Moral Decline and the Bankruptcy of Victorian Humanism in Evelyn ...

Einführungsseminar: The Power and the Glory – British Catholic Novelists
Frau Dr. Julia Hoydis
Universität zu Köln
WS 2010/2011
Datum der Abgabe: 15.3.2011
Moral Decline and the Bankruptcy of Victorian Humanism
in Evelyn Waugh’s A Handful of Dust
Malte Biedermann
XXX
XXX
LA Englisch u. Geschichte
Fachsemester: 3

Table of Contents
1. Introduction 2
2. Two Types of Barbarism 4
2.1. The Decay of British Society 4
2.2. The Proto-Industrialist Savage 7
3. The Plight of Gothic Man 8
4. Conclusion 9
5. Bibliography 11
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1. Introduction
Asked to judge his literary oeuvre in 1946, Evelyn Waugh replied that A Handful of Dust
“was humanist and contained all I had to say about humanism” (LIFE 1946: 60). He then
went on to compare it with his later work, the explicitly Catholic novel Brideshead
Revisited, which he deemed his favourite and “far more ambitious”. At the time of these
statements the author had already implemented a change that found little acclaim with his
critics who accused him of turning “from the brilliant satirical novelist to the triumphalist
apologist […] from the thoughtful critic to the scorer of worthless debating points”
(O’Donoghue 1987: 345). Waugh had indeed become a staunch conservative and fervent
defender of Catholicism during the course of his life. In his later years he constantly
attacked the Anglican Church for what he considered an uprooted and consequently hollow
belief system. Much of this personal development might be based on the author’s
reflections on A Handful of Dust whose depiction of societal decay still allows ambiguous
interpretations regarding its philosophical implications but whose central message is stated
very clearly: humanism – or more precisely what Waugh considered the Victorian brand of
it – is a failed project, a “dead end” (Lobb 2003/2004: 143). This term paper will argue that
Waugh illustrates the bankruptcy of a certain humanist creed that denies its roots in
Christian moral theology and postulates ethics as a man-made construction without
religious foundation. A Handful of Dust takes a gloomy view on a society that is valueless
and corrupted because it has repressed religion. The novel envisages the ultimate outcome
of “an attempt to enjoy the certainties of Christian moral standards without belief in what
gave rise to them” (Lobb 2003/2004: 135).
The novel starts as a realist depiction of a crumbling marriage that mirrors the decay in the
morally desolate environment of Great Britain in the inter-war period: Tony Last owns a
large Gothic mansion in the countryside, Hetton Abbey, and leads a rather dull, antiquated
life together with his wife Brenda and his son John Andrew. He spends a large portion of
his income on maintaining the property and disregards the interests of his family members
who are increasingly bored by their outmoded existence. Due to this marital neglect
Brenda begins an affair with an impecunious and ill-mannered acquaintance, John Beaver.
After the tragic death of John Andrew in a horse-riding accident Brenda finally breaks up
with her husband. Tony, who initially assumes that the divorce is based on mutual consent,
is shocked when Brenda demands a monetary settlement so large that it would force him to
sell Hetton.
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The novel then takes a turn for the unreal as Tony refuses to file for a divorce and tries to
escape from this threat to his traditional lifestyle by participating in an expedition to the
Brazilian jungle. Inspired by the explorer Dr. Messinger, he embarks on a quest to find an
uncharted city which he comes to idealize as a “transfigured Hetton” (Waugh 1934: 164) 1 .
However, his voyage soon turns out to be a disaster as he is separated from his fellow
adventurers and finds himself struck by tropical fever in an isolated tribal village. He is
nursed by the illiterate Mr. Todd who subsequently holds him captive and demands that
Tony remain in his hut forever while reading the works of Dickens to him. This twist has
already been criticised among Waugh’s contemporaries as misplaced in the context of the
rest of the novel. Waugh’s friend Henry Yorke 2 wrote to him in 1934 complaining that “the
end is so fantastic that it throws the rest out of proportion […] It seemed manufactured and
not real” (Amory 1980: 88-89). While the change in tone that Yorke refers to is admittedly
somewhat disturbing, it is a side-product of a disjunction in the plot that mattered more to
Waugh than tonal coherency. Having developed the jungle scenes of A Handful of Dust
first 3 , Waugh wanted to contrast two types of barbarism in his novel: the one displayed by
proto-industrialist savages and the one inherent in British moral decay. His argument here
is that due to the negligence of religious consciousness and ecclesiastical practices, these
worlds seem to fuse once again.
The first chapter deals with these two forms of barbarism and illustrates how Waugh
ridicules the humanist approach in his satire of displacement. The next chapter analyses
Tony’s allegoric quest for the City and questions whether his humanist longings could
possibly be fulfilled by following this path. It also takes a closer look at Tony’s entrapment
and its implications. Finally, the discussion focuses on the ambiguous interpretations of the
jungle scene, asking if the prospect implied by this part of the book is the ultimate
declaration of moral bankruptcy in Tony’s world or if it constitutes a promise of
redemption.
1 This term paper refers to the Penguin Modern Classics version of A Handful of Dust (cp. Bibliography), due
to various additions in this edition page numbers may differ significantly from the original publication. I will
subsequently abbreviate quotations taken from it in the following way: (AHoD: page number).
2 This novelist is better known under his pen name Henry Green.
3 The chapter “A Côté de chez Todd” was originally written as a short story titled “The Man Who Liked
Dickens”.
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2. Two Types of Barbarism
As previously mentioned, one of Waugh’s intentions when writing A Handful of Dust was
to contrast two forms of barbarism: the blatantly obvious one of exotic bushmen and the
more oblique one in industrialized societies (cp. O’Donoghue 1987: 339). Waugh wrote
that “the scheme was a Gothic man in the hand of savages – first Mr. Beaver etc. then the
real ones” (Amory (ed.) 1980: 88). Waugh is a satirist turned Catholic, which signifies an
interesting combination for his writing: Timms remarks that satire and Catholic sermon
“mobilise the resources of language in diametrically opposed ways., […] at the extremes of
the spectrum the position of satirist and Christian seem incompatible” (Timms 1995: 111).
Nevertheless, A Handful of Dust manages to achieve both, presenting a clearly intelligible
message against cultural decay and societal barbarism while employing a distinctive form
of dark satire at the same time. Ann Pasternak Slater labelled this literary form as comedy
of displacement explaining that humour is created by putting “the right things in the wrong
places” (Pasternak Slater 1982: 49). The characters illustrate the barbarity of an amoral
world by acting correctly under the wrong circumstances 4 : brandy is deceptively served in
a champagne bottle (AHoD 74), the overly confident Dr. Messinger converses with the
Macushi Indians in another exotic language and is therefore unintelligible (AHoD 177),
Tony shows gentlemanly behaviour but his wife loathes his medieval habits and his
anachronistic chivalry. This causes certain uneasiness in the reader after he realizes that the
concept of displacement is universally true in Waugh’s bleak societal portrayal, it fits to
the brutally barbaric jungle as well as to the covertly barbaric people of London. All
human societies depicted are ultimately corrupt and give in to their selfish needs as in
London or, following the principle that might is right, to the power of the strongest in the
Brazilian jungle.
2.1. The Decay of British Society
The mood of the first part of the novel, which satirizes the moral decline of British society
as Waugh experienced it, is already established within the first sentences. Talking about a
fire catastrophe with her son John, Mrs. Beaver answers a question whether anyone was
hurt as follows: “No one, I am thankful to say. […] Except two housemaids who lost their
heads and jumped […] into the paved court. They were in no danger” (AHoD: 7). This
response is evidently despicable on many levels. Mrs. Beaver’s voicing of sympathy for
the victims is nothing more than a pose, a fact that becomes painfully obvious as she
4 Interestingly, the author also notes that sometimes the reverse is true: wrong things are in the right places,
creating the same type of comedic effect (Pasternak Slater 1983: 57).
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moves on to talk about the personal gain she could draw from the fire: “One really cannot
complain. […] everything was insured. […] I must get on to them this morning” (AHoD:
7). Furthermore, it is suggested that she apparently does not care much about the
housemaids’ fate as she is preoccupied with her own class and only belatedly mentions
them as casualties of the event. The blatant exposure of her feigned empathy is so
grotesque that it functions as a satirical element. As Greenberg rightly points out, “we
laugh at the virtual nakedness of Mrs. Beaver’s greed, or the shabbiness of her effort to
cloak this greed in false compassion” (Greenberg 2003: 354). Other characters in Tony’s
circle of acquaintances display a similar lack of proper judgement in moral issues: his
unfaithful wife, the tasteless hypocrite Mrs. Beaver, or his spoilt child John Andrew. John
Beaver is, as Firchow rightly observes, “the archetype of modern man, bored, boring,
bestial, […] his life centered on problems of cadging a meal or climbing up a rung on the
social ladder” (Firchow 1972: 409).When Brenda reads to Tony from the morning papers it
becomes obvious just how indifferent the characters react to atrocities: “There’s such an
extraordinary picture of Babe and Jock […] a little girl has been strangled in a cemetery
with a bootlace […] that play […] is coming of” (AHoD: 20). Mentions of violent crimes
are interspersed with daily gossip and do not provoke any reaction at all. At times they are
simply cast aside and ignored, at other times they are answered with a ritualized expression
of fake commiseration.
The difference in emotional capability between Tony and his family, let alone his other
acquaintances, is frequently hinted at. For instance, his son John relates the story of
Peppermint the mule to him, which he, in turn, heard from Ben, the stable manager, as they
are on their way to church. Peppermint served as a pack animal in World War I and died
after having drunk its company’s entire rum ration. Tony’s reply to this story is one of the
few cases of genuinely expressed regret in the novel: “At the end, Tony said, ‘How very
sad.’” (AHoD: 33). This brief moment of emotional authenticity is instantly interrupted by
John Andrew, though: “Well I thought it was sad too, but it isn’t. Ben said it made him
laugh fit to bust his pants.” (AHoD: 33). According to Greenberg, “Ben finds comedy
where Tony finds pathos”, but the hierarchical structure that one would normally assume
between those two options is reversed since it is the son who appears to be lecturing the
father: in A Handful of Dust “a cruel reaction trumps a sympathetic one” (Greenberg 2003:
352). In this emotionally crippled environment, Tony Last is indeed the last of his kind.
John accepts Ben instead of his father as the authority in judging the tale of Peppermint,
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which shows not only “a failure to instill in his son the values of his social class – but also
the outmoded nature of those very values.” (Greenberg 2003: 352). Tony still adheres to
what might be called the Victorian social code. This code stresses the value of sincere
emotions and demands virtuous feelings and, accordingly, chivalric behaviour. In this
scene, John counters the “fatuous optimism of Victorian humanism” (Stannard 1989: 326),
that his father apparently still holds dear, on both ethic and aesthetic grounds as he
discloses his lack of proper moral judgement once again and defies the sentimental
dimension of the story. Sentimentality is the aspect that Dickens would have stressed in
order to evoke an empathic reaction in his readers by enforcing the Victorian value codex.
The rejection of any kind of empathy by the characters in Waugh’s novel, it might be
argued, is the antisentimental reflex existent in much of modernist literature as it represents
“a shift in the meaning of the word sentimental from positive overtones of sensitivity and
compassion toward negative connotations of excess, falseness and laxity” (Greenberg
2003: 353). Tony as the exponent of Victorian sentimentality and the humanist ideals this
sentimentality tries to convey faces the outright rejection of this feeling by John Andrew.
His father certainly has an idea of these ideals but only manages to represent them
superficially. He is, for instance, talked into faking adultery in order to facilitate the
divorce: an act that betrays the Victorian ideal of honesty, even if it is for a good cause.
Hence, it might be reasoned further that it is not simply parental neglect that has led to
John Andrew’s cynical behaviour. His father failed to instill the values of the Victorian
moral code because he himself treats them rather flexibly at times. This, of course, is
connected to Tony’s disregard for ecclesiastically conveyed morality which is mentioned
multiple times during the course of the story: during a sermon “his thoughts drifted from
subject to subject. […] for the most part of the morning he occupied himself with the
question of bathrooms and lavatories” (AHoD: 34). Tony only attends the sermon because
he has habitualised it as part of his gentlemanly behaviour. For John Andrew, his father
can therefore not function as a role model. The mere pretence of gallantry without
foundation to it, it is suggested, does not suffice to pass on a moral canon. In this sense,
Waugh wrote a pointedly secular novel in which the lack of Catholic belief displayed by
the characters demonstrates the need for it in order to prevent societal amorality. Tony
finally admits this truth, if only subconsciously, as his search for a transfigured Hetton is
essentially a quest to invigorate his seemingly outmoded value system by finding a
fundamental meaning to it – it is, in essence, a quest for redemption.
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2.2. The Proto-Industrialist Savage
Tony’s quest in search of the City leads him to an isolated tribal village and ultimately
results in his captivity in Mr. Todd’s hut. Mr Todd is the embodiment of the savage who
only cares for his own well-being. He traps Tony and forces him to read for eternity in
order to satisfy his desire to experience the books of Dickens over and over again. In a
world where the survival of the fittest is the highest dictum Mr. Todd, apparently a half-
caste who chose this lifestyle, controls the indigenous population by virtue of his gun.
Tony escapes the barbarism displayed by his countrymen only to be entangled in another,
more blatant form of barbarism into which he is forced by the threat of physical violence.
It is notable that Mr. Todd does not overtly threaten Tony. In fact, his wording is quite
polite and his courteousness mirrors Tony’s, especially since it feels equally out of place in
the environment he lives in. However, his politeness is – even more so than Tony’s
anachronistic chivalry – a mere façade that fails to hide the self-absorbed tyrant behind it.
Mr. Todd styles himself a fatherly figure (AHoD: 217) to the natives which illustrates his
presumptuousness well as the bushmen have little other choice than following the orders of
the gun owner. Just as the stereotypical savage that the contemporary British readership
was afraid of at the time of the first successful colonial uprisings Mr. Todd takes
everything that he wishes without any moral repulse. However, there is another, more
intriguing side to this character: Mr. Todd likes the books of Dickens, the chronicler of
Victorian London. The motive of an additional punishment for Tony who has to confront
the world he fled from by reading this kind of literature has been established multiple
times. However, it is equally interesting to take a closer look at the implications of Mr.
Todd’s reaction. He states that there are passages in the book Little Dorrit where he always
has to weep (AHoD: 221). This is Waugh’s conclusive attack on the sentimental novel. He
discredits Dickens’s attempt to evoke humanist values in his readership as he suggests that
savages like Mr. Todd are the type of readers drawn in by a literature aiming at creating
moral discernment through aesthetic effects. These predictable effects appeal to human
emotions on a very basic level and it is therefore insinuated that they are especially
appealing to uncivilized bushmen who allow themselves to be carried away by such
literary emotional outbursts. While this is already not complimenting Dickens at all, the
behaviour of Mr. Todd implies even more because he is only touched by the literature
without taking moral lessons from it. He remains a tyrant and thereby illustrates the
inability of sentimentality without a deeper philosophical foundation to change a person’s
morality for the better.
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3. The Plight of Gothic Man
The true motivation for Tony’s voyage to Brazil has already been hinted at previously (cp.
Chapter 1): rather than displaying a simple form of escapism, he is on a quest to find
redemption. Waugh’s novel is highly allegorical and it is therefore no coincidence that the
bedrooms at Hetton have been given the names of knights of the Arthurian legend (AHoD:
17/18). Not only do these names inform us about the proprietors of the respective rooms,
they also more generally foreshow the dimension of Tony’s quest: he is a chivalric man in
an unknightly world whose “quest for the city”, as Cunningham puts it, “is also a quest for
the grail” (Cunningham 1993:121). Again, the other characters of the novel would
arguably find this kind of motivation naïve at best. Tony’s existence in an amoral world
signifies a constant contrast between different realms: death (or a state close to it in his
uninspired environment) and life, the vulgar city of London and the sublime countryside,
the past and the present. It is this contrast that renders Tony a quintessentially Gothic
character longing for the extinct Victorian order of life. Tony tries everything to save last
remnants of it in Hetton and when he is unable to continue this self-deception due to
Brenda’s monetary demands, he is forced to look for a system of order elsewhere.
Some critics have argued that Tony’s quest is ultimately futile as he “is already spiritually
dead when he leaves England, and John Andrew’s death is merely a sign that Tony’s life
can have no meaningful sequel” (Dale 2006: 106), whereas others have been more
conciliatory. Firchow points out that “Tony has found his city. The stable order and daily
ritual he had enjoyed at Hetton are stored to him, in a different key, in Brazil” (Firchow
1972: 416). It might be added that this key is very different, and while the critic is right in
his assessment that “Todd’s city does not threaten to collapse so easily as Tony’s former
life” (Firchow 1972: 416) and it is true that a reduction of anarchy may indeed constitute a
reward in the view of an author as obsessed with order as Waugh, the price that Tony pays
for this, including the irrevocable loss of Hetton, is still very high. While Cunningham
agrees with Firchow that A Handful of Dust offers a form redemption in the end, he states
that “in rational terms, Tony Last’s history and his condition at the end of the novel seem
to be punishments too severe for his only crime – being tiresome” (Cunningham 1993:
117). However, he justifies this by the “anagogic dimension” in Catholic writing as part of
the purgatory process that is required to attain redemption. Either way, Firchow’s
interpretation remains a daring one as it has to be concluded that Tony does not attain the
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edemption he strives for in the fangs of the barbarian Mr. Todd. He does not accomplish
his aim of reaching the transfigured Hetton, his old Victorian values do not gain new
vigour.
4. Conclusion
In A Handful of Dust Waugh presents a dark and gloomy vision of a world without
religious foundations. According to Stannard, he shows “a purely secular world, or, at
least, a world whose sense of theology was diluted by the humanism of the Reformers”
(Stannard 2004/2005: 195). Tony displays an anachronistic gallantry which is habitualized
and based on his idea of the Victorian value code but his effete, compromised Anglicanism
does not endow him with the appropriate religious backdrop to it. Deep down, his
Victorian moral philosophy is a hollow construct and therefore proves rather flexible
regarding his own vice such as parental and marital neglect. It is shown that humanist
ideals cannot be instilled by simply appealing to sentimental feelings in humans. Tony as a
defender of Victorian ideals is therefore alone in his strife for what the rest of the
characters consider outmoded values. He does not manage to pass on his moral codex to
his son just as nobody else of Tony’s creed seems to have managed to pass on these values
to the next generation, leaving society in the desolate state in which it is depicted. Tony’s
acquaintances are amoral and despicable characters. As it is suggested that all human
societies without a firm theological justification of their positions are ultimately rotten,
Tony’s escape to the jungle only offers temporary relief. On his quest to invigorate his
values with new meaning, he leaves one type of barbarism behind only to find himself
trapped in another one. While the Gothic man Tony Last may ultimately obtain some form
of redemption, it comes at a high price and remains unsatisfying. Without a return to a
value system founded on religion, it may be insinuated, one cannot achieve a durable
humanist education. For Waugh this religious backdrop is equivalent to his Catholic belief.
Stannard sums up the idea that fuelled the creation of A Handful of Dust in a brilliant
manner when he reckons about Waugh that he writes “Catholic novels by negative
suggestion, describing the anarchy of a world attempting to maintain its sanity in
ignorance, or in rejection, of the True Faith.” For this Catholic writer, Stannard continues,
“the supernatural is real – but only the supernatural as mediated by the Catholic Church”
(Stannard 2004/2005). Consequently, there are no miracles in Tony’s godless world, the
impious do not receive Christian salvation as they have replaced divine law by a human-
made social code that has lost in appeal by the time the novel takes place in. Waugh wrote
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a novel that is devoid of genuine Catholic faith to illustrate just how desperately this
solidly founded belief is needed to maintain civil behaviour in human societies – for if we
are to believe the author the Victorian attempt to instill a purely man-made value system
based on sentimental appeal is doomed to fail. The Dickensian approach is bankrupt – at
least from Waugh’s perspective.
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Bibliography
Primary literature:
Novels:
Waugh, Evelyn. 2000 [1934]. A Handful of Dust. London: Penguin Books.
Non-autonomous publications:
Amory, Mark (ed.).1980. The Letters of Evelyn Waugh. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
88-89.
Waugh, Evelyn.1946. “Fan-Fare.” Life (magazine) - issue: 8.4.1946. New York: Time
Warner Publishing. 53-60.
Secondary literature:
Monographs:
Stannard, Martin. 1989. Evelyn Waugh: The Early Years, 1903-1939. New York: W. W.
Norton & Company.
Essays:
Cunningham, John. 1993. “A Handful of Dust Reconsidered.” Core, George (ed.). The
Sewanee Review 101.1. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press. 115-124.
Dale, Alan. 2006. “To Crie Alarme Spiritual: Evelyn Waugh and the Ironic Community.”
Parsons, Deborah, and Andrzej Gasiorek (eds.). Modernist Cultures 2.2. Edinburgh:
Edinburgh University Press. 103-114.
Firchow, Peter E. 1972. “In Search of A Handful of Dust: The Literary Background to
Evelyn Waugh’s Novel.” Levitt, Morton P. (ed.). Journal of Modern Literature 2.3.
Indiana: Indiana University Press. 406-416.
Greenberg, Jonathan. 2003. “Was Anyone Hurt? The End of Satire in A Handful of Dust.”
Armstrong, Nancy (ed.). Novel: A Forum on Fiction 36.3. Durham: Duke University Press.
351-373.
Lobb, Edward. 2003/2004. “Waugh Among Modernists: Allusion and Theme in A Handful
of Dust.” Leimberg, Inge, and Matthias Bauer (eds.).Connotations 13.1-2. Münster/New
York: Waxmann Verlag. 130-143.
O’Donoghue, Bernard. 1987. “Waugh the Modernist.” Wall, Stephen (ed.). Essays in
Criticism XXXVII. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 338-345.
Pasternak Slater, Ann. 1982. “Waugh’s A Handful of Dust: Right Things in Wrong
Places.” Wall, Stephen (ed.). Essays in Criticism XXXII. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
48-68.
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Stannard, Martin. 2004/2005. “In Search of A City: Civilization, Humanism and English
Gothic in A Handful of Dust.” Leimberg, Inge, and Matthias Bauer (eds.). Connotations
14.1-3. Münster/New York: Waxmann Verlag. 183-204.
Timms, Edward. 1995. “The Christian Satirist. A Contradiction in Terms.” Bentley,
Bernard P. E. (ed.). Forum for Modern Language Studies XXXI. Oxford: Oxford
University Press. 101-116.
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