Satire- the loved one

Essay- The Loved One
Evelyn Waugh satirises death and life by centring his novel “The Loved One” around two funeral parlours, the Happier Hunting Ground and Whispering Glades. Through death, the characters lives are based. It is through the Happier Hunting Ground and Whispering Glades, both places of death, that we see how they live their lives. By openly satirising death, it satirises life by implication. We see the Hollywood industry, romance, English life, and the death of a pet satirised.


When Dennis Barlow enters the Whispering Glades, the “Dreamer”, Wilbur Kenworthy uses euphemism and propaganda to attract people to the funeral parlour. The sculpture of a large open book made out of marble, reads:

Behold I dreamed a dream and I saw a New Earth sacred to Happiness. There amid all that Nature and Art could offer to elevate the Soul of Man I say the Happy Resting Place of Countless Loved Ones. And I saw the Waiting Ones who still stood on the brink of that na...