
weekend is awkward. Back in London, Brenda’s brother Reggie Ton
onyy Last – Tony Last is a member of the landed gentry in
meets with Tony and reveals that with this new evidence, she 1930s England. A little over 30 years old, Tony lives at Hetton,
will in fact demand 2000 pounds alimony. Shocked and the ancestral country estate where he grew up, with his wife,
disillusioned, Tony recalls that Winnie’s presence voids the Brenda Last, and their young son, John Andrew. Tony has lived
alleged evidence and counters that he will give Brenda nothing. a sheltered life at Hetton—he still sleeps in his childhood
Brenda’s friends are shocked by the news. bedroom—and he remains profoundly devoted to the estate,
Feeling he needs a break from Hetton in the wake of the recent even though the neo-Gothic style of its garish 1860s
upheavals, Tony spontaneously joins the eccentric explorer Dr. renovation has become repugnant to modern tastes. Unlike
Messinger’s voyage seeking a lost city in the Amazon. Onboard Brenda, Tony has no interest in London’s glitzy social life.
the transatlantic crossing, he sparks up a romance with a Doting on Hetton is his priority, and it blinds him to his younger
young, mysterious Trinidadian girl, Therese de Vitre. Tony’s wife’s obvious boredom with the house and their isolated
offhand mention of his marriage sours the affair, and she soon domestic existence there. Brenda’s spontaneous affair with
disembarks. Arriving in South America, he and Dr. Messinger John Beaver thus catches him totally off guard. His basic lack of
assemble supplies and start upstream, with Tony increasingly malice makes Brenda’s betrayal almost beyond comprehension
harried by the harsh jungle environment. They reach an Indian to him. At the same time, that lack of malice is simply a luxury of
village, where the English-speaking Rosa acts as interpreter his pampered, unreflective existence. He was ensured at
and helps them organize a team of Indians to guide their quest birth—and has happily embraced—a life of bland, pleasant
for the city. They travel inland for weeks, getting progressively rituals, detached from the traditional moral and religious values
more lost in the jungle. The natives build canoes for Dr. they once encoded. His naïve “habit” of trust is so strong that
Messinger but refuse to accompany them any further, and he willingly collects evidence against himself during his divorce
Messinger’s incompetent negotiations scare them away, proceedings with Brenda, trusting her verbal assurance of a fair
leaving him and Tony alone. After a few days of downstream alimony request and not recognizing her clearly extortionate
drifting, Tony gets a violent fever and begins hallucinating plans. When this last illusion crumbles, Tony’s resulting
Brenda’s presence. Messinger leaves him on shore and rows on moment of clarity provokes his life’s first act of real agency,
in search of help, but he dies in a waterfall. Totally alone, Tony’s rejecting Brenda’s demands and boldly throwing in with the
hallucinations overtake him in a terrifying blend of random eccentric Dr. Messinger’s journey through the Amazon. But
incidents from earlier in the novel. Meanwhile, back in London, what feels to Tony like boldness is really just nihilistic
Brenda and Beaver’s relationship sours as her money dries up; recklessness, dooming himself on a random whim that requires
Beaver leaves her to go to California with his mother, and her no more authentic valor than his deluded existence at Hetton.
friends abandon her. Brenda Last – Brenda Last is Tony Last’s wife. Around 5 years
Still delirious, Tony stumbles onto the remote jungle ranch of younger than Tony, the attractive Brenda is still in her mid-20s
Mr. Todd, a mixed-race English-speaking son of a missionary. and has grown bored with her isolated domestic existence at

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Hetton, yearning for the glamorous London social life she once There is no indication that Jock intended to take Tony’s wife all
enjoyed. She still makes regular visits to her sister Marjorie in along; Waugh includes this rather as a chance irony that
London, but generally she has lost touch with her old scene. provides symmetry to the novel, which began with Mrs.
John Beaver’s chance arrival at Hetton reminds her of the life Beaver’s remarks about Jock being a better fit for Brenda than
she has left behind, and she seizes on him as its avatar and falls Tony.
madly in love with him, despite his lack of any appealing Mrs. Bea
Beavver – – John Beaver’s mother Mrs. Beaver is a
qualities. Brenda’s betrayal of Tony for Beaver reveals her widowed interior decorator and ruthless social operator. She
cruelty, shallow self-centeredness, and terrible judgment. Her keenly exploits every social opening to generate more business
infatuation with Beaver crowds out all the motherly affection for herself, and she heavily assists her parasitic son’s
owed to her and Tony’s young son, John Andrew. Nevertheless, freeloading and social climbing maneuvers. She rents the flat to
Waugh is unambiguous in his damning portrait of Brenda, who Brenda Last that Brenda uses for her trysts with John Beaver.
also suffers from the negative influence of her wretched new Her venture to carve numerous small flats out of an old
London friends. She represents the decay of traditional values building, and totally redecorate them with heartless modern
that Waugh seeks to depict. It seems that she gets her décor, epitomizes the baseness and hostility to tradition that
comeuppance when Tony skirts her alimony extortion scheme Waugh intends to satirize.
to leave her penniless, and Beaver and her friends abandon her.
John Andrew – John Andrew is the young son of Tony Last and
The novel, however, reserves a final ironic twist for the
Brenda Last. A passionate and curious child with an innocent
epilogue, where Brenda ends up happily married to Jock Grant-
lack of any filter on what he’ll say, he adores horse jumping,
Menzies, who was considered a likely match for her before she
which he practices with Ben Hacket. John Andrew likewise
ever married Tony.
adores Ben, though the nanny and Tony worry about Ben’s
John Bea
Beavver – John Beaver is a 25-year-old unemployed gruff working-class comportment influencing the boy. As
Oxford graduate who lives at home with his mother, Mrs. Brenda loses interest in life at Hetton, Tony too becomes
Beaver. Widely disliked in the London socialite scene that he increasingly mentally preoccupied with his troubled marriage,
tries so doggedly to penetrate, Beaver is correctly judged a and John Andrew thus receives diminishing attention from
charmless social climber and freeloader with little personal both parents. In a bitter irony, the great fox hunt which the boy
value to offer. He is, however, tolerated as a last-resort invite to so eagerly anticipated winds up getting him killed in a random
social events in need of seats filled. His shrewd and ambitious accident.
mother strongly encourages her lazy son to work his way up
Mrs. Rattery – Mrs. Rattery is Jock Grant-Menzies’s girlfriend,
the social hierarchy. Beaver experiences a sudden, rapid social
ascent when he unexpectedly steals the heart of Brenda Last. whom he invites to join him at Hetton for the fox hunt. Before
Beaver willingly uses Brenda to raise his stock among London meeting her, Tony Last has already dubbed her the “shameless
socialites, who marvel at Brenda’s unlikely choice of lover. blonde,” in apparent reference to some prior act. Contrary to
When Brenda leaves Tony Last and fails to secure any alimony, his expectation of a gregarious airhead, however, Rattery is
however, Beaver callously but predictably abandons the now- highly laconic and austere. She arrives at Hetton behind the
destitute Brenda (like the rest of her friends) and leaves for wheel of a propeller plane, establishing the pattern of bold,
California with his mother. Beaver’s parasitic nature and lack of masculine behavior that characterizes her. She is fond of
any ambition or interests beyond a free lunch render him an extended games of solitaire. After John Andrew’s death, Mrs.
archetype of the valueless modern man that Waugh deplored. Rattery stays behind to keep Tony company while Jock delivers
the news to Brenda. Mrs. Rattery’s presence in the novel is
Jock Gr
Grant-Menzies
ant-Menzies – Jock Grant-Menzies is a London mysterious, but Waugh certainly intends to contrast her
socialite and member of Parliament. Jock is level-headed, good honorable reserve with the shamelessness of Brenda and her
company, and universally well-liked. Once thought of as a friends, excepting her from the relentlessly negative
potential match for Brenda Last before she ended up with Tony characterization he applies to almost all the other women in the
Last, he in fact does marry her in the novel’s epilogue after novel.
Tony’s disappearance and John Beaver’s departure.
Nevertheless, he seems to be one of the few people Tony Dr
Dr.. Messinger – Dr. Messinger is an eccentric explorer
considers a true friend. Jock accompanies Tony on his drunken searching for a lost city in the Amazon, whose mission Tony
spree in London, all while playing damage control to ensure Last joins on a whim. As Tony knows nothing about travel and
Tony doesn’t stumble onto evidence of Brenda’s affair. Jock’s survival, he entrusts himself to the apparently experienced
Messinger, but as their Amazon journey progresses,
interim girlfriend Mrs. Rattery joins him at Hetton for the
Messinger’s competence comes into question. His unwavering
disastrous fox hunt and keeps Tony company, while Jock goes
but misplaced confidence in his own understanding of the
to tell Brenda the news of John Andrew’s death. After Brenda
Amazonian natives causes them all to abandon him and Tony,
leaves Tony, Tony crashes at Jock’s apartment for a few weeks.
essentially dooming their mission.

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Mr
Mr.. T
Todd
odd – Mr. Todd, the English-speaking son of a missionary John Beaver, though she is almost alone among London
and an Amazonian native, runs the remote jungle ranch onto socialites in doing so.
which Tony Last stumbles in his fevered delirium. Mr. Todd Allan – Allan is Marjorie’s husband and a prospective local
nurses the near-death Tony back to health, but his care takes political candidate in South London. He feigns ignorance of
on an increasingly sinister character as it becomes clear that he Brenda Last’s affair when she mentions it to him. After Brenda
will not allow Tony to leave. Mr. Todd is a great lover of the leaves Tony Last, Allan exercises his diplomatic instincts and
Dickens novels his father left him, but he himself cannot read. A tries to act as peacemaker by going to each of them separately,
previous traveler was kept on his plantation and, it is implied, lying to Tony that Brenda wants to reconcile, and likewise lying
forced to read to him until he eventually died. At the novel’s to Brenda that Tony will grant a divorce to avoid scandal. His
end, Tony now faces the same fate. ultimate plan with this is unclear beyond the desire to play
Rosa – Rosa is a Macushi woman who speaks English and acts diplomat, and Brenda justifiably writes him off as an
as the interpreter between her people and Tony Last and Dr. “interfering ass.”
Messinger. She attributes her English knowledge to having Reggie – Reggie St. Cloud is Brenda Last’s oldest brother and
“live[d] bottom-side two years with Mr. Forbes,” an unexplained an eccentric amateur archaeologist, a pursuit that has yielded
reference. She consistently demands cigarettes from Dr. various antiques but little financial reward. Oafish, “unnaturally
Messinger, and she frustrates him and Tony by insisting that stout,” and unaware of his own clumsiness, he is nevertheless
her people will not accompany them to the Pie-Wie territory called in to mediate between Brenda and Tony Last and deliver
and must turn back. Brenda’s extortionate alimony demands. Predictably bungling
Polly Cockpurse – Polly Cockpurse is a ringleader among the interaction, Reggie instead agitates Tony into refusing
London gossips and socialites. She was ruthlessly successful as alimony altogether, leaving Brenda out to dry.
a social climber, ascending from obscurity into the center of the Ben Hack et – Ben Hacket oversees the horses on Hetton’s
Hacket
scene, marrying an earl along the way. Her party provides the grounds. A gruff and foul-mouthed member of the lower class,
occasion for Brenda Last and John Beaver’s first romantic he earns the young John Andrew’s adoration for teaching him
rendezvous. Polly is the first to hear of and spread the word of how to jump horses and entertaining him with vulgar stories.
Brenda’s affair with Beaver, and she aids Brenda in her effort to His genuineness and simple, traditionally masculine virtues
set up Jenny Abdul Akbar with Tony Last. Brenda is at Polly’s provoke John Andrew’s admiration in a way that the boy’s
house having her fortune told when she hears the news of John parents do not. After Richard Last and his family take over
Andrew’s death. Hetton, Ben remains employed on the grounds and helps Teddy
Jenn
Jennyy Abdul Akbar – Jenny Abdul Akbar is the American with fox-farming.
widow of a Moroccan prince, who lives in the flat next to Nann
Nannyy – John Andrew’s nanny is a stern old killjoy who
Brenda Last’s. Brenda tries to use Jenny to bait Tony Last into consistently decries John Andrew’s innocently crass behavior
an affair—thereby taking the pressure off her own affair with and foul language, which she attributes to the influence of Ben
John Beaver. Jenny is a vulgar and ridiculous character, Hacket. Nevertheless, her distaste for the grand Hetton
constantly making histrionic references to her own suffering foxhunt and wish to prevent John Andrew from participating
and cursed fate. Her attempted seduction of Tony fails prove prescient, given the disaster that occurs. Her concern for
spectacularly, although she does awaken erotic feelings in John John Andrew is genuine, if unappreciated.
Andrew, who becomes infatuated with her.
Mr
Mr.. Tendril – Mr. Tendril is the local priest at the Hetton
Tendril
Mrs. Northcote – Mrs. Northcote is the fraudulent fortune church, which Tony Last tries to attend every Sunday. Tendril
teller at Polly Cockpurse’s gathering, which Jock Grant- was stationed in British colonial India many decades ago, and
Menzies interrupts to inform Brenda of John Andrew’s death. he still repeats the same sermons he wrote for that setting
The ladies are each enraptured by Mrs. Northcote’s mysterious verbatim, to ridiculous effect. However, neither Tony nor the
and exciting fortune readings, but the reader soon finds out village parishioners mind the bizarre and incongruous sermons,
that she gives the same generic prediction to everyone. Waugh to which they are long accustomed. Tendril’s character
intended her character to exemplify the false prophets and highlights the church’s failure to adapt to and address the
idols to which people flock in the absence of religion. pressing concerns of modern existence, preferring to live
Marjorie – Marjorie is Brenda Last’s younger sister. Though blithely in the past as its rites transform into a meaningless
lovely as well, she is “more solid than Brenda.” She and her social ritual.
husband Allan are popular but not rich, and they live in a small Miss Ripon – Miss Ripon is a villager near Hetton, whose
house in London. Brenda normally stays with them when she unruly horse kicks and kills John Andrew on the day of the fox
comes to town, until she gets her own flat. Marjorie hunt. Miss Ripon had no business riding the difficult horse,
consistently disapproves of Brenda’s affair with the odious which had thrown and injured her earlier that day, but her

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father had been cynically trying to sell the horse for an enjoyed in the days of his cousin Tony.” While this may seem like
unreasonable price and wanted to have it shown off. At the a rather unrealistic scheme, Waugh foreshadows the notion
inquest, the traumatized Miss Ripon has to give evidence. that Teddy carries Tony’s legacy forward when Jenny Abdul
Milly – Milly is one of the two prostitutes, along with Babs, that Akbar repeatedly mistakes Tony’s name as Teddy.
Tony Last and Jock Grant-Menzies meet at the Old Hundredth
club on the night of their drunken spree. She and Babs fail to MINOR CHARACTERS
secure Tony and Jock’s business on that night, but she later Mrs. Tipping – Mrs. Tipping is a London socialite who
agrees to go with Tony to Brighton, helping him frame himself disappoints John Beaver by calling him just to ask for Jock
as an adulterer to secure his and Brenda’s divorce (due to the Grant-Menzies’s contact information. When Jock declines to
divorce laws of the time). She insists on bringing along her attend her luncheon, however, she calls Beaver again and
insufferable eight-year-old daughter Winnie, to Tony’s dismay. invites him to the seat Jock declined, which he accepts.
Her and Tony’s strained interactions throughout the weekend
Babs – Babs is the other prostitute with Milly that Tony Last
reveal Tony’s discomfort in dealing with people of a lower class,
and Jock Grant-Menzies meet at the Old Hundredth club
inadvertently insulting Milly.
during their drunken night on the town.
Winnie – Winnie is Milly’s eight-year-old daughter. Brought
Dan – Dan is another guest at the Brighton resort where Tony
along against Tony Last’s will on his and Milly’s weekend in
Last takes Milly for a weekend of staged adultery. A previous
Brighton, she threatens to derail the whole staged premise of
client of Milly’s, he recognizes her and invites her and Tony to a
an adulterous tryst. A relentless brat, her very vocal whining
raucous party, which they attend.
throughout the weekend makes Tony miserable at the time, but
the unwanted attention it draws turns out to save him from
Brenda’s extortion attempt by rendering the evidence of his
“adultery” useless.
THEMES
Thérèse de Vitré – Thérèse de Vitré is an 18-year-old In LitCharts literature guides, each theme gets its own color-
Trinidadian girl aboard Tony’s transatlantic crossing. Her family, coded icon. These icons make it easy to track where the themes
presumably aristocrats in France, came to Trinidad during the occur most prominently throughout the work. If you don't have
French Revolution and became part of the island’s small a color printer, you can still use the icons to track themes in
aristocratic elite, from among whom Thérèse, bound by black and white.
custom, will eventually choose a husband. Thérèse and Tony
Last strike up a brief romance during the voyage. She speaks COMMUNICATION BREAKDOWN AND
the cold and formal English of a well-educated foreigner, and THE LOSS OF MEANING
her personality is correspondingly opaque—ironically, since de
Communication breakdown lies at the heart of A
Vitré is French for “made of glass.” Tony’s offhand mention of
Handful of Dust. English landed gentry Tony and
the fact that he’s still technically married sours their
Brenda’s marriage collapses because of a mutual failure to
relationship, and Thérèse loses all interest in him, disembarking
communicate: Brenda conceals her real feelings about Hetton,
in Trinidad with hardly a goodbye.
Tony’s ancestral estate (“[…] so appallingly ugly. Only I’d rather
Richard Last – Richard Last is Tony Last’s cousin, whose line of die than say that to Tony”), initially to protect Tony’s feelings,
the family had been disinherited from Hetton by rite of but her concealment breeds boredom and resentment that
primogeniture. Nevertheless, he and his rambunctious family evolves into more malign deception in the form of her affair
still think of Hetton as their own when they come to visit Tony with John Beaver. For his part, Tony’s obliviousness to Brenda’s
and Brenda at Christmas, making Brenda uncomfortable with clearly dissatisfied behavior leaves him blindsided by the affair
their rustic, un-aristocratic ways. After Tony’s presumed death, that everyone else in their scene finds obvious.
Richard and his family are the closest living relatives and inherit
Yet the novel registers a communicative collapse that runs
the estate. He and his family happily move in, and he downsizes
deeper than just an individual marriage. Waugh invokes this
the staff and introduces fox farming on Hetton grounds to
theme through the ubiquitous presence of the telephone. At
bring in extra cash.
the time Waugh was writing, the early 1930s, the telephone
Teddy – Teddy is Richard Last’s 22-year-old son. He lives with was still a relatively recent invention and had only just begun to
his family at Hetton once they move in. Teddy, with Ben become widespread in private homes. It’s important to keep
Hacket’s help, eagerly takes to the fox-farming his family has this novelty in mind to appreciate the profound disruption in
introduced to Hetton grounds. The novel ends with Teddy normal lines of communication that A Handful of Dust seeks to
proudly surveying the caged foxes, imagining that they will be depict. Telephones both invade the privacy one formerly
the path towards “restor[ing] Hetton to the glory that it had enjoyed at home and breed alienation by offering a cheap

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substitute for human contact (“Why did you go all the way to social events without even wrestling with actual belief is just as
London to telephone her?...Why, daddy?”). By creating distance hollow as the London scene’s openly amoral conduct.
in the illusory guise of nearness, Waugh implies, telephones Waugh, however, does not simply mean to finger-wag at the
increase “communication” while emptying it of meaning. irreligious for their impiety. Mr. Tendril’s comic neglect of
Ultimately, the telephone’s assault on communication merely updating his sermons from 40 years ago in India, and his
symbolizes a deeper rupture: Brenda and Tony’s post-WWI parishioners’ dopey acceptance of this irrelevant recycled
generation have been cut off from their history and themselves. product, encapsulates the Church’s failure to come to terms
Through the deterioration of Brenda and Tony’s marriage and with modernity. Waugh takes seriously the crises of meaning in
the generational alienation it reflects, Waugh suggests that a rapidly technologizing world. In not rising to this challenge,
rapid modernization has severed people’s line of contact with the Church invites its own fate of becoming a meaningless
the past and accordingly blocked them off from the personal social custom. In Waugh’s view, as religion recedes in the face
depths that such contact is meant to stir. People thus grow of societal upheaval, the morality and tradition once grounded
blunted, shallow, and cruel. Tony’s fate literalizes this total in it come toppling down. People accordingly become the way
communicative collapse, trapped in a foreign jungle and Waugh shows them in this book: weak, foolish, and depraved.
without hope of contacting anyone who could help him.
CHANCE AND FATE
RELIGION, MORALITY, AND TRADITION Listless socialite Brenda is duped by fortune-tellers
Religion, morality, and tradition are notably absent twice in A Handful of Dust: once in her first meeting
from the lives of the characters in A Handful of Dust. with John Beaver, whose believably serious
This conspicuous absence is precisely Waugh’s opening quickly gives way to a ludicrous joke-fortune; and once
point in the novel, which seeks to portray the hollowness of a by Mrs. Northcote, a foot-sole-reading scam artist who gives
society where religion, morality, and tradition have lost their the same vague prophecy to all of Brenda’s friends. Brenda
grip. Amoral and mendacious behavior dominates Brenda’s never discovers the sham behind Mrs. Northcote’s grave
London social scene. Its status-obsessed members seem façade. Beaver’s reading, on the other hand, was a trivial prank
incapable of, and uninterested in, anything beyond ephemeral meant to be exposed immediately, and yet it unwittingly
gossip and social climbing. Tony’s unoffending passivity may contains a distorted but comprehensive account of the plot to
seem preferable to such active nastiness, but his behavior turns come: “Oh yes... there is going to be a sudden death which will
out to be nearly as shallow: having disingenuously offered John cause you great pleasure and profit. In fact you are going to kill
Beaver an invite to Hetton, he then tries to sabotage Beaver’s someone. […] then you are going to go on a long journey across
unexpected visit by shunning his duties as a host. This the sea, marry six dark men and have eleven children, grow a
inhospitality violates the chivalric code embodied in Hetton’s beard and die.”
Arthurian décor, and it exposes the frivolity of Tony’s make- The recurrence of fortune-telling, and the random and
believe existence within its walls. Though the imitation-Gothic improbable truthfulness of Beaver’s insincere prophecy, signal
surroundings let Tony think of himself as a descendent of the the importance of chance and fate in the novel. Tony’s
knights of medieval legend—who were the English aristocracy disingenuous and immediately forgotten weekend invitation to
of their day—Tony has no conception of the stringent values by Beaver sets in motion the end of his marriage. A motorcycle
which they lived, only superficially aping them in his relative backfiring startles a horse and robs young John Andrew of his
politeness. life. Random incidents with devastating consequences seem to
Religion’s absence is the key to this woeful neglect of tradition control this world. In the novel’s last third, Tony reckons with
and morality. For Waugh, religion is the ground from which his lifelong passivity and attempts to assert agency over his fate
morality springs. Accordingly, his vicious satire targets the with a daring voyage to the Amazon—only to arrive at the most
rapidly secularizing modern world for its unthinking random and improbable doom imaginable, stuck reading to the
abandonment of any basis for traditional moral codes. The illiterate Mr. Todd on his remote ranch. In Waugh’s vision,
London milieu simply has no interest in religion whatsoever, earthly life’s seemingly incomprehensible brutality is a fact that
and its degraded behavior naturally follows. Tony’s enthusiasm societies have lived with forever, in the face of which religion
for churchgoing, by contrast, is just an equally empty social traditionally provided comfort, guidance, and meaning. For
ritual: when the Hetton vicar Mr. Tendril tries to comfort Tony Waugh, Christianity was the revealed truth, and it reconciled
after John Andrew’s death, Tony says, “It was very painful… humans to the uncontrollable winds of fortune with clear rules
after all the last thing one wants to talk about at a time like this for this life and a promise of one to come. Through satirical
is religion.” Later, in the jungle, when Mr. Todd asks him if he portrayals of fortune-telling and hare-brained Amazonian
believes in God, Tony replies, “I suppose so. I’ve never really adventures, Waugh argues that, lacking a basis of objective
thought about it much.” Tony’s blithe participation in “Christian” truth in their lives, people will regress to ever more ludicrous

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behaviors in doomed attempts to control their fate. fact dates back hundreds of years, Tony’s grandfather had it
remodeled in the 1860s in a garish pastiche of medieval Gothic
CIVILIZATION VS. BARBARISM architecture—a popular trend at the time. By the 1930s,
Hetton has gone wildly out of style, and it inspires disgust and
The last third of A Handful of Dust features a
contempt in the hip London crowd who favor slick modernism.
shocking twist, pivoting from London society to the
Tony, however, is confident that all tastes are ephemeral and
furthest reaches of the known world in the
that Hetton will come back into fashion, and this belief
Brazilian jungle. This unexpected move allows Waugh to
supports his unflagging devotion to the house where he grew
sharpen his incisive critique of the “civilization” of his day.
up. Tony’s attachment to Hetton points to a symbolic kinship
Waugh counterpoints Tony’s struggles in the Amazon with
between him and the house: they share a veneer of civility
scenes of Brenda in London to highlight the barbarism of
that’s well-intended but is simply inauthentic by nature. Just as
“civilized” life. Brenda stays in bed living off delivered
the 19th century witnessed a fad for medieval aesthetics but
sandwiches, while John Beaver abandons her now that her
without a revival of the chivalric social order and religious
money and social clout have dissipated—the brute survival
values that they originally embodied, Tony enjoys the
behavior of animals. Jock tells Brenda, who wonders about
superficial trappings of civilization—essentially class
Tony’s safety in the jungle, that “[t]he whole world is civilized
etiquette—without the hard-won faith and social obligation it
now, isn’t it—charabancs and Cook’s offices everywhere.”
once implied. Hetton’s redecoration was a sham, and it has
Waugh implicitly contrasts this superficial view of civilization-
already gone out of favor. Tony’s commitment to it puts him at
as-convenience with the deeper complex of morals and values
odds with modernity, and this puts Tony in the unfortunate
that the term once embodied, and which his modern Londoners
position of nostalgically defending what was a fake to begin
have so forsaken. Jock is of course wrong about the jungle: for
with, while being too naïve to recognize it as such. Like the
Tony, the metaphorical vipers in the grass have become literal.
house, Tony’s own silly and antiquated habits provoke derision
In essence, however, the two places are the same.
from cutting-edge London socialites. The estate’s claim on his
Tony’s disappointment both in England and places abroad are imagination stays strong even when he tries momentarily to
guaranteed by the incoherence of his ideals. Modern English flee it in the Amazon, where he imagines the lost Amazonian
society has failed to conform to the Arthurian fantasy life he city he seeks as “Gothic in character, all vanes and pinnacles, […]
imagined at Hetton, so he turns his back on it to go questing a transfigured Hetton, pennons and banners floating on the
after a mythical Amazonian city. Yet in his visions, this City is sweet breeze.” His failure to see through this aesthetic reflects
“Gothic in character, […] a transfigured Hetton, pennons and his lack of self-reflection generally.
banners floating on the sweet breeze.” Tony remains bound to
his specific fantasy of civilization, yet this was essentially false
to begin with: Hetton is not a medieval artifact but a tasteless TELEPHONES
neo-Gothic pastiche—and Tony is no chivalrous knight. He Telephones represent the chaotic state of
knows nothing of the values of faith and sacrifice embodied in communication in modern life. Telephones are
the chivalric code, clinging rather to the coziness of their cheap everywhere in the first two-thirds of A Handful of Dust,
imitation. When Brenda’s betrayal makes him recognize the frequently initiating major turns in the plot. The frenetic hive of
disjunction between his Hetton fantasy’s civilized veneer and gossip that modern London has become depends on the
modern English reality, he strikes out in search of the real telephone for its existence. Waugh was especially sensitive to
article. In doing so, he loses even the veneer. In other words, the social effects of the telephone since it was still a recent
the novel’s juxtaposition of so-called “civilization” with its technology, the use of which was rapidly spreading. In Waugh’s
supposed opposite suggests that, in the modern world, view, telephones’ ability to simulate closeness and expedite
civilization has become indistinguishable from barbarism. communication actually imposes a kind of distance and
alienation between people, which obstructs true, meaningful
communication. The communicative rupture between Tony
SYMBOLS Last and his wife Brenda Last becomes undeniable when he
travels all the way to London to visit her, but he can only reach
Symbols appear in teal text throughout the Summary and
her by telephone. The pressure of unprecedented technologies
Analysis sections of this LitChart.
on modern life, symbolized in the telephone, makes
communication and its contents shallow and cheap.
HETTON Significantly, telephones completely disappear from the last
third of the novel, when Tony travels to the Amazon rainforest.
The neo-Gothic country estate Hetton, Tony Last’s
The metaphorical breakdown of communication represented in
ancestral home, symbolizes empty nostalgia, and it
the telephone becomes dramatically literal for Tony in the end,
acts as a kind of analogy for Tony himself. Though the estate in

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trapped and blocked from any contact with the outside world.
character: the self-satisfied traditionalism of his Sunday
routine does not grow out of a deep inner moral and
QUO
QUOTES
TES religious code, and his preference for old-fashioned habits
over modern ones is merely aesthetic and curmudgeonly.
Note: all page numbers for the quotes below refer to the Back He makes no distinction between the Church service that
Bay Books edition of A Handful of Dust published in 2012. begins his Sunday and the chatting, flower-picking, and glass
of sherry that follow it, showing religion’s superficiality for
Chapter 2: English Gothic—I Quotes him. If he were attached to Christianity’s teachings rather
than its bland social ritual, he would presumably try to be
When service was over he stood for a few minutes at the
hospitable rather than annoyed when a guest interrupted it.
porch chatting affably with the vicar's sister and the people
from the village. Then he returned home by a path across the
fields which led to a side door in the walled garden; he visited
the hothouses and picked himself a buttonhole, stopped by the [Rev. Tendril’s] sermons had been composed in his more
gardeners' cottages for a few words (the smell of Sunday active days for delivery at the garrison chapel; he had done
dinners rising warm and overpowering from the little nothing to adapt them to the changed conditions of his ministry
doorways) and then, rather solemnly, drank a glass of sherry in and they mostly concluded with some reference to homes and
the library. That was the simple, mildly ceremonious order of dear ones far away. The villagers did not find this in any way
his Sunday morning, which had evolved, more or less surprising. Few of the things said in church seemed to have any
spontaneously, from the more severe practices of his parents; particular reference to themselves. They enjoyed their vicar's
he adhered to it with great satisfaction. Brenda teased him sermons very much and they knew that when he began about
whenever she caught him posing as an upright, God-fearing their distant homes, it was time to be dusting their knees and
gentleman of the old school and Tony saw the joke, but this did feeling for their umbrellas.
not at all diminish the pleasure he derived from his weekly
routine, or his annoyance when the presence of guests Related Characters: Mr. Tendril
suspended it.
Related Themes:
Related Characters: Tony Last, Brenda Last
Page Number: 35-36
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis
Page Number: 33 Tony has been firm in his resistance to spending any more
time with John Beaver than he absolutely must, and he has
Explanation and Analysis once again pawned him off on Brenda so that he can go
This passage comes shortly after readers’ introduction to about his usual churchgoing Sunday routine. The Rev.
Tony Last and his life at Hetton. Tony is a member of the Tendril preposterously continues to deliver the same
landed gentry and prefers to spend his time on his ancestral sermons that he wrote while stationed in India decades ago,
country estate, while his wife Brenda has more interest in without alteration. Tendril’s laziness humorously satirizes
maintaining a social life in London but generally concedes to the church’s failure to “adapt” its methods and teachings “to
Tony’s preferences. The surprise visit to Hetton of John the changed conditions” under which modern parishioners
Beaver, a disliked social climber and merely passing live. Industrialism, WWI, and economic depression have
acquaintance, threatens to upend Tony’s reliable Sunday caused massive upheavals in daily life, but the church keeps
routine described here. The routine is somewhat dull and living in the past and preaching the same tired message.
sentimental—“mildly ceremonious”—and it quickly In this light, Tendril and the church are responsible for the
establishes Tony as an inoffensive but boring creature of decline of religion’s personal, spiritual relevance in the
habit. He takes “great satisfaction” from the ritual, villagers’ lives: “Few of the things said in church seemed to
suggesting almost a smugness in his performing the time- have any particular reference to themselves.” By this point,
honored routine “rather solemnly,” as if in imagined however, the villagers don’t “find this in any way surprising”
opposition to the barbarous modern habits and pace of life and even “enjoyed the vicar’s sermons very much.” They
that he dislikes. have happily taken the lead given them by the church’s
Yet the passage also gets to the crux of Tony’s weakness of inadequacy and let religiosity wilt, while upholding its

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“But don't you like the house?”
superficial rituals. On this last point, however, they stand in
“Me? I detest it... at least I don't mean that really, but I do wish
contrast to the openly irreligious London socialites, who are
sometimes that it wasn't all, every bit of it, so appallingly ugly.
presented as totally debased.
Only I'd die rather than say that to Tony. We could never live
anywhere else, of course.”

When Tony came back they were sitting in the library.

Related Characters: Brenda Last , John Beaver (speaker)
Beaver was telling Brenda's fortune with cards. “... Now cut
to me again,” he was saying, “and I'll see if it's any clearer... Oh Related Themes:
yes... there is going to be a sudden death which will cause you
great pleasure and profit. In fact you are going to kill someone. I
Related Symbols:
can't tell if it's a man or a woman... yes, a woman... then you are
going to go on a long journey across the sea, marry six dark men Page Number: 40-41
and have eleven children, grow a beard and die.”
“Beast. And all this time I've been thinking it was serious.” Explanation and Analysis
Tony has managed to get out of spending almost any time
with John Beaver during his weekend stay at Hetton, but
Related Characters: Brenda Last , John Beaver (speaker)
when the opportunity comes to give Beaver a tour of the
Related Themes: house and grounds, Tony does so with gusto,
enthusiastically showing him around for over two hours.
Page Number: 38-39 Once he has left again, Brenda and Beaver are left alone
together, and Brenda reveals her real feelings about Hetton
Explanation and Analysis to him. In itself, the fact that Brenda spills her closely
Tony has successfully avoided John Beaver for the duration guarded opinions about her own home to a man she has
of his Sunday routine, but he unfortunately finds him with really just met indicates the degree of repression she must
Brenda as soon as he returns to the house. While Tony ordinarily feel around Tony. Tony’s adoration of Hetton
strenuously dodges it, Brenda has actually been enjoying seems at least equal to his feelings for Brenda and John
Beaver’s company, and Beaver has been entertaining her by Andrew, their son. Because the house has gone so out of
pretending to read her fortune. Returning to this passage style, Tony’s love for it has taken on a defensive,
after having finished the novel provides a glimpse of hypersensitive character, and Brenda clearly does not feel
Waugh’s literary method, wherein crucial events are that she can speak her mind to him about it. Her
explicitly anticipated in ways unknowable to both the concealment of her opinions nevertheless shows a respect
characters and the reader the first time through. Beaver’s for Tony’s feelings that is worlds away from what her
fortune predicts John Andrew’s “sudden death,” which behavior towards him will become. There is ironic truth in
causes Brenda the pleasure and profit of freeing her from her remark that “We could never live anywhere else”: they
her marriage. The rest of the fortune—about an exotic indeed can and will not live anywhere else together; Brenda
overseas voyage, growing a beard, and dying—actually leaving Hetton ends their marriage.
happens to Tony.
Of course, Beaver has no way of knowing his joke fortune
will prove surprisingly true. His accuracy is a random act of
chance. At the same time, however, it points to a kind of
predetermination beyond human comprehension. Waugh
intentionally constructed his novel this way, exploiting his
authorial control to create an analogy for his religious
argument. Just as his characters blunder through a world
whose artistic design is hidden to them, humans live in
world of apparent randomness that actually operates
according to God’s deeper but concealed purposes.

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“What's all the news?” But with the exception of her sister's, opinion was greatly
“Ben's put the rail up ever so high and Thunderclap and I in favour of Brenda's adventure. The morning telephone
jumped it six times yesterday and six times again to-day and buzzed with news of her; even people with whom she had the
two more of the fish in the little pond are dead, floating upside barest acquaintance were delighted to relate that they had
down all swollen and nanny burnt her finger on the kettle seen her and Beaver the evening before at a restaurant or
yesterday and daddy and I saw a fox just as near as anything cinema. It had been an autumn of very sparse and meagre
and he sat quite still and then went away into the wood and I romance; only the most obvious people had parted or come
began drawing a picture of a battle only I couldn't finish it together, and Brenda was filling a want long felt by those whose
because the paints weren't right and the grey carthorse the one simple, vicarious pleasure it was to discuss the subject in bed
that had worms is quite well again” over the telephone […] The choice of Beaver raised the whole
escapade into a realm of poetry for Polly and Daisy and Angela
“Nothing much has happened,” said Tony. “We've missed you.
and all the gang of gossips.
What did you find to do in London all this time?”

Related Characters: Brenda Last , John Beaver, Polly

Related Characters: Tony Last, Brenda Last , John Andrew
Cockpurse
(speaker)
Related Themes:
Related Themes:

Page Number: 63 Related Symbols:

Explanation and Analysis Page Number: 67

After John Beaver escorts Brenda to Polly Cockpurse’s Explanation and Analysis
party in London, the two of them begin an affair that keeps
While Tony broods at Hetton, Brenda and John Beaver’s
Brenda in town for a few days longer than expected. When
affair has entered full swing in London, quickly becoming
Brenda arrives, long overdue, back at Hetton, Tony and
the talk of the town. This passage captures the atmosphere
John Andrew go to meet her at the train. John Andrew’s
of excitement in London around the unexpected
gush of “news” that his mother has missed provides a
development. The telephone figures centrally in their
heartwarming view into a child’s world, where everything
affair’s rise to prominence in the local imagination. The
that happens is interesting and important. Tony, by contrast,
device can spread news instantaneously while offering a
summarizes the same period of time by saying, “Nothing
sense of distance and privacy to the user; and this
much has happened.” His assessment reveals the dullness of
combination allows the town gossips to indulge their nosing
his adult perception of things, as well as the unexpected
and speculation without shame. The sense of unreality it
boredom of his daily life, which has become apparent in only
affords absolves the gossips of normal human
a few days of Brenda’s absence.
considerations, like the feelings of Tony or John Andrew,
What’s more, Tony’s response signals a divide growing which never seem to be given a thought. The “vicarious
between himself and John Andrew. Not only does he not pleasure” of speculating about someone else’s affair finds a
take notice of or find worth mentioning the sources of perfect home on the vicarious medium of the telephone.
excitement that fill up his son’s days, but he is also eager to Waugh’s choice of the word “buzzed” both evokes the
quiet John Andrew down so that he can get information out excitement in the air and imbues it with a sense of insectoid
of Brenda about her recent actions. Tony does not yet menace, as if London’s telephone wires were the fibers
suspect her infidelity, but he is ill-equipped for even the few holding together a wasps’ hive of gossip (perhaps with Polly
days’ separation he has just endured, and he immediately Cockpurse as the queen wasp).
feels discomfited. The passage indicates the growing toll
that Brenda’s affair will take on her and Tony’s relationship
with John Andrew, who becomes a victim of the increasingly
limited attention they have to give him.

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“How difficult it is for us,” he began, blandly surveying his Chapter 3: Hard Cheese on Tony Quotes
congregation, who coughed into their mufflers and chafed
“You know there wasn't really much for her to do all the
their chilblains under their woolen gloves, “to realize that this is
time at Hetton. Of course she'd rather die than admit it, but I
indeed Christmas. Instead of the glowing log fire and windows
believe she got a bit bored there sometimes. I've been thinking
tight shuttered against the drifting snow, we have only the
it over and that's the conclusion I came to. Brenda must have
harsh glare of an alien sun; instead of the happy circle of loved
been bored…”
faces, of home and family, we have the uncomprehending stares
of the subjugated, though no doubt grateful, heathen. Instead
of the placid ox and ass of Bethlehem,” said the vicar, slightly Related Characters: Tony Last (speaker), Brenda Last , Jock
losing the thread of his comparisons, “we have for companions Grant-Menzies
the ravening tiger and the exotic camel, the furtive jackal and
the ponderous elephant...” And so on, through the pages of Related Themes:
faded manuscript.
Page Number: 77

Related Characters: Mr. Tendril (speaker) Explanation and Analysis

In the months after Christmas, Brenda has been spending
Related Themes: more and more of her time in London under the guise of an
economics course, but really carrying on her affair with
Page Number: 71
John Beaver. Tony goes to London to pay her a surprise visit,
Explanation and Analysis but when he arrives at her flat, she is “out somewhere” and
can’t be reached. He goes to Brat’s social club, where he
The Christmas season has interrupted Brenda and John
drinks heavily with Jock and begins spilling his maudlin
Beaver’s regular London meetups, as Beaver travels to
ruminations. Tony’s conclusion that Brenda had been bored
Ireland with his mother while Brenda returns to Hetton. On
at Hetton is spot on. The question is, did he actually just
Christmas, the family goes to church, and Rev. Tendril
arrive at this insight after long consideration, or had he
delivers his usual Christmas sermon, providing an extended
known of her boredom all along but been unwilling to
example of his technique of recycling sermons written
acknowledge it?
decades ago for troops stationed in India. This passage
offers one of the novel’s most outrightly funny moments, The first scenario is perhaps more likely, and it underscores
reveling in the absurd incompatibility between Tendril’s how his self-absorption barred him from ever asking or
bombastic speech and the English countryside church thinking much about Brenda’s feelings at Hetton. In his
where it is delivered. mind, he was happy, so surely she was as well. The second
scenario implies a slightly more malign Tony, who had
At the same time, the sermon underlines the conflict
suppressed his awareness of Brenda’s boredom, or even
between “civilization” and barbarism that structures the
intentionally created an atmosphere where she would be
novel. The collapse of religious and cultural values amidst
unwilling to vocalize it. In either case, his soppy, drunken
the upheavals of modernity have made England an
confession of his insight is a pitiful scene.
unfriendly environment more akin to its far-flung colonial
holdings: the “harsh glare of an alien sun” now
metaphorically beats down even at home. As the novel
proceeds, Tony certainly feels that he “[has] for companions “Nothing could have been more fortunate,” Brenda said. “If
the ravening tiger [and] the furtive jackal,” first I know Tony, he’ll be tortured with guilt for weeks to come.”
metaphorically in the hostile circle of Brenda’s friends, then
literally in the harsh jungles of the Amazon. Ironically, by
Related Characters: Brenda Last (speaker), Tony Last
making a mockery of one of Christianity’s holiest days, Rev.
Tendril’s absurd speech itself embodies the problem that it Related Themes:
unintentionally describes.
Page Number: 89

Explanation and Analysis

After Brenda makes excuses not to see Tony on his surprise
visit to London, Tony goes on a self-destructive drunken

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spree with Jock. Brenda kicks Beaver out of her flat for fear Andrew’s bafflement again highlights a distinction between
of Tony coming by, but instead Tony just calls and bothers a child’s and an adult’s perspective generally, and a growing
her repeatedly throughout the long night. Brenda’s reaction rift between him and his father specifically. John Andrew’s
the next day throws light on her moral character. Up to this questions are unfiltered and totally justified: Tony going to
point, she has been having a fun extramarital fling with London just to phone Brenda makes no sense, yet he lacks
practically zero consequences. Tony’s actions last night, an adult’s subtlety to dance around the clearly
annoying as they may have been, clearly indicate for the first uncomfortable topic. The communicative barriers that
time that her absence and changed behavior are causing stiffen between adults are unintelligible to the honest
him acute psychological distress. Instead of taking stock of simplicity of a child’s mind. Ironically, John Andrew’s
her own actions and considering the pain she is inflicting, innocent questioning of this situation erects a
she immediately seizes on the opportunity to employ guilt communicative barrier between his father and himself: Tony
to continue cheating with impunity, knowing Tony will not lacks the patience to explain the complexities of adult
think to pry again. relationships to his son. Hungover and annoyed by what he
The issue of “knowing” Tony is crucial here. She does indeed receives as pestering, he soon snaps at John Andrew, and a
correctly guess his reaction, suggesting a boring new coldness enters their relationship.
predictability in keeping with Tony’s personality. Tony, by
contrast, doesn’t know Brenda nearly as well, seemingly
failing to notice that she had been bored, and remaining “This has been a jolly weekend”
incapable of believing that she would wrong him in all the
“I thought you were enjoying it”
ways she does throughout their separation. This imbalance
in knowledge of the other partner, largely attributable to “Just like the old times—before the economics began”
Tony’s complacent lack of curiosity about his wife, gives
Brenda the upper hand in their fragmenting marriage—all Related Characters: Tony Last, Brenda Last (speaker)
the way up until Tony’s first truly unpredictable action, his
rejection of her alimony demands. Related Themes:

Page Number: 115

“But you can telephone her from here, can't you, daddy? Explanation and Analysis
Why did you go all the way to London to telephone her?...
Brenda has been increasingly absent from and openly
Why, daddy?”
scornful of Hetton, pushing Tony further into aggravation
“It would take too long to explain.” and uncertainty about their marriage. Since she plans to
miss the upcoming Hetton fox hunt, a grand annual
Related Characters: Tony Last, John Andrew (speaker), tradition, Brenda decides to appease Tony by devoting a
Brenda Last whole weekend to him, and inviting up his actual friends
rather than her new ones. Brenda’s excuse for missing the
Related Themes: fox hunt is an exam in her fictitious economics course—the
course that has provided the cover for her whole affair with
Related Symbols: John Beaver. The cover is flimsy, and any amount of prying
by Tony could easily unravel it, but he never tries. His refusal
Page Number: 90 to pry is partly a lingering effect of the guilt Brenda exploits
over his drunken spree in London, but it also signals both his
Explanation and Analysis weakness and his naïve complacency. Tony can sense that
Tony returns from his failed surprise visit to Brenda, something is wrong in their marriage, but he lacks the
hungover and horribly embarrassed, and still not having courage to track it down. At the same time, he never seems
seen his wife. John Andrew has come to meet him at the to seriously suspect his cuckolding, as if he doesn’t attribute
Hetton train station, and he immediately floods Tony with a to Brenda either the malice or the wherewithal to cheat on
stream of enthusiastic questions about his visit to Brenda. him. His low opinion of his wife’s interests, responsible for
Tony is in no mood to chat, and he curtly explains that he the initial frustration that drove her to cheat on him, makes
didn’t see her; they only spoke over the telephone. John her alleged sudden interest in economics all the more

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incomprehensible to him, and he takes a jab at it here. Of

Related Themes:
course, Tony is the one intellectually denuded here, as
Brenda easily fools him into contentment with one weekend
Page Number: 140
of playing nice.
Explanation and Analysis
In the aftermath of John Andrew’s death, Tony seems to be
She hit him and the horse collected himself and bolted up in a mild state of shock, but this allows him to handle all the
the road into the village, but before he went one of his necessary arrangements diplomatically without being
heels struck out and sent John into the ditch, where he lay bent overwhelmed with emotion. While Jock travels to London to
double, perfectly still. deliver Brenda the news, Mrs. Rattery stays behind to keep
Everyone agreed that it was nobody’s fault. Tony company. Though they have just met, Tony feels
comfortable in her presence, candidly offering his real
thoughts about visitors like Rev. Tendril and, by extension,
Related Characters: John Andrew , Miss Ripon religion. Tony, however, doesn’t see his dismissal of religion
in this moment as a personal revelation, but rather just the
Related Themes: normal reaction. Waugh signals this with his generalizing
stock phrase “after all,” and the impersonal pronoun “one.”
Page Number: 127
This passage exposes the superficiality of religion in Tony’s
Explanation and Analysis life, which serves as a much-beloved part of his Sunday
routine but has nothing to offer him in a time of personal
John Andrew has been allowed to participate in the grand
crisis. What’s more, Tony makes no effort to pretend
annual fox hunt on Hetton grounds within certain limits, but
otherwise: the shallowness of his religiosity is freely
the limits are reached with no foxes found, and Ben Hacket
admitted and assumed to be universal. Religion, at the end
has to take him home. During a minor traffic jam, a noise
of the day, means no more to him than to the Londoners
startles Miss Ripon’s unruly horse, and it fatally kicks him.
who openly avoid it, and his trifling attitude towards it is a
Waugh’s sentence underscores the randomness, even
sign of his generally weak and trivial existence.
triviality, of the boy’s death by putting it in an appended
explanatory clause, as if it were just an afterthought to the
horse bolting up the road. He never even uses the words
“dead” or “died,” giving the impression that John Andrew’s She frowned, not at once taking in what he was saying.
death takes place in ellipsis. John Andrew’s parents have “John… John Andrew… I… Oh thank God…” Then she burst
increasingly ignored him in recent months, so his sudden into tears.
deletion aptly concludes this trend.
The speed with which “everyone agreed” to the conclusion Related Characters: Brenda Last (speaker), John Beaver,
that the boy’s death was “nobody’s fault” bespeaks a sense Jock Grant-Menzies , John Andrew
of guilt in everyone present. However, the group nature of
the experience rescues any one of them from receiving the Related Themes:
blame. The uneasy agreement between them not to cast
blame relies on their unspoken sense of common guilt, Page Number: 143
which itself provides a kind of paradoxical comfort in the
Explanation and Analysis
face of the idea that it really was “nobody’s fault,” an act of
pure randomness. After John Andrew’s accidental death, Jock volunteers to
deliver the news to Brenda in London so that Tony can rest
and deal with business at Hetton. He finds her at Polly
Cockpurse’s fortune telling party and informs her that
“I only wanted to see [Rev. Tendril] about arrangements.
“John” has died in an accident. After a moment of confusion,
He tried to be comforting. It was very painful… after all the
she delivers these words, revealing that she had at first
last thing one wants to talk about at a time like this is religion.”
thought Jock meant John Beaver had died. In a damning
moment of self-exposure, she blurts out “Oh thank God” to
Related Characters: Tony Last (speaker), Mrs. Rattery , Mr. hear that in fact John Andrew is the victim. This brutal slip
Tendril of the tongue reveals the true extent of her heartlessness,

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valuing her boy toy over her own son, whom she sees as an upended.
impediment to her affair.
On the other hand, this passage captures a moment of
naked honesty amid crisis, and it can even restore sympathy Chapter 4: English Gothic—II Quotes
to Brenda and her actions thus far. This unguarded “How’s the old boy taking it?”
admission reveals just how in love with Beaver she is
“Not so well. It makes me feel rather a beast,” said Brenda.
(foolish and misguided though that love may be), which
doesn’t justify but at least explains her appalling behavior up
to this point. Furthermore, it sheds light on the extent to Related Characters: Brenda Last , Polly Cockpurse
which she felt trapped with Tony and Hetton—a bondage (speaker), Tony Last
for which John Andrew, through no fault of his own, served
as an anchor. Though her reaction is shameful, it Related Themes:
nevertheless conveys the vertiginous thrill of liberation.
Page Number: 153

Explanation and Analysis

“But it’s not true, is it?” In the wake of John Andrew’s death, Brenda has suddenly
“Yes, I’m afraid it is. Everyone has known for some time.” separated from Tony and announced her love for John
Beaver. Polly Cockpurse and her other friends ask her
But it was several days before Tony fully realized what it meant.
about the fallout, but they swear allegiance to Brenda no
He had got into a habit of loving and trusting Brenda.
matter the outcome. The exchange encapsulates the
breakdown of communication and moral confusion that
Related Characters: Tony Last, Jock Grant-Menzies saturates A Handful of Dust. Brenda has avoided talking to
(speaker), Brenda Last , John Beaver Tony, even over the phone, and her report that he’s taking
the news “[n]ot so well” is actually based on the accounts of
Related Themes: intermediaries running between them. Moreover, the fact
that it even needed to be asked how Tony was responding to
Page Number: 152 Brenda’s actions, and that Brenda is upset by his negative
Explanation and Analysis reaction—as if he could conceivably have any
other—indicates how morally blind and dislocated Brenda
Brenda returns to Hetton and helps finish the arrangements
and her friends are.
concerning John Andrew’s death, but she then quickly
leaves for a pre-appointed weekend at a friend’s house. Her Brenda’s remark that Tony’s reaction “makes [her] feel
departure is shocking enough, but then she telegrams Tony rather a beast” is fishing for sympathy from her friends,
from the friend’s house saying that she is in love with John although it does indicate some shred of conscience in her.
Beaver and will not return to Hetton. Jock, staying with The word choice, however, evokes the bestial undercurrent
Tony at the time, confirms the news. On one level, Tony’s running under “civilized” society all through the novel—Rev.
disbelief is understandable, as shock piles on shock. That Tendril’s tiger and furtive jackal. More specifically, it recalls
the odious Beaver has stolen his wife, in the immediate Brenda’s maiden name, Rex, which suggests both
wake of their son’s death, is truly hard to believe. Yet Tony’s imperiousness and the surname of a ferocious dinosaur. In
cluelessness goes beyond his present shock; it stems from the novel’s world, humans and beasts are hardly
his profound naivety and his poor understanding of Brenda. distinguishable.
He is literally the last person to find out: “Everyone has
known for some time.”
Tony was in a position to be so brutally blindsided in this
fashion because he has lived to an incredible agree
according to “habit,” his stodgy and uncurious adherence to
routine life in the home where he grew up, of which Brenda,
for him, had been simply a docile part. Indeed, “loving and
trusting Brenda” was not a profound gesture of personal
devotion but a “habit” itself. This passive, presumptuous way
of living exposes him to disaster when his assumptions are

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[Tony] reminded himself that phantasmagoric, and even
gruesome as the situation might seem to him, he was Related Characters: Tony Last
nevertheless a host, so that he knocked at the communicating
door and passed with a calm manner into his guest's room; for a Related Themes:
month now he had lived in a world suddenly bereft of order; it
was as though the whole reasonable and decent constitution of Related Symbols:
things, the sum of all he had experienced or learned to expect,
were an inconspicuous, inconsiderable object mislaid Page Number: 184
somewhere on the dressing table; no outrageous circumstance
Explanation and Analysis
in which he found himself, no new, mad thing brought to his
notice, could add a jot to the all-encompassing chaos that After Tony follows through with the self-incriminating
shrieked about his ears. divorce evidence scheme, Brenda’s brother Reggie goes to
meet him and reveals that Brenda’s reasonable alimony
agreement was not genuine; she wants 2,000 pounds
Related Characters: Tony Last annually, enough to force Tony to sell Hetton. In disbelief,
Tony calls Brenda, who confirms the demand, saying that it
Related Themes: was John Beaver’s idea. This passage registers the sudden
and massive disillusionment that Brenda’s words occasion
Page Number: 167
in Tony.
Explanation and Analysis Tony has indeed been “puzzled” on “many points” since
Tony has agreed to the alimony terms Brenda has suggested Brenda left him; the act was so incongruous with what he
through intermediaries, but due to the divorce laws of the thought he knew of both Brenda’s character and the way
time, both parties agree that Tony should frame himself for the world worked that he remains simply confused for a
adultery to smooth the legal proceedings. He takes the long while. This final trampling of any sentimental
prostitute Milly to a dingy seaside resort for a weekend of attachment to either conception takes down as well the
staged illicit lusts, to be documented by hired sleuths. This “whole Gothic world” that comprised the fantasy in which
passage captures the clash between the nightmarish and he lived. The passage delights in the slight ridiculousness of
utterly unexpected reality he now faces and the bone-deep that fantasy world’s décor, mock-sentimentally invoking the
sense of propriety to which he still clings. The “cream and dappled unicorns” that melt in the light of the
“phantasmagoric, and even gruesome…situation” in which modern heartlessness and exploitation Brenda displays.
he now finds himself foreshadows the literal, gruesome Tony’s conception of the world, shaped by his garish neo-
phantasmagoria of his Amazonian fever dreams. Yet the Gothic home, had always been silly. In truth, he should have
fundamental rupture has already taken place: his recognized that long ago—before, for instance, agreeing to
sentimental trust in “the whole reasonable and decent frame himself to aid his cheating wife in their divorce. The
constitution of things” has already been bankrupted, and crumbling of his cherished fantasy-life, however, sets the
this period between Brenda leaving him and his Amazon stage for a radical act of self-assertion.
journey sees him futilely trying to maintain a sense of
“order” amid the “all-encompassing chaos.” “Order” for Tony
here consists in upholding the duty of a host. Ironically, his Chapter 5: In Search of a City Quotes
shirking this duty during John Beaver’s visit to Hetton “You’re the explorer, aren’t you?”
indirectly allowed for Beaver and Brenda’s affair. He was
“Yes, come to think of it, I suppose I am.”
disappointed in his own behavior at the time, and by now, it
seems that he has learned his lesson.
Related Characters: Tony Last (speaker)

Related Themes:
He hung up the receiver and went back to the smoking-
room. His mind had suddenly become clearer on many Page Number: 190
points that had puzzled him. A whole Gothic world had come to
grief... there was now no armour glittering through the forest Explanation and Analysis
glades, no embroidered feet on the green sward; the cream and Shortly following Tony’s stunning announcement that he
dappled unicorns had fled... will concede nothing to Brenda because Winnie’s presence

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in Brighton gives him an alibi, he finds himself on a midsized England and its currently unpleasant associations and
ocean liner headed across the Atlantic. Just a few weeks joined the zany explorer Dr. Messinger’s quest for a lost
prior, he had been casting about for a vacation plan to get Amazonian city. As he passes time aboard the long and
away from England, and he threw in his hat with the boring transatlantic crossing, Tony rhapsodizes in his mind
eccentric Dr. Messinger, joining his voyage seeking a over the City they hope to find. This Gothic fantasy follows
legendary lost city in the Amazon. A passenger on deck asks hard on the heels of his disenchanting realization that “a
him the question in this passage, which captures Tony’s whole Gothic world had come to grief.” The gushing
humorous passivity even in the midst of a life-altering descriptions of “vanes and pinnacles, gargoyles,
commandeering of his own destiny. Tony’s “come to think of battlements,” and so on do indeed evoke “a transfigured
it, I suppose I am” shows his continuing disinclination to Hetton,” the genuinely medieval and enchanted city that the
assert himself, to think consciously about who he is and neo-Gothic Hetton strives to be.
what he wants, even as he takes the first radical and Tony’s hasty relapse into Gothic fantasia signals the sad
unexpected turn in his life. limitations of his imagination. He has boldly, even recklessly,
But the line also shows him warming up to the new identity: thrown himself into a loony voyage to the Amazon in order
not having to work for a living, he has never previously been to flee England and Hetton, yet the utopia he conjures is
anything but “Tony Last.” Now he not only has a title, but it’s just another version of home. The initial impetus behind his
the boldest job description there is—one totally out of brash decision—namely, to shake off his passive lifestyle and
keeping with who he has been his whole, passive life. This redefine himself— seems already thwarted. The new
change is exciting, but unfortunately, it doesn’t mean much: fantasy, as it stands, seems destined for disappointment in
Tony certainly goes along on Messinger’s exploration, but the very un-Gothic Amazon jungle, about which Tony seems
he’s mainly a dead weight who doesn’t take too much to know nothing at all.
interest in his surroundings or the projected destination.
Tony thought that making the leap to join the expedition
would suffice to transform him, but once in the thick of it, he “Is it absolutely safe?”
acts basically the same.
“Oh, I imagine so. The whole world is civilized now, isn’t
it—charabancs and Cook’s offices everywhere.”

For some days now Tony had been thoughtless about the
events of the immediate past. His mind was occupied with Related Characters: Brenda Last , Jock Grant-Menzies
the City, the Shining, the Many Watered, the Bright Feathered, (speaker), Tony Last
the Aromatic Jam. He had a clear picture of it in his mind. It was
Gothic in character, all vanes and pinnacles, gargoyles, Related Themes:
battlements, groining and tracery, pavilions and terraces, a
Page Number: 211
transfigured Hetton, pennons and banners floating on the
sweet breeze, everything luminous and translucent; a coral Explanation and Analysis
citadel crowning a green hill-top sown with daisies, among
As Tony and Dr. Messinger hack their way through the
groves and streams; a tapestry landscape filled with heraldic
Amazonian jungle, Tony falls prey to a thousand minor ills,
and fabulous animals and symmetrical, disproportionate
from constant insect attacks to sunburn and scabs. The
blossom.
narrative intermittently cuts back to England where, in this
passage, Brenda dances with Jock at a social gathering.
Related Characters: Tony Last Waugh’s cutting back and forth between the two locales
serves two purposes: first, to humorously contrast the
Related Themes: Amazonian sufferings to which Tony has pointlessly
subjected himself with the refined niceties of home; and
Related Symbols: second, to undercut those very niceties with an image of
what really lies beneath them—barbarism and savagery.
Page Number: 196 In this light, Jock’s comment that “the whole world is
Explanation and Analysis civilized now” serves both purposes: in the sense he means
it, it’s hilariously untrue of Tony’s hostile environment,
Tony, having deflected Brenda’s extortion demands, has fled

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which is anything but safe. At the same time, the shallow

Related Themes:
sense in which he conceives of “civilization,” equating it with
niceties like autobuses (charabancs), reveals how unmoored
Page Number: 246
the supposedly civilized society in England has become.
Purely technological and materialistic, it abounds with Explanation and Analysis
bestial human counterparts to the real beasts in Tony’s While Tony continues to struggle through the Amazon, back
surroundings. in England, Brenda’s fortunes have turned: her cash has
dried up, and John Beaver and her socialite friends have left
her behind. She desperately petitions the Last family
“From now onwards the map is useless to us,” said Dr. solicitor for alimony funds in Tony’s unexpectedly long
Messinger with relish. absence, but he insists that Tony specifically instructed
against this, and informs her that Richard Last and his family
are Hetton’s heirs. This passage continues Waugh’s
Related Characters: Dr. Messinger (speaker), Tony Last
counterpointing of Brenda’s and Tony’s parallel demises:
Related Themes: just like Tony in the Amazon, Brenda has become too weak
to feed herself and collapses in “an agony of resentment and
Page Number: 217 self-pity.” The parallelism underscores the barbarism in
England that can consume even its most gleeful
Explanation and Analysis practitioners.
With the English-speaking Rosa’s help, Dr. Messinger has Yet Brenda’s change of fortune has brought her no insight:
successfully enlisted a group of Macushi Indians to guide her resentment remains for Tony, and for herself she only
him and Tony further into the jungle, intending to close in on has pity. She congratulates herself on her “[attempt] to keep
the elusive lost City. The expedition has already hit several a fair mind towards” the man whose life she upended and
hiccups and gotten seemingly disoriented, but Dr. whom she tried to extort, yet she cannot maintain it in the
Messinger’s confidence remains unflagging. Tony goes along face of his continuing to resist her plunder. The absurd self-
dutifully and scarcely raises a peep, so his thoughts about absorption of this stance illustrates the impossibility of
their prospects are hard to gauge. Dr. Messinger’s Brenda taking responsibility for her actions. Her current
declaration in this passage encapsulates the general feeling plight is pitiful but not pitiable.
of the latter portion of the novel, and it invokes the theme of
aimlessness and the loss of tradition that has run through
the whole work. Chapter 6: Du Côté de Chez Todd Quotes
Tony has lived by the “map” of antiquated notions and habits “I will tell you what I have learned in the forest, where time
his whole life. Brenda’s betrayal forces him to realize that is different. There is no City. Mrs. Beaver has covered it with
that map doesn’t correspond with the real world and must chromium plating and converted it into flats.”
be abandoned. The customs of the old world, like the faded
sheets of Rev. Tendril’s ancient sermons, are “useless to us”
“[f]rom now onwards.” But without the guideposts of Related Characters: Tony Last (speaker)
tradition, Waugh suggests, people are adrift. The delirious
freedom of living without a “map,” as the ruthlessly modern Related Themes:
London socialites do, is really an existential abyss that
Page Number: 255
metaphorically corresponds to the literal maplessness and
terror of Tony’s jungle misadventure. Explanation and Analysis
After Dr. Messinger’s death, Tony is left alone in the jungle,
totally delirious with fever and seemingly guaranteed to die.
For weeks past she had attempted to keep a fair mind Astonishingly, he stumbles onto the ranch of the English-
towards Tony and his treatment of her; now at last she speaking local honcho Mr. Todd, who will nurse him back to
broke down and turning over buried her face in her pillow, in an health. When Tony arrives, he is still gripped by wild
agony of resentment and self-pity. hallucinations combining all his experience of the last
several months, and this passage provides his crazed
Related Characters: Brenda Last

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summation of the phantasmagoria. Unlike Brenda, whose Page Number: 257

lowest point brings her despair but no insight, Tony’s
delirium grants him a real vision of the nature of things. Explanation and Analysis
Tony is finally stripped of every fantasy he ever held to, as As Mr. Todd slowly brings Tony out of his feverish madness
he comes to see that “[t]here is no City”—i.e., utopia, the and back to health, he can increasingly converse with his
gushing Gothic dream, a fundamental order and civilization: guest, sharing much about his own background and also
none of them are real. inquiring about Tony’s beliefs. Mr. Todd’s father was a
But the realization is ambiguous: “There is no City” implies missionary, hence his interest in the existence of God, but
that all ideas of order are fictions, and that a heart of he doesn’t press Tony on the point. Tony’s admission that he
darkness lies at the center of things. But “Mrs. Beaver has has “never really thought about it much” encapsulates the
covered it with chromium plating and converted it into flats” weakness of his character. His disinclination to probe the
implies that the City once really existed, and that the religion he nominally subscribes to and clarify his own
rapacious, anti-traditional forces of modernity embodied in deepest beliefs is of a piece with his incuriosity about his
Mrs. Beaver have willfully destroyed it. When he returns to surroundings, including his wife. Waugh suggests that this
health, Tony loses the insight he gained in delirium, and the brand of socially commonplace impersonal agnosticism
ambiguity is never settled; Waugh instead leaves it for the leads to a dulling of spirit that will make one blunder one’s
reader to ponder. way through a vague and incomprehensible life. Tony’s
trifling attitude towards the most fundamental question
reflects the general passive laziness of his existence.
“Do you believe in God?” Ironically, Tony will have the rest of his life to ponder such
questions as he languishes in the jungle confines of Mr.
“I suppose so. I’ve never really thought about it much.” Todd’s ranch. Mr. Todd, whose name means “death” in
German, perhaps allegorically represents the prison of
Related Characters: Tony Last, Mr. Todd (speaker) death from which Waugh believed Christianity provided the
escape. Tony fails to seize on this escape and is left to his
Related Themes: poetic doom.

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SUMMARY AND ANAL

ANALYSIS
YSIS
The color-coded icons under each analysis entry make it easy to track where the themes occur most prominently throughout the
work. Each icon corresponds to one of the themes explained in the Themes section of this LitChart.

CHAPTER 1: DU CÔTÉ DE CHEZ BEAVER

In 1930s London, interior decorator Mrs. Beaver stands in The opening scene displays Mrs. Beaver’s ruthless profit-seeking
front of an actively burning house and discusses with her son instinct, seeing personal financial opportunity in the tragedies of
the profit to be made from redecorating it. Her son, John others—foreshadowing the very last scene of the novel. Mrs.
Beaver, is an unemployed 25-year-old Oxford graduate who Beaver’s son shares his mother’s exclusive interest in self-
lives at home with his mother, a widow. The two gossip advancement, but he lacks her shrewd determination and is more of
together, and Mrs. Beaver encourages John’s social climbing a free-floating parasite. The name “Beaver” captures both the
and freeloading efforts. John usually sits at home by the mother’s industriousness and the son’s absurdity.
telephone, waiting for an invite to a free meal. These
invitations are often last-minute, as his friends ask him to fill in
for people who dropped out at the 11th hour.

John Beaver has received a passing and probably insincere John Beaver’s practice here reveals what must be his standard
invite from Tony Last to spend the weekend at Hetton, his operating procedure—squeezing an invite out of someone in passing
country estate. Mrs. Beaver advises him to hold Tony to his and then unexpectedly following up on it. Mrs. Beaver’s cynical
promise, insisting that Beaver send the Lasts a telegram advice, and her infinite supply of pertinent gossip, bolster her dim
instead of calling them, since this will make it harder for them son’s social climbing career. This scene also highlights the totality of
to come up with an excuse to go back on the invitation. She also her influence on John in the absence of his deceased father.
explains that Tony’s wife is Brenda, a once highly desired girl
whom she feels is wasted on the boring Tony. Mrs. Beaver, for
her part, always thought Brenda should have ended up with
someone like Jock Grant-Menzies.

While waiting by the phone in the hopes of receiving a lunch The ironic twist in this phone call illustrates Beaver’s sad
invite, John Beaver is delighted to finally get a call. It’s from dependence on others—if he could find employment, he would not
Mrs. Tipping, who Beaver knows is having a luncheon party need to rely on others for food, and he would also probably earn
that day. Expecting to receive a last-minute invite, he eagerly more respect from the social circle on whom he constantly
answers—but Mrs. Tipping only asks if he knows how she could freeloads. His mother acts as a modest safety net, but Beaver’s
get in touch with Jock Grant-Menzies, to whom Beaver laziness renders him, in practice, a kind of bourgeois panhandler.
introduced her the previous night. Beaver suggests that she try
reaching Jock at a gentleman’s club called Brat’s. Mrs. Tipping
thanks him and quickly ends the call.

John Beaver heads to the pseudo-elegant social club Brat’s, The social dynamics at Brat’s club provide a glimpse of the
which was established just after World War I by young men confusion and frayed social fabric of England between the wars. The
who wanted a place to socialize without being judged by the normal progression of generations has been interrupted by WWI,
older generations. Now, though, these men have themselves Europe’s first major conflict in a century, which left the veterans’
become middle-aged, and they look down on Beaver’s generation alienated from those both older and younger. The
generation, which is made up of young men who have never likeable Jock can bridge this divide, while Beaver cannot.
been to war and don’t seem manly or gentlemanly. In particular,
Beaver isn’t very popular at the club, though the older men do
accept people like Jock Grant-Menzies.

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At Brat’s, John Beaver sits off to the side instead of going up to Jock demonstrates why people like him in his easygoing display of
the bar. Eventually, Jock Grant-Menzies comes over and buys warmth towards the unliked Beaver. His lack of interest in the
him a drink. The two men talk about Mrs. Tipping, and Jock says luncheon that Beaver was desperate to join likewise indicates both
he has no interest in going to her luncheon party—he doesn’t a firmer social standing and a greater self-assurance than Beaver
like social engagements of that kind. Preparing for his trip to possesses. Jock’s “enviably” comment is foreboding, considering
Brenda and Tony Last’s country estate, Beaver asks Jock about Mrs. Beaver’s remark about boring Tony and beautiful Brenda.
the couple, and Jock tells him that Tony Last is an enviably
happy man.

As John Beaver and Jock chat, a server comes over and informs Beaver manages to get by while being perennially broke by taking
Beaver that he has an unpaid tab from the previous month, but advantage of gentlemanly customs like buying your mate a drink
Beaver quickly dismisses him, acting as if paying it simply and charging things to a long-running tab. When confronted with
slipped his mind. Soon enough, Beaver stands to leave, his fiscal shortcomings, he awkwardly tries to play them off. Jock
flippantly assuming Jock probably doesn’t want another was benevolent in going over to join Beaver, but he couldn’t resist
drink—but Jock says he actually does want another round. making him squirm by obliging Beaver to buy him a drink in return,
Beaver quickly places the order, and when the server asks if he and sharing a laugh about it afterward with the other club
should put the round on his tab, Beaver says yes. Later, after members.
Beaver has left, Jock tells some other club members that he
made Beaver pay for a drink. When the other members note
that Beaver must have hated this, Jock says, “He nearly died of
it.”

After leaving Jock, John Beaver goes downstairs and calls Beaver here displays his parasitic nature, as he all too eagerly leaps
home to see if there are any messages. He learns that Mrs. on the spot at the luncheon that Jock, who sees this kind of
Tipping called to invite him to her luncheon party. Beaver asks gathering as beneath his interest, declined.
his mother’s staff to send word that he’s on his way and will be
a little late.

CHAPTER 2: ENGLISH GOTHIC—I

As the day begins, Tony Last lays in bed at Hetton, reflecting on Tony’s unhurried morning routine, waking up in his childhood
the estate: the neo-Gothic style of its 1860s renovation has bedroom in a house fashioned after medieval romantic legend,
become ridiculous to modern tastes, but Tony is confident that illustrates the coddled and somewhat childish and naïve life he has
it will come back in style. He knows that maintaining such a been privileged to lead, as a member of the landed gentry.
sprawling, archaic house is expensive and inconvenient, but his Nevertheless, his concern for the repairs shows a mature
sentimental attachment to the estate runs deep. He grew up appropriation of his childhood surroundings, and his commitment
here and still sleeps in his childhood bedroom—named, like all to the estate’s unfashionable aesthetic shows his willingness to
the rooms in the house, after figures from Arthurian legend (his stand against the current of popular taste. The irony is that the
is Morgan le Fay). These days, the pseudo-medieval décor house is not ancient at all.
throughout the house is in a state of mild disrepair, but Tony
doubts whether he could find craftsmen today with the skill and
subtlety that the repairs would demand.

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Tony rouses himself, heads down to Brenda Last’s room, and Tony and Brenda seem to enjoy a mutual marital bliss, although
joins her in her bed, an uncharacteristically modern piece of Brenda’s modern bed—and the fact that they sleep in different
furniture that she had insisted upon having. The two canoodle rooms—points to some differences between them. Brenda’s
while she goes through the morning mail, reporting various uniformly casual tone in reading disturbing news articles suggests
social invites, and then reads aloud from the newspaper. some callousness in her personality.
Brenda reads the sensational news of violent crimes in the
same casual tone as the local puff pieces, among which are
featured her brother Reggie, an explorer, and Jock Grant-
Menzies, who’s a member of Parliament.

Brenda then reads from a serialized story in the paper and Tony not paying attention to his wife, and Brenda’s evident
surprises Tony with a pop quiz, exposing him for not paying dissatisfaction with his aversion to social gatherings, here take the
attention. Tony similarly shows no interest in the social invites form of a lighthearted tiff—but they foreshadow a deeper rift. Tony’s
they’ve received and dismisses them all out of hand. He dislikes infatuation with Hetton seems to crowd out most of the other
company, whether in the form of leaving Hetton or of hosting aspects of social life in which Brenda retains an interest.
guests. Brenda complains that having a huge house with such
expensive upkeep is “pointless” without having guests,
offending Tony. Their spat, however, is only mild and playful.

Outside, Tony and Brenda’s young son John Andrew practices Ben Hacket cuts a notably more vigorous and earthy character than
riding on his horse Thunderclap—a gift from his uncle anyone seen so far, an indicator of his lower social and economic
Reggie—with Ben, the gruff stable tender. Ben entertains John class. John Andrew is too young to have internalized the rules and
Andrew with uncouth stories about livestock, including a mule proprieties of British class etiquette, and he shows a natural male
named Peppermint, who drank a whole WWI troop’s rum enthusiasm for Ben’s vulgar tales and tough comportment. The
supply in the trenches and died. Ben has also taught John nanny is a traditional worrywart and defender of propriety.
Andrew to swear, horrifying the boy’s prim nanny: he calls her a
“silly old tart,” and she reports his language to his parents,
blaming Ben for the crass behavior John Andrew has started to
exhibit.

Tony and Brenda are privately amused by John Andrew’s insult Tony and Brenda can privately appreciate John Andrew’s innocence
to the nanny, but Tony feels he must reprimand him anyhow. He and share a laugh at the humorless nanny. However, the incident
explains to John Andrew that Ben is of a lower class and his provides occasion for Tony to indoctrinate John Andrew in class
behavior must not be emulated. John Andrew, however, claims ideology and etiquette. Once learned, that code of etiquette can be
to love Ben more than his own mother. Tony gets serious and privately laughed at, but it must be publicly adhered to as a matter
tells John Andrew that Hetton will one day belong to him, and of appearance. The flimsiness of that superficial system is evident in
that he must learn to act the part of a gentleman and “be Tony’s easy surrender to John Andrew’s complaints. The moment is
considerate to people less fortunate than you, particularly ambiguous, showing both Tony’s affection for his son and his
women.” As punishment for John Andrew’s swearing, Tony tries general weakness.
to take away a day’s riding, but he easily folds under his son’s
complaints. John Andrew, meanwhile, continues to casually
swear.

Tony and Brenda dine alone in their palatial dining hall, which The solitary meal in the giant, poorly heated hall emphasizes Tony
varies wildly in temperature despite their several attempts to and Brenda’s social isolation at Hetton, and the impracticality of its
stabilize it. Though both healthy, they adhere to a fad diet upkeep. Their embrace of a fad diet seems to point to an absence of
barring starch and proteins from the same meal, as a way to meaningful structure in their lives.
add structure and interest to their meals.

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Suddenly, a telegram arrives from John Beaver, announcing his Tony embraces the trappings of chivalry and nobility at Hetton, but
imminent arrival by train. Tony is aghast that Beaver has he freaks out when hospitality is asked of him—based on an invite
actually accepted his insincere invitation, and he begins that he actually made, however insincere—and he tries to subvert it
plotting how to make his stay uncomfortable enough that he’ll at once. Brenda steps up to deal with the unwelcome guest, hinting
swiftly leave. Brenda does not know Beaver but supports at both Tony’s weakness and her own hunger for human contact.
Tony’s plan, recalling with displeasure that they owe his mother
Mrs. Beaver some money. She volunteers to entertain Beaver
while Tony flees to his chores.

Brenda feels less self-conscious without Tony around and Beaver’s arrival makes Brenda realize just how isolated she has
actually enjoys chatting with John Beaver as they stroll around been, giving her a taste of the swinging London life that she left
the grounds. Beaver updates Brenda on the London gossip and behind for Tony. The fact that she quickly takes to the unliked
social happenings from which she has been largely absent. Beaver perhaps indicates the low bar she has set at this point for
When Beaver mentions Polly Cockpurse’s upcoming party, social contact of any kind.
Brenda says that she and Tony were invited but don’t expect to
go, since “[w]e never go anywhere nowadays.”

John Andrew arrives and begins rattling off crude questions to Beaver displays a surprising grace under pressure, owning up to his
the new guest, forcing John Beaver to admit that he is poor and own petty existence. His good form persists as he stoically endures a
unemployed—though he remains cool while doing so. That movie that he’s already seen in order to avoid awkwardness. Tony,
evening, Tony joins Beaver and Brenda for dinner, and then by contrast, continues his ungracious hosting by putting Beaver in
they all go to a movie that Beaver has seen before but pretends an inhospitable room, although he knows it’s wrong. Brenda may
like he hasn’t. Tony assigns Beaver to a terrible room for the well register the unexpected imbalance in conduct between the two
night but then feels guilty about it. Beaver passes a sleepless men.
night in his uncomfortable bed. Brenda, meanwhile, seems to
like Beaver fine.

The next day, Tony once again leaves Brenda with John Tony’s methodical inhospitality has worked, but even the few hours
Beaver—who has decided to return home early, as Tony hoped. that remain of Beaver’s truncated visit are too much for him to
Tony goes to the estate church, as is his custom, enjoying chat tolerate, so Brenda graciously steps up again. John Andrew,
with the villagers. On the way, John Andrew recounts Ben’s meanwhile, continues to display the rough influence of Ben, whose
vulgar story of Peppermint the mule, killed by his rum conception of humor embraces the dark and the obscene that
consumption. Tony finds this story sad, but John Andrew says Tony’s sentimentality shuns.
that he had thought so too until Ben explained that it’s actually
hilarious.

At church, the Rev. Tendril, as always, delivers one of his Almost as surprising as Tendril’s absurdly unsuitable sermons is the
sermons written decades ago for troops stationed in India, parishioners’ placid reception of them. Clearly, neither party is
without changing a word. The villagers in the congregation are concerned with this ritual making substantive sense. Tony matches
well accustomed to these bizarrely incongruous sermons and the “invariable formula” of Tendril’s sermons with a formula of his
don’t find anything wrong with them, as they expect nothing of own about Brenda’s perennial absence, showing the blithe
personal relevance from the pleasant ritual of churchgoing. superficiality of the whole custom. Meanwhile, John Andrew’s crass
Afterward, Tony feeds the villagers “the invariable formula” of behavior continues to upset the behavioral class distinctions
mild sickness as an excuse for why Brenda couldn’t come. John between Tony and the poorer village parishioners.
Andrew continues telling the story of Peppermint to anyone
who will listen, earning a further rebuke from his nanny. On the
way home, Tony fulfils another custom by picking buttonhole
flowers from the estate gardens.

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While Tony is gone, John Beaver and Brenda continue to get Beaver continues to perform surprisingly well as a guest; the success
along, and Brenda again laments her isolation at Hetton, where of his lame palm-reading gag again suggests that Brenda is starved
she and Tony “never make any new friends.” When Tony for casual social interaction of any kind. As Brenda continues to
returns, Beaver is reading Brenda’s palm, seriously at first but warm to Beaver, Tony insists on the absolute difference and
soon revealing his reading as a farce. Alone with Tony, Brenda incompatibility between Beaver and himself.
again denies that Beaver is all that bad and claims he even
resembles her and Tony, which Tony flatly rejects.

Tony and Brenda give John Beaver a two-hour tour of Hetton, Tony’s pride in Hetton overrules even his antipathy to spending time
with Tony proudly pointing out every feature and ancestral with Beaver, and he gladly inflicts an incredibly detailed house tour
knickknack in the estate. Beaver is a well-practiced house guest on his guest. Finally, in Beaver, Brenda has found someone to whom
and politely shows interest throughout the tour. Once Tony she can voice her true contempt for the garish mansion, which was
departs again, Brenda reveals her real loathing for the unstylish implicit in her choice of a modern bed. Her preference for the hard
estate, which she hides from Tony. She notes that if they sold it cash from selling it aligns her with the shortsighted fashion-chasers
they could be quite rich, whereas now maintaining the house whom Tony imagines he is resisting in defending Hetton.
and staff eats up all their wealth. Yet she’s aware that Tony
would never agree to part with the house—unlike her own
family, whose ancestral estate her brother Reggie sold without
objection.

Brenda convinces Beaver to stay another night, to Tony’s The pattern of the weekend continues, as Brenda acts as a gracious
chagrin. She and Beaver play parlor games while Tony reads the host to Beaver and finds that he is not such bad company after all,
papers. Tony is relieved when Beaver finally leaves, but Brenda while Tony had his mind made up long before Beaver’s arrival and
doesn’t seem to share his contempt for their guest. When continues not to engage. Brenda’s mention of interest in a London
Beaver returns home, he tells Mrs. Beaver that Brenda apartment hints at an incipient fraying in her and Tony’s marriage.
mentioned interest in finding a London apartment,
unbeknownst to Tony. Mrs. Beaver is excited about the
potential business.

Brenda goes to visit her sister Marjorie in London, as she does Brenda’s habitual travel by third-class rail reinforces her complaint
on occasion, always travelling by third class rail. Surprised to about being cash-poor due to the expenses of upkeep at Hetton.
hear that John Beaver had been a guest at Hetton, Marjorie Marjorie aligns with the general negative view of Beaver, and her
has nothing kind to say about him. Nevertheless, she presses shock at Brenda’s crush on him indicates the wild improbability of
Brenda until she admits her infatuation with Beaver, despite their romantic pairing.
finding him “pathetic.” She reiterates that she rarely sees young
men in her social life these days.

At lunch, they run into the socialite Polly Cockpurse, who again Brenda’s lunch out with Marjorie gives her a taste of the London
invites them to her upcoming party. Also present is Mrs. high life she left behind. It also, between the glad-handing Polly
Beaver, who aggressively markets a London flat to Brenda, Cockpurse and the relentless operator Mrs. Beaver, seems to
inviting her over for a cocktail that evening to further discuss validate Tony’s aversion to participating in the scene. Brenda’s
the lease. Brenda wonders doubtfully whether John Beaver will asking Beaver to take her to the party is a conscious lowering of
be home when she visits, but indeed he is, despite two other herself, and Beaver’s reluctance to accept her request indicates how
dinner invitations. Mrs. Beaver delivers a sales pitch for her thoroughly cheap and lazy he is.
sleek, minimalist apartment offerings. Later, John Beaver walks
Brenda to the train, but denies her request that he take her to
Polly’s party—secretly because he doesn’t want to take on the
likely expenses involved in dinner and cab fare.

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Brenda returns to Hetton totally drained from travel and Beaver’s change of heart perhaps suggests the Machiavellian
uninterested in conversation with Tony. The next day, she influence of Mrs. Beaver. Brenda makes a brief point of resisting
receives a telegram from John Beaver saying that he can take Beaver’s clumsy seduction, but she doesn’t maintain the act for long
her to Polly Cockpurse’s party after all. Leaving Tony and John and clearly desires him. The speed with which she seems to have
Andrew back at Hetton, Brenda meets Beaver in London for fallen for the unremarkable Beaver, to the neglect of her husband
dinner before the party. After a drink at Marjorie’s, in the cab to and young son, reveals just how bored and desperate she has
the restaurant, Beaver tries to kiss Brenda. She resists, leaving become at Hetton. Beaver’s initial and purely selfish reluctance to
Beaver confused. He makes an awkward apology over dinner, escort Brenda to the party seems to have psychologically flipped the
but Brenda implies that her issue was with Beaver’s clumsiness script on her, despite her obvious social superiority.
rather than the attempt itself. Brenda pays for the meal, and in
the subsequent cab to the party she takes the lead and kisses
Beaver.

The party is a predictable London soiree, successfully boosting Brenda effortlessly reenters the glamorous scene in which she was
Polly Cockpurse’s social clout as she had desired. Throughout once a star, while Beaver remains a frustrated outsider looking in.
the evening, Brenda misreads John Beaver’s social climbing Yet Brenda herself seems oblivious to this palpable imbalance in
priorities, and he has a frustrating evening of repeatedly ending their social standing. Beaver’s unjustified rudeness to Brenda should
up alone. Brenda frets over him not enjoying himself, but she be enough for her to dismiss him entirely, but his lack of interest
still dances with Jock Grant-Menzies and other old seems only to capture her heart even more.
friends—none of whom like Beaver, but with whom Beaver is
eager to be seen. Beaver is cold to Brenda when they split for
the night, and he remains so when she telephones him
romantically once they’re home.

The next morning, Brenda is self-conscious about this apparent Brenda is sharp enough to recognize Beaver’s evident faults, and
rejection and affirms to Marjorie her illogical attraction to the even his apparent lack of any positive qualities, but this only
admittedly unlikable John Beaver. Polly calls up and reveals confirms the irrational, uncontrollable nature of infatuation.
that Brenda’s dalliance with Beaver is already the talk of the Beaver’s pathetic resistance to Brenda’s advances out of simple
town. At their home, Mrs. Beaver exhorts her son to pursue stinginess adds another level of absurdity to her fixation on him. He
Brenda for the sake of his own social climbing and to secure her needs his opportunistic mother’s goading to relent, and once he
rental of one of Mrs. Beaver’s apartments. Beaver resists, again does, Brenda throws herself at him without reservation. The
invoking the continual costs of entertaining a woman. Brenda ubiquitous and instantaneous spread of gossip in London stands in
has given up on Beaver calling her as he’d promised and heads contrast to Tony’s ignorance as he putters around Hetton.
to lunch with Marjorie. By coincidence, Beaver is there, and
makes a lame excuse for not calling. Brenda lets it slide and
invites him to a movie, before brusquely telegramming Tony
that she’s staying in London a few more days.

Brenda returns to Hetton, an excited John Andrew, and a Tony has felt the sting of Brenda’s impromptu sojourn in London.
seemingly irked Tony. John Andrew gushes about all the His aggravation has apparently blinded him to the exciting world of
goings-on she has missed, including his horse-jumping progress young John Andrew’s adventures, as he has nothing to report to
and a drawing he’s working on, but Tony’s report is that Brenda. Brenda’s brashness in requesting Tony to pay for a London
“[n]othing much has happened.” Brenda immediately mentions apartment that will undoubtedly go to accommodating her new
the desired London flat to Tony and begins wearing away at his affair indicates how rapidly she has lost interest in, and respect for,
predictable refusals, laying on the charm while conjuring all Tony. The fact that the slick, efficient flat comes at the expense of
kinds of validations and flimsy arguments. Tony begins to cave Hetton repairs emphasizes the conflict between Tony’s stubborn
in to her, but he mentions that the expense of the flat would tastes and Brenda’s embrace of modernity.
mean having to delay overdue repairs at Hetton.

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Brenda swiftly returns to London and views one of Mrs. Brenda’s confidence when viewing Mrs. Beaver’s apartment again
Beaver’s flats with the confidence of a definite customer. In the indicates the rapidity with which she has elected to leave Hetton
meantime, however, Brenda continues to stay with Marjorie, behind and embrace a swinging London lifestyle. As Brenda’s sister,
who maintains her condemnation of Brenda’s affair, calling it Marjorie lacks the interest in gossiping about her that has
“hard cheese on Tony.” The rest of the London gossips, captivated the rest of the scene, and she might likewise be in the
however, seem enthralled with the development, eagerly best position to change Brenda’s mind. Yet her reprimands fall on
reporting on sightings of Brenda and John Beaver together out deaf ears, as Brenda’s infatuation with Beaver is already too deep.
on the town. Brenda had always captivated the minds of those
who live off gossip and fantasizing about others’ lives: her
beauty and elegance had once made her highly coveted around
London, but then, like a fairytale princess, she became shut up
in the remote environs of Hetton with her dull husband.

The sheer unlikelihood of the widely disliked John Beaver being The glee with which everyone in the London scene—even the
the one to steal Brenda’s heart has made her story even more philanderer’s mother—accepts and encourages this improbable
fantastical and poetic. Mrs. Beaver is as thrilled as everyone affair reveals the casual heartlessness of this slice of society. No one
else, seeing the affair as a wonderful improvement for her aside from Marjorie seems to give much thought to Tony’s feelings if
rather directionless son. John Beaver, for his part, is suddenly a he were ever to find out. Brenda’s disrespect for him advances even
“person of interest” for the first time in his life, winning esteem to the point of taking his calls with her lover in bed with her.
from the crowd at Brat’s. One night at her new apartment,
Brenda enthuses about the flat to Tony over the telephone
while Beaver lies beside her in bed.

At Christmas, John Beaver and Mrs. Beaver go to Ireland, while The holidays and Beaver’s departure force Brenda to spend more
Tony’s extended family comes to Hetton. Though time at Hetton than she has lately been doing. The annual gathering
comparatively poor, Tony’s relatives consider themselves at of Tony’s cousins provides a window onto the oddities of the British
home in the family estate and make Brenda uncomfortable with class system, where wealth passes only to the firstborn and the
their endless and un-classy parlor games in which she is forced other branches of the family sink into a lower class, with accordingly
to participate. Hetton winding up in Tony’s hands rather than different behaviors.
these relatives’ was due only to the custom of inheritance by
the firstborn son.

From Ireland, John Beaver sends Brenda a thoughtless, Through mere thoughtlessness and lethargy, Beaver continues to
unfinished thank-you note for an expensive ring she gave him. wage inadvertent psychological warfare on the abject Brenda, who
Brenda interprets the inconsiderate note as a lack of interest wraps herself ever more tightly around his finger. His inconsiderate
from Beaver and resigns herself to the fact. Over New Years, behavior and failure to give adequate thanks for Brenda’s lavish gift
Tony uncharacteristically insists on accompanying Brenda to a only fuel Brenda’s infatuation with him. Tony’s presence creates
friend’s home, because he’s seen so little of her lately. Once awkwardness, but he remains happily oblivious to any foul play.
there, he is surprised to find that Beaver is among the other Brenda conjures up a fictitious plan to study economics as a way to
guests. She and Beaver studiously avoid each other all spend more time with Beaver in London, signaling her increasing
weekend. The New Year begins with Brenda telling Tony she’s loss of interest in her husband and son.
resolved to take up a course in economics in London, as Hetton
and John Andrew get along fine without her.

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CHAPTER 3: HARD CHEESE ON TONY

At Brat’s, Tony and Jock Grant-Menzies have both been Jock diplomatically handles an uncomfortable situation by playing
ditched by their dates and link up to drink heavily. Tony had dumb about Tony’s cuckoldry and joining in his drinking binge. By
made a surprise visit to Brenda in London, but she is “out this point, Tony can tell something is wrong in his marriage, but
somewhere.” Jock is immediately uncomfortable as he tries to there is still no sign that he’s suspected his wife’s affair—with
gauge how much, if anything, Tony knows about Brenda’s affair anyone, much less the detested Beaver.
with John Beaver, which all of London knows about by now.

Tony rues his decision to make the surprise visit and complains The sadness of Tony’s situation now comes to light, as he reckons
that he doesn’t get along with Brenda’s new circle. He reflects with the fact of his formerly serene marriage faltering for reasons he
with disbelief on her apparent commitment to studying can’t understand. He finally realizes that Brenda has been bored at
economics, under which guise she’s been spending most of her Hetton—an obvious conclusion. His tardiness in reaching it reveals
time in London. He says that after much thought, he’s come to his naivete and failure to pay adequate attention to his wife. With
realize that Brenda may have been bored at Hetton. Jock feels Brenda around less and less, Tony now begins to experience the
low as well, due to trouble with his constituents over pork loneliness that she had been feeling at Hetton.
farming laws, and the two continue to drink a great deal. Tony
invites Jock to Hetton the next weekend, lamenting how he
never sees his old friends anymore.

A call arrives from Brenda, but it is John Beaver impersonating The sordid sequence of Tony’s night displays the floundering
a butler and telling Tony that Brenda is very tired and cannot helplessness to which Brenda has reduced him. His repeated failed
see him at all tonight. Quite drunk by this point, Tony calls back attempts just to get in touch with his wife are painful to witness, and
and insists on coming to the flat, while Brenda pleads with him even more so because it is still not clear that he recognizes that she’s
not to. She then telephones Jock and instructs him to prevent having an affair. His situation is helpless because leaving his
Tony from coming by the apartment, but she sends Beaver cheating wife alone will be just as disastrous for him as hounding
away anyhow as a precaution. Tony and Jock go on a drunken her. The night likewise exposes the fragility of his posh identity, as a
spree to the Old Hundredth, a seedy nightclub in an ethnic bad mood and a lot of drinks are all it takes to get him elbow to
neighborhood that has survived generations of attempts to elbow with prostitutes in one of London’s most notoriously sleazy
shut it down. At the club, two prostitutes named Milly and Babs nightclubs.
make their acquaintance, and the staff take advantage of their
inebriated customers by selling them food they didn’t order.
Tony makes numerous drunken phone calls to Brenda,
disturbing her all night.

The next day, Tony is hungover and ashamed. Brenda is secretly Brenda and Tony’s respective reactions the morning after his spree
thrilled, because Tony’s guilt over his behavior will keep him highlight the differences in their moral dispositions. Though he
from prying further. Back at Hetton, John Andrew meets Tony acted irresponsibly, Tony was well justified to be upset with Brenda,
at the train station and enthusiastically bombards him with but he only feels shame afterward. Brenda, whose behavior caused
questions about his trip to London. Tony has no good answers, Tony’s reckless spree, immediately sees it as an opportunity to guilt
since he didn’t even see Brenda, and he loses his patience and him into accepting her further misbehavior without complaint. John
hurts the boy’s feelings. John Andrew begins holding a grudge Andrew begins to become a casualty of his parents’ faltering
against his father. All evening, Tony remains wracked with marriage.
shame about his conduct the night before. He finally goes to
bed in Brenda’s empty room.

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The next day, Jock telegrams that his weekend visit will have to Tony does not need to work for a living. Brenda’s absence makes
be postponed. Tony finds himself with little to do by himself at apparent for the first time the silliness with which he was
Hetton, only now realizing how much time he used to waste accustomed to filling up his days. To boot, John Andrew no longer
with Brenda. John Andrew continues to hold a grudge against wants anything to do with him either.
his father, spurning his attempts at reconciliation.

Brenda, meanwhile, leans on Tony’s guilt and invites Polly, Mrs. For Tony, who detests company, this weekend gathering of Brenda’s
Beaver, and other London friends to Hetton for the weekend. vapid socialite chums is his worst nightmare. Brenda has been part
The women immediately begin disparaging the house’s of his world of quaint and affectionate rituals like gathering
architecture in front of Tony and suggesting improvements. buttonhole flowers since the beginning of their marriage, but now
Throughout the weekend, Brenda and her friends cackle she is willfully disrupting it and exposing it to mockery. Tony silently
continuously and subject Tony to numerous minor humiliations. endures the indignity of his loathsome guests.
His custom of bringing home buttonhole flowers for his guests
on the way back from church earns their scornful laughter, as
they’d been betting on what color flowers he would bring.

Brenda begins to worry that Tony will start acting up in Brenda’s recognition that her openly disdainful treatment of Tony
response to these indignities and the boredom of life at Hetton and Hetton may be going too far seems to indicate a degree of
without her around, and thereby potentially make trouble for conscience on her part. However, her response of trying to sidetrack
her affair. She thus conspires with Polly Cockpurse to mollify him with his own affair indicates two things: first, that she only
and distract Tony by setting him up with an affair of his own, thinks about Tony’s feelings out of preemptive self-interest; and
using her neighbor from the London flat, Jenny Abdul Akbar, as second, that she can only conceive of a plan based on what would
the bait. Invited for the weekend, Jenny comes out strong upon work on her. It predictably fails miserably on Tony, and the whole
arriving at Hetton in a cloud of musk and exotic furs. She curls fiasco calls into question how well she really knows Tony at all, and
up and purrs by Tony’s side but mistakes his name for Teddy. how their marriage functioned smoothly for as long as it did.
Tony finds this vulgar American widow of a Moroccan prince a
ridiculous woman, and her weekend of intended seduction at
Hetton is a disaster. He does not, however, suspect that Brenda
and Polly were putting Jenny up to the job.

John Andrew, on the other hand, seems to experience a sexual John Andrew’s infatuation with Jenny indicates that he has been
awakening when Jenny greets him with a kiss on the lips. starved for affection in the months since his parents’ marriage has
Thereafter the boy is quite enamored of her, asking her endless started to fray. It simultaneously underscores the boy’s ongoing
questions about her exotic appearance and mysterious past. natural rejection of the prim class etiquette standards that Tony,
Brenda and Polly ruefully admit that their plan has failed. who finds Jenny vulgar and distasteful, has internalized.
Meanwhile, Brenda’s disregard for Tony becomes increasingly
pronounced, with less and less effort put into her cover story of
studying economics.

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Brenda invokes her fictitious economics course to excuse In keeping with her self-interested attempt to lure Tony into an
herself from the upcoming fox hunt at Hetton, a grand annual affair, Brenda again recognizes that some kind of appeasement is
tradition. The weekend before the hunt, Brenda invites Jock, necessary for Tony in light of her skipping the fox hunt. She thus
Marjorie, and Marjorie’s husband Allan to Hetton, and Tony treats him affectionately, like she used to, for a whole weekend. The
enjoys the company. Brenda devotes the whole weekend to reader is treated to the ironic juxtaposition of the naïve Tony finally
Tony, making him glad as she accompanies him to church and raising a timid question about their marriage’s health to Brenda,
other habitual outings. Tony sleeps in bed with Brenda for the which she quickly dismisses, while everyone else in their house talks
first time in a long while, and he raises doubts about the health knowledgably about her affair.
of their marriage, saying that her being away so much makes
him wonder if she’s being unfaithful. Brenda reassures him that
their marriage is fine. Meanwhile, all their guests independently
speculate about whether the other guests know about
Brenda’s affair.

Tony convinces Jock to stay down for the fox hunt and invite his Mrs. Rattery acts as a foil to the predatory, status-obsessed women
girlfriend, Mrs. Rattery, mysteriously dubbed “the shameless that have featured in the plot so far. Her laconic “masculine” nobility
blonde.” She arrives at the wheel of her own propeller plane. likewise shows up Tony’s relative spinelessness. His low expectations
She speaks little and enjoys masculine activities, as well as for her also hint at his prejudicial lack of interest in women, as
extended solitaire sessions. Tony is surprised, as he had displayed in his treatment of Brenda early in the novel.
expected Jock’s girl to be a garrulous bimbo.

The day of the great fox hunt arrives, and John Andrew has Tony overrides the disapproving Nanny to allow John Andrew to join
been eagerly anticipating it for weeks. The whole community the fox hunt, suggesting that the father-son relationship is on the
takes part, and Tony permits John Andrew to ride along on mend. Throughout the novel, Ben Hacket seemingly takes a more
Thunderclap within a certain limit—much to the nanny’s active interest in John Andrew than Tony does, but his reluctant
chagrin, who thinks poorly of the whole hunting affair. On the observance of Tony’s designated limit serves as a reminder that he is
ride out, they pass Miss Ripon from the village barely ultimately Hetton’s employee.
controlling a frantic and unwieldy horse that her father has
been trying for some time to get rid of for an unfair price. When
the stipulated limit is reached and no foxes found, Ben Hacket
reluctantly insists that he must take the devastated John
Andrew home, while Jock proceeds with the hunt.

On the road back, they encounter Miss Ripon and her steed That John Andrew had to plead so hard to be allowed to participate
again. She had been tossed from the horse and injured. While in the fox hunt, and that he dies in a random accident while being
they wait with her in the road for a horse trailer to take the sent home rather than in a glorious hunting chase, makes his death
animal away, a stopped motorcycle backfires and startles the both ironic and all the more tragic. The fact that there is no obvious
horse. The steed kicks, knocking John Andrew off his saddle, person to point fingers at only amplifies the feeling of senselessness.
then striking the boy again into a ditch and killing him instantly.
All quickly agree that no one is to blame.

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As the hunting party laments the tragedy, Tony’s first thought is Tony’s almost muted reaction to the news of John Andrew’s death,
to get the news to Brenda. Jock volunteers to go to London and followed by his nervous fixation on the time, are classic signs of
tell her in person. Tony is in disbelief but calmly begins setting shock. His impatience with religious talk at this moment of death
about the necessary arrangements. He diplomatically handles and crisis reveals that his habitual churchgoing was not connected
bothersome well-wishers like Rev. Tendril. Tony has no desire to any genuine religiosity. His only concern at this point is informing
to talk about religion in this challenging time, although, as Mrs. Brenda and anticipating her reaction. Mrs. Rattery again acts as the
Rattery says, “some like it.” He appreciates Mrs. Rattery’s model of stoic masculinity. Her ominous remark foreshadows
decision to stay with him while Jock is gone. She suspends Brenda’s reaction not being quite what one would expect from a
judgment on Tony’s confident assertion that the news will mother. The game of Animal Snap creates a moment of grim, surreal
grieve Brenda, saying, “You can’t ever tell what’s going to hurt humor amidst the senseless tragedy.
people.” Tony obsesses over the time of day, repeatedly
speculating whether Brenda has been informed yet. Mrs.
Rattery successfully distracts him with the only card game Tony
knows: Animal Snap, which involves the two of them making
animal noises. The butler sees this behavior and is mortified.

Jock finds Brenda’s flat empty, but Jenny Abdul Akbar appears Jenny’s reaction to the news brings out her absurd self-
in the hall. Hearing the news about John Andrew, she bewails centeredness, in contrast to Jock, who has volunteered for a very
her cursed fate as a bringer of evil. Yet she quickly puts these serious task in order to help his friend Tony. The fortune-telling party
histrionics aside and leads Jock to Brenda at Polly’s house. at Polly Cockpurse’s is of course a carnival of narcissistic delusion,
There, the bogus psychic Mrs. Northcote is reading the ladies’ as well as gullibility. Ironically, Brenda has her sham fortune reading
fortunes, giving the same vague predictions to them all in interrupted by genuinely fortune-altering news. Her kneejerk
private. Brenda keeps steering her reading towards reaction makes explicit the damning revelation that has been
information about John Beaver. Jock arrives and tells her heretofore implied: she cares more about her odious boytoy John
there’s been a fatal accident, confirming it when Brenda asks, Beaver than her own son, and is relieved to hear that the latter, not
“John?” When Brenda realizes it was John Andrew and not the former, has died.
John Beaver, she blurts out “Oh thank God” before bursting
into tears. Later, as she packs her bag at the apartment to
return to Hetton, she tries to tell Jock that she was delirious
when she said that, but he is unconvinced. He sees her off to
the train.

At Hetton, Tony handles the inquest and gets the necessary Tony continues to maintain his composure as the sad silence
affairs in order. Ben gets Tony’s approval to sell Thunderclap. following a death sets in. He was not, however, prepared for the
Brenda returns, and she and Tony agree that there is nothing to speed and conviction with which Brenda casts off the remaining
be said. And yet, Brenda shocks Tony by keeping to her old trappings of her and Tony’s marriage, which embarrasses even her
plans to spend the weekend at a friend’s house—much to the friends.
friend’s embarrassment. Brenda tells Tony that their life at
Hetton is all over, leaving him dumbfounded.

Tony invites Jock to Hetton for the weekend and tries to Clearly, Tony has been naïve about Brenda’s affair for a long time by
rationalize Brenda’s going away, but at the friend’s house, now, but Brenda’s departure is so bizarre that he is justified in trying
Brenda tells John Beaver she loves him. She then states as to explain it as a symptom of shock. Meanwhile, John Andrew’s
much in a brief letter to Tony that also clarifies she won’t return death has liberated Brenda to declare her true feelings for Beaver.
to Hetton. Tony is shocked, still completely clueless about
Brenda’s affair. Jock must tell him that everyone except Tony
has known for some time.

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CHAPTER 4: ENGLISH GOTHIC—II

Tony rides out the sudden separation at Jock’s house for a few Brenda’s abandonment of Tony ironically brings them closer
weeks, avoiding Brat’s club for fear of running into John Beaver together geographically, as Tony migrates to London to escape the
and frequenting Brown’s club instead. Friends try depressing atmosphere at Hetton. However, their physical proximity
unsuccessfully to comfort Tony and play peacemaker. Marjorie does nothing to overcome their actual remoteness: they continue to
and Allan attempt to convince him that this is only a phase and communicate only through interlocutors and the telephone.
that Brenda will soon come running back into his arms, but Brenda’s cheery heartlessness seems totally undimmed by John
Tony insists that he doesn’t want her back. He has only one Andrew’s death.
brief phone call with Brenda, who denies Allan’s downplaying
of her affair and reaffirms her refusal to return to Hetton. She
seems as bored with Tony as ever. Brenda’s friends swear to
stick by her side no matter the outcome.

Through intermediaries, Tony receives Brenda’s verbal Tony’s willingness to go along with this self-incrimination scheme so
agreement on an acceptable sum of 500 pounds for an annual that his wife can divorce him is cringeworthy: sheer habit and
alimony, and due to legal custom of the time, he agrees to set naivety make him unthinkingly accept second-hand reports of a
her up as the plaintiff. This involves incriminating himself by verbal agreement from a woman who has already betrayed him. The
hiring a law firm to collect staged evidence of him “cheating.” setup strongly foreshadows disaster for Tony. Meanwhile, the
Jock suggests they return to the Old Hundredth, the nightclub calamities of recent weeks have still not managed to provide Tony
from their drunken spree. There they arrange for Milly, one of any insight into the root problems in his marriage.
the same prostitutes they met on that night, to accompany
Tony to the seaside resort town of Brighton to stage his
infidelity. Tony unambiguously refuses Milly’s suggestion that
she bring along her young daughter, Winnie. Nevertheless,
after Tony passes a sleepless night wondering where he went
wrong in his marriage, Milly arrives at the train the next
morning with Winnie in tow. Tony is forced to allow her along
to avoid making a scene.

Nothing about the weekend at the seaside hotel goes The indignities Tony is subjected to compound over the weekend, as
according to plan: the unshakeable brat Winnie’s presence his situation’s absurdity multiplies exponentially with the ridiculous
confuses the hotel staff and jeopardizes the whole premise of a presence of his prostitute’s child. The detectives are just as keen to
supposed illicit getaway, as the detectives Tony has hired to get take advantage of his money and manners as Brenda turned out to
photos of him make clear. These detectives, however, aren’t be.
exactly filling Tony with confidence as he spots them drinking
champagne on his dime.

During the weekend, Milly recognizes her old client Dan, who Tony’s presence at a wild party at some seaside hotel, with a
invites them along to his friend’s party, to the displeasure of his prostitute and a man he just met, would have been unimaginable
nagging wife. The next day, Winnie makes Tony buy her just a few weeks earlier. The scene highlights how swiftly his life has
breakfast, but the detectives intrude to remind him that he fallen apart. Tony probably regrets all the times he lost his patience
needs to be seen having breakfast in bed with Milly for the sake with the merely enthusiastic John Andrew, faced now with a
of evidence. Later, Winnie makes Tony take her for a walk on genuinely awful child whom he cannot reprimand.
the beach. When he won’t let her swim in the freezing water,
she yells about his two breakfasts, and the whole scene
convinces onlookers that Tony is insane.

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Back in London, Brenda’s solicitor confidently remarks to Predictably, Brenda’s verbal alimony agreement turns out to have
Brenda that they now have all the evidence they need, and he been a total farce and a trap that Tony walked straight into. It seems
encourages her to tell sob stories about Tony’s mistreatment of that Brenda genuinely has no scruples at all: she is willing to lie
her in court. When Tony returns to London, Brenda’s clumsy wholesale about Tony’s character in court, and it means nothing to
and eccentric brother Reggie, an amateur archaeologist, goes her that her extortionate alimony demands would force Tony to sell
to meet with him at Brown’s club. He suggests that Tony wait his ancestral home. She cannot even be bothered to tell Tony this
for Brenda to come back, for which Tony says he has no desire. herself; she has her preposterous brother Reggie deliver the news.
Reggie counters with a string of trumped-up character
blemishes and then gets to the point. Brenda’s verbal
agreement was meaningless; she demands 2000 pounds
annually, which would force Tony to sell Hetton. When Tony
refuses, Reggie invokes the Brighton evidence that Tony
himself staged as a sure case-winner for Brenda if it came to
court.

Tony, in disbelief, calls Brenda, who confirms Reggie’s words: Brenda adds some crucial context to the picture being painted by
she hadn’t originally thought to renege on their verbal Reggie: John Beaver is really behind the drive to extort Tony for all
agreement, but John Beaver gave her the idea. Tony hangs up he’s worth. Brenda, however, happily goes along with this plan,
and feels a flash of lucidity, as the fantasy world he had indicating how in thrall to Beaver she is. Tony’s sudden disillusion
mentally inhabited for so long seems to crumble: “[a] whole sets up his startling rejection of Brenda’s terms with an ironclad
Gothic world had come to grief…” Tony returns and tells Reggie defense, his first moment of real self-assertion in the novel so far.
that Brenda will not get a cent: Winnie’s presence throughout Winnie’s unbearable presence that weekend ironically turns out to
the whole weekend at Brighton proves his fidelity. He save Tony.
announces his plan to take a 6-month voyage abroad, to be
followed by a divorce with no settlement whatsoever. Brenda’s
friends are shocked by the news.

CHAPTER 5: IN SEARCH OF A CITY

Tony is on a drab midsized vessel setting out from England. To The sudden change of scenery underscores the sudden and drastic
an overly conversational fellow passenger asking about his change of outlook that Tony has just undergone. Realizing that he’s
destination, Tony replies that he’s looking for a city. The lived his whole life within limited horizons, and simultaneously
passenger thinks he’s crazy, but later apologizes, saying he wanting to flee the toxic atmosphere lingering around his life in
hadn’t realized that Tony is actually an explorer. Tony reflects England, he doubles down on his strong rejection of Brenda’s
on how he got here, leaving England for one of the few times in demands with an equally bold journey to unknown lands.
his life: just two weeks ago, he was casting about listlessly for
ideas at a travel agency, looking to go anywhere far away from
Brenda, John Beaver, and Hetton, which for the moment was
only a source of bitterness to him.

One afternoon, Tony was approached at a dining club by the The proposal for Tony’s journey is almost unbelievable, which
eccentric explorer Dr. Messinger. Messinger informed Tony of perhaps was why he chose to embrace it. It seems that he finally
his upcoming expedition to Brazil in search of a lost, glorious wants to break free of the familiar habits that have defined his
City in the Amazon, mentioned in various legends. Messinger whole, bland existence, and sees an opportunity to do so in the most
seems to have detailed leads on the city’s possible un-Tony proposition imaginable. However, his habits quickly
whereabouts, speculating that it lies in the territory of the Pie- overrule his imagination, and Hetton reasserts its primacy for him.
Wie Indians. Though a totally inexperienced traveler, Tony
enlists with him on a whim. On board, he has vivid fantasies of
the City as remarkably Hetton-like.

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Amidst the weeks-long boredom of life at sea, while Dr. Tony’s uncharacteristic behavior continues to provoke a stream of
Messinger remains in his cabin with seasickness, Tony strikes unexpected new developments: a fun, spontaneous affair with a
up a romance with fellow passenger Therese de Vitre, an young foreign girl would not have been conceivable for him a month
18-year-old Trinidadian girl from a rich family. She’s taken with ago. Once again, however, his self-defeating attachment to the
Tony’s status as an explorer, and he expounds on the dangers familiar blocks his path: he could easily have just not mentioned his
and difficulties of his upcoming journey. She regales him with marriage, but this does not even occur to him.
tales of her home, where life is easy for the island’s few
aristocrats. Tony quickly spoils the brief romance by revealing
that he’s married. The ship reaches Trinidad and Therese
disembarks quickly without much thought for Tony.

Tony and Dr. Messinger disembark at Demerara. They The reckless and romantic decision to cast his lot with a
assemble supplies, a boat, and six Black hired hands. They then harebrained Amazonian expedition is no longer the abstraction it
take to the river and set off upstream, well past the furthest was while on board ship. The mission has suddenly become very
trading outpost and inland into the heart of the jungle. Insects real, and the harsh realities of the alien environment are quite
and unfamiliar noises assail Tony incessantly; sores, scratches, severe. The vampire bat seems to literalize the metaphorical
and bites proliferate all over his body. Dr. Messinger is more bloodsuckers that surrounded Tony back in England.
accustomed to the jungle surroundings and reprimands Tony
for constantly scratching his bites. And yet, while sleeping,
Messinger is bit by a vampire bat.

Tony reflects on the time change and speculates what may be The narrative moves back and forth between England and the
going on in England at that moment. He remembers his days of Amazon, juxtaposing Tony’s increasingly inhospitable surroundings
courting Brenda. The narrative briefly pivots to Jock and with Brenda’s similarly growing difficulties. Jock’s “civilized”
Brenda, dancing at a party in London. Brenda mentions that comment is ironic because not only is Tony totally removed from
John Beaver seems to be growing tired of her, and that her civilization, but England’s own degree of “civilization” has come into
divorce cannot proceed without word from Tony. She wonders question in the course of the novel.
whether Tony is safe on his harebrained expedition, and Jock
reassures her that “the whole world is civilized now.”

Tony and Dr. Messinger arrive at a village of Macushi Indians, The extent of Messinger’s preparedness for this expedition begins to
where only women are present. Messinger tries come into question in this encounter. The narrative once again
communicating in Wapishiana and is surprised that they can’t juxtaposes Amazonian “barbarism” and English “civilization” to
understand him. One of them, Rosa, speaks English and clarifies bring out the commonalities between them. Despite the baroque
that their tribe doesn’t speak Wapishiana. She explains that the bureaucratic architecture they’ve erected to handle the problem,
men are gone for the next three days on a pig hunt, and then the English just as much as the Macushi are simply men hungry for
she demands cigarettes. Back at Westminster, Jock, a member pigs.
of parliament, reads a long-prepared but trifling request on pig-
farming legislation to an under-secretary of the Minister of
Agriculture. He leaves feeling proud of having served his
constituents.

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When the Macushi men return, they have a drunken week-long It is telling that Dr. Messinger never inquires why the Macushi fear
feast. Finally, they sober up, but they are reluctant to join Dr. the Pie-Wie people; he merely chalks it up to stubborn superstition.
Messinger’s search for the Pie-Wie people, whom the Macushi The uselessness of maps after a certain point in their journey
dread. Eventually, Messinger succeeds in negotiating for 12 encapsulates the unprecedented conditions of Tony’s life in recent
men and 7 of their wives to join and guide his expedition. The months. Tony, for his part, remains mostly silent throughout this
Macushi celebrate the agreement with another three-day portion of the journey, keeping any doubts or complaints he may
binge. At last, they send the Black hired hands back have to himself.
downstream, leave a cache of provisions in the village, and set
off again. Dr. Messinger proudly tells Tony that maps are
useless henceforth.

Back in London, John Beaver fails to get elected into Brown’s Beaver’s interest in Brenda fading as her financial lines and ability
social club, an effort for which he was relying on Allan and to open social doors for him dries up was totally predictable; he
Reggie’s endorsement and support. He responds by displaying never seemed to even try to reciprocate her affection. And yet, with
coldness to Brenda, whose own social stock has also fallen. His Tony gone, this fraying relationship leaves Brenda in an increasingly
reaction upsets Brenda, who has begun to survive off desperate social situation, with less and less contact with the
sandwiches ordered from the corner deli as she spends two or women she considered her friends.
three days at a time in bed. Even Jenny Abdul Akbar is now
getting invited to more social events than Brenda. Mrs. Beaver
is disappointed with the way things seem to be shaping up for
her son. She decides to bring him along on a holiday in
California in the coming summer.

For weeks, Dr. Messinger and Tony march deeper into the Dr. Messinger’s stated expertise grows increasingly doubtful, but
jungle, losing their bearings and struggling to communicate Tony still raises no objections. Messinger’s vanity with regard to the
with their guides. Dr. Messinger’s confident assessments of the Macushi continues unabated. The women’s refusal to continue
topography are repeatedly proven wrong. The land becomes swatting mosquitoes away from Tony and Messinger while they
more arid and desolate, and water grows scarce. Tony and Dr. sleep exposes the men’s vulnerability: they cannot punish the
Messinger rarely speak to one another due to their constant women with force, because they need them, whereas the Macushi
exhaustion. The mosquitoes are relentless around their camp. don’t need the explorers at all.
Tony and Messinger instruct the Macushi women to fan them
away as they rest, but as soon as they fall asleep, the women
abandon their post, and they awake covered in bites. The
Macushi claim there is no game in this region, but Messinger
speculates that they refuse to hunt out of fear of the Pie-Wie
Indians.

Dr. Messinger resolves to have canoes made and travel down a By this point, there is no real reason to believe Messinger’s
nearby stream, since he calculates that the Pie-Wie City must geographical calculations, but no one else has a better idea, so the
be downstream of them. While the men are put to work on the canoe plan goes ahead. He and Tony, of course, don’t take part in
canoes, Messinger and Tony spend the time guarding their the arduous construction. Messinger’s ignorance will not be
sugar supplies from the Macushi women. After several days, reasoned with by any amount of Macushi explanation.
the Macushi finish the canoes, but Rosa tells Messinger that Unfortunately for him, this means that he has hit a brick wall: he
they will not accompany him downstream. She repeatedly has no leverage on Rosa and the Macushi, only some novelty goods
insists that the Macushi people and the Pie-Wie people do not that they would like but can easily live without.
mix. Bribes of cigarettes, and threats, are fruitless: Rosa and
the Macushi will not budge, insisting on returning to their
village. Messinger calls them cowards, but now Rosa says that
they must return for the cassava harvest.

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Finally, Dr. Messinger—claiming, “I know the Indian Messinger’s vanity finally does him and Tony in: his bizarre
mind”—unveils a wind-up, green-and-white mechanical mouse deployment of the toy mouse was perhaps intended to exploit some
and sets it ticking. The Indians are horrified and flee instantly. known feature of local mythology, since it does provoke such a
Night falls, but Messinger remains confident they will return. strong reaction—just not the one he wanted. They have run out of
They do indeed return that night, noiselessly retrieving their options to convince the Macushi to stay on with them. Meanwhile,
scattered tools and then vanishing again, permanently. Back in the Amazon-England parallels continue, as Brenda has similarly run
London, John Beaver and Brenda eat breakfast at a restaurant out of ways to make Beaver stay with her. Beaver is as cheap and
after partying all night. Beaver reflects wistfully that the unpleasant as ever, and his opportunistic abandonment of Brenda is
partygoing season is drawing to a close. Brenda asks him to pay, as unsurprising as the Macushi’s of Tony and Messinger.
and he complains about the prices. He confirms that he’s
heading to California soon with Mrs. Beaver, which spells the
end of his and Brenda’s relationship, despite her apparent
attempts to convince him to stay. She tells Beaver he shouldn’t
bother to walk her home.

Tony and Dr. Messinger paddle on alone, hazardously and With the Macushi gone, Tony and Messinger’s prospects have grown
inefficiently, still spotting no signs of human life. The minimal bleak. Tony’s fever only compounds the dire outlook for their
supplies they decided to keep are still dangerously overloading mission. The search for the elusive lost City still nominally remains
the craft. Their journey at this stage is slow but peaceful, until their goal, but at this point, simple survival would probably be
Tony develops sudden and severe fever. The fever waxes and welcomed, as it no longer looks guaranteed.
wanes in intensity, but it nevertheless majorly hampers their
progress. Tony wants to wait and recuperate onshore, but Dr.
Messinger insists that they paddle on.

Tony begins hallucinating: Brenda appears, nonsensically The hallucinations brought on by Tony’s fever provide a capsule
recycling fragments of speech and incident from throughout summary of the chaos into which his life has been plunged. His
the novel. As he talks to her over the next day and a half, reckless attempt to escape his life in England has not worked, as
Messinger realizes how sick Tony is and sets up a “temporary thoughts of it continue to torment him. Messinger’s death, the
emergency base camp.” The next day, Messinger explains to second in the novel, seems to spell certain doom for the fever-bound
Tony that he’s seriously ill. He sets off alone downstream to find Tony.
help for Tony but is sucked over a waterfall and killed.

Back in London, Brenda visits the family solicitor in desperate As Tony languishes beyond contact in the Amazon, talk of his
need of money, but he explains that Tony explicitly instructed potential demise finally begins to air in London. Tony’s adamant
not to give Brenda anything in his absence, and that Tony’s rejection of Brenda’s extortionate demands was no mere show, it
presumptive heirs are his cousins, the family of Richard Last. turns out: he has ensured that even his death will not let Brenda get
Brenda can’t believe that Tony meant to stay abroad for as long her hands on his wealth. Brenda’s situation is now totally abject.
as he has, but her legal resources in the situation seem to be Just as one might have imagined, John Beaver and her ruthless
nonexistent. Later, in the flat, she cannot muster the will to feed socialite friends have totally lost interest in her since her money has
herself with the meager food she has procured. She breaks dried up. Yet Brenda still does not seem to accept any responsibility
down crying about all her friends abandoning her. John Beaver, for her change of fortune. She rather sinks into unreserved self-pity.
Jock, Marjorie, Allan, Polly Cockpurse, even Jenny Abdul
Akbar: all of them are off enjoying varied and fabulous summer
vacations, while she lies miserable in bed.

Meanwhile Tony, alone, dozes at the camp in delirium. In a brief Tony’s conditions again directly parallel Brenda’s in London: like her,
moment of lucidity, Tony recognizes that he’s too weak to feed he is too weak to feed himself and collapses in a flood of self-pity.
himself, and he begins to cry. Later, he tries to refill the
kerosene lamp but knocks over the oil keg, causing him to cry
again. Soon, the fever returns.

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Tony’s fever completely takes over his consciousness, As Tony succumbs to a horrifying chaos formed out of his own past,
subjecting him to a hallucinatory trial where the characters and the final image of him arriving at a splendid Amazonian twin of
events throughout the novel get nightmarishly refracted and Hetton is meant to be ambiguous: has Tony died? Or is this just a
redistributed at random. Reggie, Winnie, the Hetton butler, further delusion? If still alive, his prospects for making it out of the
Mrs. Rattery, and others all appear before him in a terrifying jungle seem at this point nonexistent.
phantasmagoria. Finally, he imagines that he’s approaching the
City after all: it rises up before him in total neo-Gothic
splendor. The gates are thrown open, trumpets hail his arrival,
and everything is as beautiful as Hetton.

CHAPTER 6: DU CÔTÉ DE CHEZ TODD

Miraculously, Tony struggles through the jungle until he Tony has somehow managed to stay alive. His chance arrival at the
stumbles onto the remote ranch of Mr. Todd, an English- jungle ranch of an English speaker is almost as fantastical as if he
speaker. He arrives extremely ill, still hallucinating wildly and had actually found the City. Just as the irritating presence of Winnie
spewing about his fevered visions. Mr. Todd administers a foul- during his weekend with Milly turned out to save him from Brenda’s
tasting concoction to Tony, who soon cries himself to sleep in a extortion scheme, it looks like Tony may once again have found
hammock. Slowly, Mr. Todd nurses him back to health, salvation in the unlikeliest of places. Mr. Todd’s mention of his gun,
explaining the vast medicinal resources contained in the jungle however, strikes a note of menace in the situation in which Tony,
for those who know how to use them. Tony learns that Mr. barely alive and totally powerless, now finds himself.
Todd’s mother was an Indian but his father was a missionary
from Barbados, and that most of the Indians on this complex
are Mr. Todd’s children. For this reason, and because he has a
gun, they obey him.

They converse more as Tony’s strength recovers. Mr. Todd asks In the midst of another extended crisis, Tony again affirms religion’s
him if he believes in God, and Tony says he never really thought irrelevance for him. Mr. Todd’s father was a missionary, and his
about it. Mr. Todd, who cannot read, shows Tony his complete question presumably implies that he himself is religious, but he
collection of Dickens, which his father used to read to him. doesn’t pry into Tony’s position or bring up religion again.
After his father’s death, Mr. Todd was read to by a Black
English-speaker who passed through the area, whose grave is
now on the property. Mr. Todd is very pleased that Tony can
read, and he declares that Tony will read to him.

Mr. Todd adores Dickens, finding an inexhaustible well of The complete set of Charles Dickens, the ultimate symbol of
delight in the novels even after hearing all of them read several sentimental English culture, makes Tony’s encounter with Mr. Todd’s
times, and Tony at first enjoys reading Dickens’s works to him. ranch even more poetic and ironic. Modern England disappointed
The activity reminds him of how he would read aloud to Brenda Tony by not living up to his sappy Dickensian conception of it—and
in the first year of their marriage, until Brenda finally blurted as in Brenda’s case, rejecting his boorish imposition of this fantasy.
out that she couldn’t stand it. Then, John Andrew became his He flees his disenchanted homeland in search of a lost City, but here
captive audience. But the novelty of this new arrangement with in the Amazon, he finds rather the foundational textbook for that
Mr. Todd soon wears off, and Tony begins to detect a menace in fantasy. Meanwhile, Mr. Todd’s ominous behavior begins to curdle
Mr. Todd’s demeanor. Mr. Todd deflects about the possibility of the sentimental evocation of Dickens’s world.
Tony leaving, offering conflicting excuses: first, he says he must
wait for the rains to raise the river to navigable height; then
when the rains come, he says the Indians will not build boats
during the rainy season out of superstition.

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After months of reading, Tony tries to sneak off and enlist the The discovery of the note from the previous visitor confirms Tony’s
nearby Indians’ help, but they merely relay his attempt to Mr. fear that Mr. Todd has no intention of releasing him. Dickens’s works
Todd, whose threats that Tony must continue reading now now transform from a lifeline to Tony’s sorely missed English culture
become more explicit. One day, in one of the Dickens novels to a prison ensuring that he will not return to it, barring some radical
from which he reads, Tony finds a note written by the Black change in circumstances. Tony’s situation is terrifying but inherently
English-speaker previously on the ranch: it is a promise to humorous: Mr. Todd is like a child demanding another bedtime story,
release him after he finishes reading aloud the book the note but instead he is the sole, armed ruler of an impossibly remote
was found in, signed with an X by Mr. Todd. And yet, the man jungle ranch, with Tony utterly at his mercy.
died on the premises. Tony’s dread now becomes acute. Mr.
Todd tells him he may leave anytime he likes, knowing perfectly
well that Tony is powerless to do so without his help.

Eventually, a wayward stranger passes through the ranch, Yet again, Tony seems poised to snatch victory from the jaws of
whom Tony manages to entrust with a piece of paper with his defeat, with the miraculous appearance of the stranger. But, again,
name on it before Mr. Todd shoos the man off. One night, Mr. his fortunes turn for the worse, definitively this time, in a missed
Todd tricks Tony into drinking an intoxicating brew at an connection all the more pointedly cruel for being so close to actually
uncharacteristic village feast, which causes him to sleep for two seeing him rescued. With emissaries to England now bearing news
days. When he awakes, Mr. Todd explains that while he was of Tony’s death, his hope of contact to the outside world is dashed
unconscious, an English search party arrived looking for Tony, forever.
for whom a reward is being offered in England. Mr. Todd sent
them away with evidence that convinced them of Tony’s death.
He now insists that Tony continue reading Dickens aloud.

CHAPTER 7: ENGLISH GOTHIC—III

Back at Hetton, the estate grounds are in the beauty of spring The narrative underscores the poignancy of Tony’s fate by providing
bloom. Richard Last and his family, Tony’s cousins, have made an epilogue where everything back at home seems to be getting
themselves at home there. To cut costs, they have downsized along fine without him. Brenda has been happily remarried, to
the staff, shuttered several areas of the house, and introduced Jock—solving her financial woes, and calling into question the intent
fox farming on the grounds. Richard and his large family are a behind all the kind deeds Jock did for Tony. Richard Last’s vigorous,
jolly, energetic bunch, lacking in both the refinement and the earthy clan provide a robust counterpoint to both the spineless Tony
pretensions of Tony and Brenda. They receive a telegram from and the amoral Brenda. As a final insult to Tony, Mrs. Beaver
Brenda, now married to Jock, saying she cannot make it down exploits his legacy for cash. The well-meaning young Teddy now
for the ceremony that day. The family is disappointed but not supposes that he carries that legacy forward. However, Teddy’s
necessarily surprised. The ceremony is the dedication of a enthusiastic farm work both violates the sense of class propriety
memorial to Tony which reads, “Died in Brazil, 1934.” As it turns that for Tony was inextricable from Hetton, and already
out, Richard Last was convinced to erect the memorial by Mrs. accomplishes more than Tony ever achieved in his pampered life
Beaver, “one of Tony’s closest friends,” who generously offered there. Teddy is both less and more than Tony, and his imagined
to supply the contractors for it. Later that day, Young Teddy, continuation of Tony’s legacy will in fact take Hetton to a very
Richard’s son, proudly surveys the caged foxes which he different place.
imagines will be the means to restore Hetton to its glory days,
as it was under his cousin Tony.

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