Anthony
Blanche
Character
Analysis
https://www.litcharts.com/lit/brideshead-revisited/characters/anthony-blanche
Anthony
Blanche is a friend of Sebastian’s at Oxford University, and an acquaintance of
Charles Ryder. Anthony is an outsider in British society for several reasons:
he is foreign and has travelled all over the world, he is from a Catholic
family, and he is homosexual. Anthony is picked on by other boys throughout his
school years in England, and the bullying continues at university. He responds
to this by embracing his unconventionality and using it shock people. He loves
to break social conventions and to make people uncomfortable. However, although
Anthony’s eccentric behavior is a defense mechanism and a way to protect
himself, it does not make him likable or accepted the way that Sebastian’s
similar behavior does. Anthony is slightly bitter about this and realizes that
he is picked on because he is different, while Sebastian gets away things
because people are taken in by his “English charm.” Anthony, as a foreigner,
cannot rely on this and is jealous of Sebastian. He tries to tempt Charles away
from Sebastian and seems irritated that Charles prefers Sebastian to him.
Anthony is presented as a “devilish” figure who is the exact opposite of
Sebastian’s angelic, youthful innocence. Anthony, in contrast, is worldly,
experienced, and can be cruel. He thus represents the demonic side in the
battle for Charles’s affections, and tries to steer Charles towards a life of
lust, debauchery, and modern art, while Sebastian represents true love, and the
wisdom and religious grace which comes from this. Anthony is an “aesthete,”
someone who loves beauty and art, and wants Charles to unleash his inner
artistic passion. He feels that Charles, who he thinks has potential to be a
great artist, has been metaphorically “killed” by Sebastian because he has lost
his interest in cultural exploration and, instead, wants to remain as he is and
not allow change into his life. As Charles grows older, he realizes that
Anthony is right in this sense, and that he must accept change to grow and
develop as an artist.
Anthony Blanche
Character Analysis
https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/brideshead-revisited/anthony-blanche.html
Anthony Blanche is one of the most colorful characters
you’ll meet in Shmoop Literature. "A nomad of no nationality,"
"the aesthete par excellence," and a "fine piece of
cookery," Anthony practically leaps off the pages of Brideshead Revisited
with "colorful robes" and exaggerated, affected stutter. We can’t
really do much better than Charles’s description of him "waxing in
wickedness like a Hogarthian page boy," or disguising himself as a girl on
account of a bet, dining with Proust, practicing black art in Cefalu, getting
"cured of drug-taking in California and of an Oedipus complex in
Vienna." Most telling is this line: "His vices flourished less in the
pursuit of pleasure than in the wish to shock."
Indeed. In addition to being colorful and hilarious,
Anthony is also flamboyantly and stereotypically gay. He threatens to
"stick [Sebastian] full of barbed arrows like a p-p-pin-cushion" and
says to Mulcaster, "Who knows better than you by taste for queer
fish?" He will later tell Sebastian, "If you want to be intoxicated
there are so many much more delicious things [than alcohol]" while
bringing him to who is most likely a male prostitute (though we could be way
off here – who knows). He tells a group of mocking students that he would
"like nothing better than the manhandled by you meaty boys."
Sebastian later refers to him as "Charlus," a gay character from one
of Proust’s novels. Aside from innuendo, we have clear statements of his sexuality.
"I may be inverted but I am not insatiable," he tells a group of
young boys at his door. ("Inverted" was the not-so-politically
correct term at the time for being gay.) Charles also refers to Sebastian as
"my pansy friend" later in the novel.
Aside from the comedy, Anthony, much like Cara and
Cordelia, is around in Brideshead Revisited to give Charles – and therefore the
reader – information second hand. His relationship with Charles revolves around
three key encounters, all of which consist of Anthony talking. A lot. First is
the famous dinner out at Oxford, when Anthony puts in his two cents (make that
two dollars) about the Flyte family. From his scathing critique of Julia as
"a passionless, acquisitive, intriguing, ruthless killer" to his unexpected
description of Sebastian as "insipid," Anthony has opinions on
everything and everyone. His lengthy discourse with Charles serves as our
introduction to the Flytes, and raises the stakes on the discoveries to follow.
When Sebastian later dismisses these comments as gossip and lies, Charles
writes them off. But Waugh makes sure we’re still left wondering: Sebastian
quickly changes the subject to that of his teddy-bear, just as Anthony
suggested he would. Sounds like Blanche knows what he’s talking about…
And indeed, many of Anthony’s comments about the
Flytes do turn out to be true. Julia is admittedly a semi-heathen like her
brother, the history regarding Lord and Lady Marchmain’s marriage is later
confirmed, and Charles concludes that Lady Marchmain is as manipulative as
everyone says. But what about Sebastian? Does Anthony’s description hold true?
Let’s take a closer look at what he claims about our favorite teddy-bear-toting
student:
"Tell me candidly, have you ever heard
Sebastian say anything you have remembered for five minutes? You know, when I
hear him talk, I am reminded of that in some ways nauseating picture of
'Bubbles.' […] When dear Sebastian speaks it is like a little sphere of
soapsuds drifting off the end of an old clay pipe, anywhere, full of rainbow
light for a second and then – "phut! – vanished, with nothing left at all,
nothing."
OK…so Anthony has a point. Sebastian isn’t exactly
profound, and he tends spend most of his time talking about the temper of his
stuffed bear. But what’s wrong with simply being light-hearted? Plenty,
according to Anthony. He believes that Sebastian poses a particular threat to
Charles, and more specifically to Charles’s artistic abilities.
In Charles’s "Character Analysis" we talk a
lot about Charles’s aesthetic education and the progress he makes,
artistically, throughout the course of the novel. Anthony and his comments on
"English charm" are a big part of this education. He touches on the
subject briefly during this first big speech at Oxford, but it’s not until his
final scene in the novel – out with Charles after the big exhibition – that the
point really hits home for Charles (and for the reader, of course). Take a
look:
"I was right years ago – more years, I am
happy to say, than either of us shows – when I warned you. I took you out to
dinner to warn you of charm. I warned you expressly and in great detail of the
Flyte family. Charm is the great English blight. It does not exist outside
these damp islands. It spots and kills anything it touches. It kills love; it
kills art; I greatly fear, my dear Charles, it has killed you."
While everyone else is going gaga over Charles’s new,
feral paintings, Anthony is unconvinced that Charles has managed to escape
British charm and become a true artist. He says of the artwork: "It
reminded me of dear Sebastian when he liked so much to dress up in false
whiskers. It was charm again, my dear, simple, creamy English charm, playing
tigers." Charm has strangled (or even "thwarted," an important
word in Brideshead Revisited) Charles’s artistic potential.
And of course, Anthony blames Sebastian for siccing
this charm on Charles. Over and over again the word is used to describe
Sebastian and his "Bubbles"-like manner of speaking. In just his
first conversation with Charles, Anthony says that "Sebastian has charm
[…], such charm," suggests that in a church confessional he was "just
being charming through the grille," reiterates that "he has such
charm" and that "[he’s] so charming, so amusing," claims that
"those who are charming [like Sebastian] don’t need brains," calls
him "a little bundle of charm," concludes that in fact all the Flytes
are "charming, of course," and finishes by saying "there was
really very little left for poor Sebastian to do except be sweet and charming."
He says the only reason Sebastian still visits is father is "because he’s
so charming," and advises that Charles not blame Sebastian for being
"insipid," "simple," and… "charming."
OK. We think we’ve made our point. But now you can
understand that when Anthony says "It is not an experience I would
recommend for An Artist at the tenderest stage of his growth, to be strangled
with charm" that what he’s really warning Charles against isn’t just good
manners; he’s warning him against Sebastian. And he might be right to do so.
Consider the fact that Charles is a Captain in the army telling his story and
seems to have abandoned art altogether. In fact, Charles straight out agrees
with Anthony’s interpretation of his paintings as "British charm playing
tigers." "You’re quite right," he says to Anthony, and that’s
the last we hear from him in the subject of art. When Lord Marchmain asks him
at the end of the novel whether he will become an Artist, his response is
simple, "No. As a matter of fact I am negotiating now for a commission in
the Special Reserve." And that’s that.
No comments:
Post a Comment