ABSTRACT Title of Document: BRITISH MODERNIST ... - DRUM

was and less than it should be. This sense of diminution contrasts with the
architecture of the station, which is notable for its sameness, end to end and through
time. Nevertheless, the result is similar: as the clerestory beams support nothing,
Tony’s open mouth emits nothing. While the absence of speech is clearly implied, the
description is not of a silenced speaker, but of pre-verbal expression silenced: first
“an unnatural half-yawn,” then “a controlled scream.” The clerestory suggests irony
through its lack of function: sophisticated, verbal double-meaning. Tony’s mouth
suggests unsophisticated double-meaning. But, while the clerestory’s meaning
remains obscure, Tony’s mouth suggests the emotional content of his condition:
boredom and terror. These remain significant themes throughout The Unfortunates:
the terror of death and of meaninglessness, the boredom of day-to-day existence. And
they are caused by, as well as read into, Tony’s inability to speak in the complicated,
rational (unemotional) language of words.
When the narrator first meets Tony, on a trip to a printer as editor of a college
literary magazine, he is struck by Tony’s intellect, and, particularly, his
conversational ability: “He had that sort of mind, Tony, that could marshall an
argument methodically, both or all sides, yet leave you quite clear as to which he
advocated, supported, and why” (“That was the first time, that must have been the
first time, yes” 3). Frequently, the narrator will be unable to remember the specifics
of conversations he has had with Tony—unwilling to supply unremembered dialogue
and leaving even the subject or occasion of conversation as a matter of speculation.
But Tony’s way of talking was of such great interest to the young narrator that he and
his co-editor “had asked him to be a guest contributor to our magazine, to write as he
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