The Way of All Flesh

The novel’s narrator, Edward Overton, is a writer who knows Ernest as his godson and eventually serves as a mentor to him. Overton provides few details about his personal life and background, apart from his occupation as a writer and his interactions with the Pontifex family. Instead, Overton reveals himself through his commentary and asides, which he inserts frequently. Early on, Overton admits, “I am portraying myself more surely than I am portraying any of the characters whom I set before the reader” (48). Overton makes no secret of his views as he evaluates events and characters, and he embodies many of the characteristics Ernest acquires by the end of the novel, including skepticism of authority, a laidback attitude, and a sense of humor. As narrator, Overton also demonstrates imagination and desire to empathize with his characters. Though he does occasionally mock those whose views depart from his own, such as Christina and Skinner, he also recognizes those characters’ positive qualities and the influence of circumstances beyond their control in making them who they are.

Recalling events after the fact, Overton the narrator doesn’t go through any significant changes. As a character in the story, however, Overton does evolve in his feelings toward Ernest. When Alethea first takes Ernest under her care, Overton considers him a “nuisance.” Later, his interest and affections ebb and flow as Ernest moves closer to or further from the kind of life he prizes, with a particularly low point in his esteem for Ernest coinciding with Ernest’s time as a curate: “I was vexed at Ernest’s having been ordained. I was not ordained myself and I did not like my friends to be ordained, nor did I like having to be on my best behaviour” (188), he explains with characteristic candor. As Ernest shows signs of leaving behind his religious upbringing, he becomes more interesting to Overton, who begins to act sincerely instead of out of duty. As the novel concludes, Overton’s concerns for Ernest are virtually all resolved, as he observes, “those who know [Ernest] intimately do not know that they wish him greatly different from what he actually is” (315). In this way, Overton implicitly endorses Ernest’s values and the person he’s become.

Ernest’s father, Theobald, is the novel’s main antagonist, though, as Overton points out, he is more concerned with systems than individuals. Subjected to a harsh upbringing that molded him into a never-truly-happy clergyman, Theobald attempts to subject Ernest to the same treatment. Theobald and Ernest are foil characters because they face similar circumstances but make different choices. Unlike Ernest, Theobald enjoys tormenting others. In addition to his strong temper, Theobald is also willfully isolated. Though he marries Christina under pressure, Overton suggests that “if he could have found someone to cook his dinner for him, he would rather have lived in a desert island than not” (53). As a parent, Theobald is strict, demanding, and humorless, which leads Ernest to fear him from a young age. In speech, Theobald relies on cliché expressions, or “tags,” as Overton calls them, such as “answering every purpose” (136) and “only too ready” (151). His repetitive use of language mirrors his behavior as one who obeys and represents the church instead of thinking for himself.

Theobald’s character is flat, meaning that he changes little, if at all, from the time he reaches adulthood until his death. This further contrasts with Ernest, showing what Ernest’s life might have been like had he not faced the challenges and made the choices that he did.

As Ernest’s mother, Christina works with Theobald to raise Ernest in a religious household. Like Theobald, she is strict and occasionally punishes her children, though she employs physical punishment less often than he does. Her strength lies more in emotional appeals, as exemplified in the letter she writes to her children when she fears her death is imminent, as well as the occasional talks she shares with Theobald in the garden or on the family couch. In her view, she and Theobald are motivated only by a sincere love for their children.

Christina possesses a vivid imagination, which she employs in imagining lofty religious achievements for herself and her family, up to and including martyrdom, though she does resent the fact (which she considers a matter of “policy,” rather than “doctrine”) that women in the church are not granted ranks on par with the men. Her aspirations prove flexible, as when she imagines Ernest becoming prime minister after advancement within the church is no longer an option. Due to her sincerity and warmth, Overton respects and appreciates Christina more than Theobald, assigning most of the blame for her defects to the influence of the church. Like Theobald, Christina changes little throughout the text, illustrating her unwavering devotion to her religious ideals.

Alethea Pontifex is Ernest’s aunt and godmother. Lively and affectionate, she takes after her grandfather, John. Overton is attracted to Alethea and repeatedly asks her to marry him, but she refuses, preferring to avoid marriage altogether, though she and Overton remain good friends and, indeed, partners in looking after Ernest as his godparents. As much as anyone else, Alethea is responsible for Ernest’s eventual development and growth because she seeks him out, encourages him, and leaves her money to him with Overton acting as trustee. Like Overton, Alethea is an unconventional thinker, suspicious of traditional institutions and ideas; not by coincidence, her name comes from the Greek word for truth. Perhaps because of Overton’s infatuation with her, Alethea is the novel’s most idealized character, serving as an alternate mother figure to Ernest.

Dr. Samuel Skinner runs the grammar school that Ernest attends in Roughborough and is renowned for turning out students who go on to prestigious positions. Overton’s portrayal of Skinner is satirical in nature, with the high reputation Skinner enjoys contrasted with details of characterization and behavior that make him appear absurd. For instance, an essay by Skinner is described as “so exhaustive” that “it exhausted all who had anything to do with it” (87), while Skinner’s tendency to address mundane matters in a dramatic manner is described as “Skinnerese” (88). Alongside such jokes at Skinner’s expense, Overton also gives his view of Skinner as one tasked with the corruption of youth, as well as Alethea’s observation that Skinner has “the harmlessness of the serpent and the wisdom of the dove” (90). Skinner thus embodies the worst aspects of an educational system whose purpose is to mold students into pliable agents of church and state.

Ellen is Christina’s servant, who later becomes Ernest’s wife, though their marriage is found not to be legally binding. As the daughter of a widowed fisherman’s wife, Ellen goes into service at a young age. Christina hires her when Ellen is about 18 years old. Described as an exceptionally pretty woman, Ellen takes to promiscuity and heavy drinking. As a member of the lower classes, she wins Ernest’s affection following his release from prison, at which time he plans to cast off his upper-class heritage and start over. From the start, their class difference poses a threat to the marriage because Ernest’s artistic interests clash with Ellen’s love of baser pleasures. Ernest comes to view the marriage as a mistake, with Ellen representing the risks of marriage and the potential loss of good manners associated with the upper classes, which Overton so values. Ellen is thus viewed with pity rather than anger.

An acquaintance of Ernest’s from his time at Cambridge, Towneley is more of an ideal than a character. He appears only a few times but almost always at key moments, serving as a recurring frame of reference for Ernest’s choices. When Ernest chooses to live among the poor, then runs into Towneley and asks Towneley whether he likes poor people, Towneley replies, “No, no, no” (195), leaving Ernest to reevaluate “the whole scheme and scope of his own recently adopted ideas” (195). Similarly, Towneley’s appearance at the moment when Ernest sets out to either convert or make love to Miss Snow shocks Ernest into reconsidering his life as a clergyman. In the end, Ernest decides that he can never be like Towneley, but he can fill an important function in the pursuit and transmission of knowledge that can later be applied “gracefully and instinctively as the Towneleys can” (253). Thus Towneley, as his name suggests, represents the pinnacle of human achievement as manifested in an ideal form.

Pryer is the senior curate at the London rectory where Ernest works after his ordination. Corrupt, hypocritical, and dishonest, Pryer represents the worst possible type of clergyman, the kind who uses his position as a cloak for sinful behavior. Pryer explicitly justifies his sinful actions, which are only hinted at, as necessary research into sin. As a proponent of high-church worship practices, Pryer’s hypocrisy takes on even greater significance because he believes the church is practically faultless, even more authoritative than the Bible.