The Loved One: An Anglo-American Tragedy: Analysis of Major Characters
"The Loved One: An Anglo-American Tragedy" is a satirical novel that explores themes of death, identity, and cultural contrasts between British and American sensibilities, particularly through the lens of the funeral industry. The story follows Dennis Barlow, an English poet who moves to Southern California with aspirations of writing for Hollywood, but finds himself entangled in the lives of those involved in the morbid business of death. Major characters include Aimee Thanatogenos, a devoted employee at a cemetery who struggles with her romantic entanglements and ultimately takes her own life; Mr. Joyboy, a successful embalmer who is charismatic yet deeply insecure; and Sir Francis Hinsley, a once-prominent screenwriter whose career falters, leading to tragic consequences. The narrative juxtaposes Dennis’s curious disposition with the stark realities of Aimee’s and Mr. Joyboy's lives, illuminating the absurdities of their respective pursuits and the societal pressures they face. The novel raises questions about the value of life and the nature of love against the backdrop of an unconventional and often macabre setting. These character dynamics illustrate broader themes of existential dread and the absurdity of the human condition, making it a thought-provoking read for those interested in literary explorations of mortality and cultural critique.
The Loved One: An Anglo-American Tragedy: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: Evelyn Waugh
First published: 1948
Genre: Novel
Locale: Hollywood and Los Angeles, California
Plot: Satire
Time: The late 1940's
Dennis Barlow, an English dilettante who has traveled to Southern California. His only book of poetry, written while he was in the British Air Force during World War II, received strong reviews and several awards, but the paper shortage took the book out of print. Curious, pragmatic, and a “man of sensibility rather than sentiment,” the twenty-eight-year-old Barlow goes to Hollywood to help write the life of Percy Shelley for films. Unable to write the sort of script required by Megalopolitan Studios, he is dismissed from his job, moves in with Sir Francis Hinsley, and begins work at The Happier Hunting Ground, a pet mortuary, where his new employer, Mr. Schultz, finds him congenial and reverent. Barlow, fascinated by the American way of death at The Happier Hunting Ground and at Whispering Glades, courts Aimee Thanatogenos, an employee at Whispering Glades, with poetry plagiarized from the Oxford Book of English Verse. Aimee, unlike Mr. Schultz, finds Dennis irreverent of things that should be sacred, such as citizenship and social conscience. After Aimee's suicide, Mr. Joyboy prompts Barlow to cremate the corpse at The Happier Hunting Ground before Barlow returns to England. At the conclusion of the novel, Barlow is waiting for Aimee's corpse to burn.
Aimee Thanatogenos (ay-MAY tha-na-TO-geh-nohs), the fiancée of both Barlow and Mr. Joyboy and assistant to Mr. Joyboy at Whispering Glades, a cemetery in the Hollywood Hills. Aimee, who was graduated from the university in 1943 with beauticraft as her first subject, has no family and few friends, lives alone, and loves her work at Whispering Glades, “her true home.” She has dark, straight hair and eyes that are “greenish and remote, with a rich glint of lunacy.” Considering herself an artist of sorts and a “handmaid to the morticians,” Aimee works “like a nun, intently, serenely, methodically.” She presents herself to the world dressed and scented in obedience to advertisements. When Aimee cannot resolve her dilemma of being engaged simultaneously to Barlow and Mr. Joyboy, she takes an elevator to the top story of Whispering Glades, goes to Mr. Joyboy's workroom, injects herself with cyanide, and covers herself with a sheet, thus leading to Mr. Joyboy's discovery of her corpse.
Mr. Joyboy, the chief cosmetician and embalmer at Whispering Glades. An expert on facial expressions on corpses, Mr. Joyboy enjoys great popularity at Whispering Glades and in the funeral industry. He is unmarried and is regarded by every female employee at Whispering Glades as debonnaire and as a figure of romance. In addition to being a Rotarian and a Knight of Pythias, Mr. Joyboy is a regular contributor to The Casket, a mortuary publication. He is an intimate of Dr. Kenworthy. By the standards of motion-picture studios, Mr. Joyboy is not handsome. Tall but unathletic, he has scant eyebrows and invisible eyelashes. His hair, though neat, is sparse, and his hands are fleshy. His best feature is his teeth, and even they are not perfect: They seem too large for his mouth. Mr. Joyboy lives with his mother in a shabby home. He is saving his money for a house and children, and he believes “anything spent inconspicuously, anything spent on Mom” is “money down the drain.” Mr. Joyboy's jealousy leads him to expose to Aimee two facts about Barlow that she cannot tolerate: that he is employed at The Happier Hunting Ground and that he plagiarized the poems he gave her. After these revelations, Aimee consents to marry Mr. Joyboy. To save his reputation after Aimee's suicide, Mr. Joyboy gets Barlow to cremate Aimee's corpse and pays for Barlow's first-class travel to England.
Sir Ambrose Abercrombie, the leader of the English expatriate colony in Hollywood. Sir Ambrose, the guardian of the British image in Hollywood, is not quite sixty years old, dresses in conservative British attire complete with monocle, and heads the Cricket Club. At the beginning of the novel, he pays Sir Francis a visit concerning Barlow's disgraceful job at The Happier Hunting Ground. Later, Sir Ambrose supervises Barlow's arrangements at Whispering Glades for Sir Francis' funeral. Finally, it is Sir Ambrose who gives Barlow a check from the Cricket Club to return to England (tourist class) so that Barlow will not disgrace them by becoming a nonsectarian minister.
Sir Francis Hinsley, a screenwriter at Megalopolitan Studios and former president of the Cricket Club. Sir Francis, who has worked for Megalopolitan Studios for twenty-five years, has a “weak, sensitive, intelligent face, blurred somewhat by soft living and long boredom.” He follows the conservative dress of Sir Ambrose, complete with monocle, and refrains from reading Barlow's poetry because, as he says of himself, he has never been “much good at anything new.” When Barlow loses his job at Megalopolitan Studios, Sir Francis takes him in, regarding Barlow as “a young man of genius, the hope of English poetry.” Stigmatized by Barlow's new job at The Happier Hunting Ground and no longer of legitimate service to Megalopolitan Studios, Sir Francis is fired, after which he commits suicide, hanging himself from the rafters in his home with his suspenders. Barlow meets Aimee while he is making funeral arrangements for Sir Francis.
Guru Brahmin, actually three contributors to an advice-to-the-lovelorn column for a newspaper, the chief correspondent being Mr. Slump. The column, formerly called “Aunt Lydia's Post Bag,” is now called “The Wisdom of the Guru Brahmin.” Mr. Slump, a gloomy man given to drinking whiskey and smoking, deals with the letters to Guru Brahmin that require private answers. It is he, therefore, who answers the numerous letters from Aimee Thanatogenos regarding her dilemma with Barlow and Mr. Joyboy. In the course of the novel, Mr. Slump's condition deteriorates until he appears at work ill-shaven and scarcely sober. The night after he is fired, Aimee traces him by telephone to Mooney's Saloon to get advice. Mr. Slump suggests that she jump from a top-floor window.
Dr. Wilbur Kenworthy, called The Dreamer, the founder of the commercialized Whispering Glades Memorial Park, a racially segregated cemetery. Fear of disgracing Whispering Glades and Mr. Kenworthy and, thereby, ruining his own reputation drives Mr. Joyboy to seek Barlow's help in covering up the death of Aimee Thanatogenos.
Mr. Schultz, the owner of The Happier Hunting Ground, a pet cemetery in Southern California. He is a pragmatic realist, concerned with profits and resentful that people will spend more money burying relatives they hate than burying pets they love. Because he finds Barlow congenial and reverent, he encourages Barlow to stay on at The Happier Hunting Ground.
Mrs. Joyboy, Mr. Joyboy's mother. She has small angry eyes, frizzy hair, and a shapeless body; she wears pince-nez on a very thick nose and wears positively insulting clothes. Resentful of being moved away from the East to Hollywood, where everything is too expensive, Mrs. Joyboy dotes on her aged, almost naked parrot Sambo and watches political commentaries on television. Sambo's death gives Mr. Joyboy the opportunity to arrange the parrot's open-casket funeral at The Happier Hunting Ground and to invite Aimee to the ceremony, where she sees Barlow presiding. Mr. Joyboy cannot leave his mother to be with Aimee on the night of her suicide because his mother's new bird has just arrived.
Juanita del Pablo, a star at Megalopolitan Studios. Sir Francis Hinsley has the job of re-creating her image because the Catholic League of Decency has put pressure on Megalopolitan Studios to clean up its films. Sir Francis' failure with this task contributes, in part, to his dismissal from Megalopolitan Studios. Sir Ambrose arranges to have her sing at Sir Francis' funeral.
The Reverend Errol Bartholomew, a nonsectarian bishop. After he reads the service for the Alsatian's funeral service at The Happier Hunting Ground, Barlow talks to him and decides to become a nonsectarian minister so that his class will be at least as high as a mortician's.