Vile Bodies

Question 1

What is the plot of Vile Bodies?

Answer 1

• Fragmented narrative with little traditional plot development. (a lot of story, not a lot of plot)
• Follows Adam Fenwick-Symes, an aspiring writer, navigating Bright Young
• People’s world of endless parties.
• Adam’s love life with Nina Blount is uncertain and unstable.
• He loses and gains money repeatedly, preventing his marriage.
• Many characters appear and disappear, emphasizing interchangeability.
• Ends with Adam in a war zone, drinking with a general and a former angel named Chastity.

Question 2

Who are the most important characters in Vile Bodies?

Answer 2

Adam Fenwick-Symes (protagonist, flat and round but hard to follow, passive, lacks agency).

Nina Blount (Adam’s love interest, flat/static, emotionally detached, interchangeable).

Ginger Littlejohn (Nina’s eventual husband, foil to Adam, represents stability).

Agatha Runcible (Bright Young Person, symbol of emptiness, self-destructive).

Mr. Chatterbox (Gossip column persona, changes hands, symbol of emptiness and instability).

Mrs. Ape (represents religious authority but not her angels not without sin).

Mr. Outrage (Prime Minister, loud and angry but ineffective).

Question 3

What is the narrative situation in Vile Bodies?

Answer 3

Third-person, omniscient narrator (teller mode, external perspective).

Or: heterodiegetic, extradiegetic, zero focalized

Uses scenic presentation (camera technique, shows rather than tells).

Reflector moments: Characters’ actions reveal their emptiness.

The narrator disappears at times, creating detachment.

Question 4

What are important metaphors in Vile Bodies?

Answer 4

Parties → Represent emptiness, excess without purpose.

Motor race (Agatha Runcible) → Life moving in circles, chasing excitement but going nowhere.

Ending scene (Adam, the general, and Chastity drinking champagne in war) → A distorted “Holy Trinity,” highlighting meaningless existence.

Question 5

In what way is this a modernist novel?

Answer 5

• Break with traditions
• Subjectivity, Identity, different perspectives
• Disillusionment as result of WWI
• Fragmentation
• Things are not always logical
• Uncertainty