A Handful of Dust essays

A Handful of Dust essays In Evelyn Waughs, A Handful of Dust, Tony Last exists as an aristocrat whose devotion to Victorian values and beliefs controls and dictates his life; leaving him blind to the unhappiness and boredom his wife, Brenda, experiences due to his primitive and outdated ways. Tonys obsession with the Victorian lifestyle only intensifies with his exposure to the material and transient qualities of the new, emerging society. The rapid development of this society shortens the existence of the Victorian lifestyle and seemingly leaves Tony as the last member of his beloved British society. Unwilling to conform and desperately clinging to his traditional ways, Tony creates his existence as an outsider; rejected and abandoned by society he seeks refuge and familiarity in Hetton. Ironically, it is Tony Lasts devotion and loyalty to the preservation of Hetton that lead to the ultimate destruction of his life. The emerging modern society transforms Victorian culture into a mere memory of the pas t, Tonys overwhelming devotion and loyalty to Hetton create the abandonment, solitude, and destruction he experiences throughout the duration of the novel. The marriage between Brenda and Tony suggests the extermination of Empire, the disillusion with the imperialist development that was intimidating in the modernist period. Tony Last lived his life with order. His loyalty and dedication to his estate was that of outstanding perseverance. But there was not a glazed brick or encaustic tile that was not dear to Tonys heart (13), he cherished every bit of that estate. His estate was entirely rebuilt in the gothic style and is now devoid of interest. He even named the bedrooms in their country estate after characters from the King Arthur stories, with the central clock tower, the dining hall with its hammer-beam roof and pitch-pine minstrels gallery; their bedrooms with their brass bedsteads, all of which the...