The Temptation of Evelyn Waugh: Portrait of the Artist as Tory Anarchist

Abstract

This article introduces Waugh’s tory anarchism and its relevance to his work and religion. It proceeds by examining the ways in which Waugh represented anarchy in his work, specifically drawing out his ideas on the threats to moral order raised by the spread of nihilism, barbarism and materialism. Waugh’s position towards these themes is complex and often contradictory and runs throughout his life and work, from his rebellious schooldays through to his final novel, The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold. In Pinfold Waugh laid bare all manner of personal demons in a bold and imaginative mixture of autobiography, fantasy and confession. What we are left with in his work is an original and powerful conservative critique of the nature of modernity, in all its horrors, which as Waugh/Pinfold said, included, ‘plastics, Picasso, sunbathing and jazz.’