Muddled Memory: Values and Virtues in The Loved One Alyssa Oren 12th Grade

Today, the good is often overshadowed by the evil. The media is flooded with more crime and negativity than it is the positives and stories of charities and selfless deeds. Similarly, in Evelyn Waugh’s The Loved One, the bad, those obsessed with money, self-preservation and appearances, and insincerity in general, cloud the few characters that oppose them. Though Sir Francis has a brief appearance in the novel, he is an admirable character because he is the only character that is self-aware, ethical, sincere, and persistent, despite a problematic society.

In the novel, Waugh satirizes the American and British ways of life, criticizing distorted priorities and exposing falseness and inhumanity in behavior, action, and the environment, due to a lack of emotion and general regard for things meant to involve more than the materialistic, such as death. Though part of one of the main symbols that illustrate the infatuation people have with superficial, the movie industry, Sir Francis recognizes the flaw of insincerity, realizing how few genuine emotions, care, and effort go into his industry and society as a whole, stating, ‘The studios keep us going with a pump. We are still just capable of a few crude reactions—nothing more’” (14)....