Purgation in Evelyn Waugh's The Scarlet Woman

Abstract

The Scarlet Woman, Waugh's only screenplay and one of the least popular among his works, says more than it really does. Despite its  crudeness in terms of plot, acting, and directing, it conveys a serious message. On a limited scale, The Scarlet Woman might be regarded as Waugh's version of  Dante's Purgatorio.  Written when he was at Oxford,  it shows symptoms of  subconscious rejection of the wild life he led without God. Five years before his conversion to Catholicism, Waugh seems to have been waiting for purgation. This is his  design in The Scarlet Woman.

                As a satirist and comic writer, Waugh believes in the hygienic cultural power of comedy that won't be effective if it comes from a stray soul like his at the time. The aim of this paper is to briefly reveal Waugh's  "gigantic" design by following threads scattered all over the melodrama. The paper shows how early the idea of cleansing lingered in Waugh's mind and how strong the urge was to step out of his inferno.