Historical Anachronisms
Tony Last is a man out of time and out of place. Likewise, his beloved ancestral manor, Hetton Abbey, is an anachronistic monstrosity representing an era in British history on the edge of darkness. Even more to the point, Hetton Abbey represents what happens when one tries to update a historical anachronism in order to try to force it to fit in contemporary standards which it cannot withstand. Efforts by Tony to once again modernize his home prove as fruitless as previous efforts to transform it from a medieval Catholic abbey to Victorian Gothic revival have only served to leave it as devoid of any authentic identity as Tony Last himself; a man out of time both temporally and literally.
Civilized Man Among the Savages
Tony also represents the last vestiges of traditional views of civilization among the savagery of the new consumer economy. Tony’s civilized man is juxtaposed against the primal savagery of his wife Brenda and the gauche aristocrat Lady Cockpurse who indulge in all the hedonistic pleasures afforded by their status and class without accepting the responsibilities that comes with such privilege. Tony is portrayed as hopelessly outnumbered and it is his vainly idealistic commitment to an increasingly outdated mode of thinking and living that fingers him as an inevitable victim destined to be lost in the epochal shuffling of priorities.
The Pathetic Hero
Waugh’s novels reveal the development of his concept of the pathetic hero as emblematic of the cultural transformations revolutionizing England in the early decades of the 20th century. In this sense, “pathetic” refers not to the modern vernacular, but as it relates to the ancient Greek literary term “pathos.” While today, pathetic is usually reserved for someone whose weakness inspires contempt, pathos inspires pity or sadness at the extent of suffering another individual must endure. A Handful of Dust is part of a multi-novel working out by Waugh of the creation of a protagonist who is too powerless to resist the forces of change, but whose struggles so mightily that his failure and loss is not viewed with the contemptuousness of a vice, but the pity of an heroic fail.
