Hetton Symbol Analysis

The neo-Gothic country estate Hetton, Tony Last’s ancestral home, symbolizes empty nostalgia, and it acts as a kind of analogy for Tony himself. Though the estate in fact dates back hundreds of years, Tony’s grandfather had it remodeled in the 1860s in a garish pastiche of medieval Gothic architecture—a popular trend at the time. By the 1930s, Hetton has gone wildly out of style, and it inspires disgust and contempt in the hip London crowd who favor slick modernism. Tony, however, is confident that all tastes are ephemeral and that Hetton will come back into fashion, and this belief supports his unflagging devotion to the house where he grew up. Tony’s attachment to Hetton points to a symbolic kinship between him and the house: they share a veneer of civility that’s well-intended but is simply inauthentic by nature. Just as the 19th century witnessed a fad for medieval aesthetics but without a revival of the chivalric social order and religious values that they originally embodied, Tony enjoys the superficial trappings of civilization—essentially class etiquette—without the hard-won faith and social obligation it once implied. Hetton’s redecoration was a sham, and it has already gone out of favor. Tony’s commitment to it puts him at odds with modernity, and this puts Tony in the unfortunate position of nostalgically defending what was a fake to begin with, while being too naïve to recognize it as such. Like the house, Tony’s own silly and antiquated habits provoke derision from cutting-edge London socialites. The estate’s claim on his imagination stays strong even when he tries momentarily to flee it in the Amazon, where he imagines the lost Amazonian city he seeks as “Gothic in character, all vanes and pinnacles, […] a transfigured Hetton, pennons and banners floating on the sweet breeze.” His failure to see through this aesthetic reflects his lack of self-reflection generally.