Little English Grievances
As the first part of the book revolves around the gossip column’s perspective of parties and the London social scene, much of the interpersonal interaction in Evelyn Waugh’s Vile Bodies occurs through minor grievances passed back and forth among the well-to-do. These are then twisted, exaggerated, and wrung through the gossip columnists and fed to the general public, often to disastrous effect. The upper-class, we might imagine, conduct themselves with grace and carefully studied manners—especially the English. So, it was a surprise to discover such petty immaturity and ill will among them.
The mildly-disagreeably behavior starts with Mrs. Ape’s divine recovery of her money from the bar steward on the channel crossing. That a missionary holds a collection after singing doesn’t seem out of place, but mentioning “her own five shillings which she got back from the bar-steward” does (20). She’s supposed to be offering salvation—orthogonal to monetary issues—but she still has to get her measly five shillings back. It speaks to pettiness of Ape’s soul that she keeps careful track of such a small amount.
Lottie’s parlour is an epicenter of posh grievances. When she meets Adam, she greets him with the following exchange:
“Well, you are a stranger. […] You’ll find a lot of your friends here.” She led Adam into the parlour, where they found several men, none of whom Adam had ever seen before (43).
Strangely, she places him into an unfriendly environment while claiming it is homely and comforting. The misunderstanding between Mr. Outrage and Baroness Yoshiwara is another example: “But, you never knew with Orientals” … “It was so hard to know what these Occidentals wanted.” It’s a trivial misunderstanding, a scheduling grievance between the two, but it entirely classifies their relationship so far!
I could go on, about how Balcairn stole Vanburgh’s story, just not the part he was allowed to borrow, or Adam and Nina’s argument over the color of his hair (67), or the fall of the government over … scandal (100): the number of trivial grievances passed back and forth is limitless. What is important, I think, is to recognize that what we would consider relational faux pas are a potent means of communication and relationship in Evelyn Waugh’s Vile Bodies.
This entry was posted on Sunday, April 10th, 2005 at 8:52 pm and is tagged with evelyn waugh, bar steward, five shillings, gossip columnists, interpersonal interaction, gossip columns, vile bodies, yoshiwara, careful track, unfriendly environment, disastrous effect, pettiness, immaturity, ill will, baroness, grievances, epicenter, apes, misunderstanding, grievance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback.
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