The Loved One

The chief embalmer at Whispering Glades, Mr. Joyboy is enamored of cosmetician Aimée and thinks that the way to her heart is to send her smiling corpses. He thus woos her and succeeds in impressing her. In addition, he recommends Aimée for an embalmer job. However, after Aimée shuns his proposal and becomes engaged to Dennis, the job promotion offer vanishes, which today would implicate Mr. Joyboy in an instance of workplace sexual harassment. In a glum mood after learning of Aimée’s engagement to Barlow, Mr. Joyboy sends her corpses with expressions of “bottomless woe” (112) instead of smiles. When she breaks her engagement to Dennis and instead becomes engaged to Mr. Joyboy, however, he again sends her smiling corpses.

Mr. Joyboy’s physical description is befitting of his position. Waugh describes him as “not a handsome man” with “a lack of color” (58) and fleshy hands. Mr. Joyboy’s character takes a particularly loathsome turn at the end of the novel when he discovers Aimée’s body after she has embalmed herself in his workspace. Mr. Joyboy is so concerned about losing his job and possibly being suspected of murdering Aimée that he agrees to Barlow’s scheme to dispose of her remains at the pet cemetery crematorium.

A young American woman, Aimée works as a cosmetician at Whispering Glades mortuary. She comes from a dysfunctional family; her mother drank, and her father “lost his money to religion” (80). Perhaps because of her “troubled” upbringing and her dedication to her work, she seems more comfortable with the dead than the living. She regards her cosmetic work on corpses as works of art, although she laments that they’re temporary masterpieces awaiting cremation or burial. When she runs into Dennis in the cemetery, she apologizes for not recognizing him at first, saying, “My memory’s very bad for live faces” (77).

Both Dennis and Mr. Joyboy view Aimée as innocent and simple. In referring to his relationship with Aimée, Dennis tells his boss that he has become “the protagonist of a Jamesian problem” (107). He then explains that all of Henry James’s stories are about “American innocence and European experience” (107). After Mr. Joyboy finds Aimée dead at Whispering Glades, he becomes distraught and refers to Aimée as a “simple American kid” (138). However, her character is a bit more complex. In her letters to the Guru Brahmin, she displays good observational skills. However, her keen ability to perceive the flaws in both of her suitors works only to her detriment.

Because of her father’s experience, she claims to be “progressive” and not subscribe to any religion. However, spiritual beliefs are clearly a central part of her character. She criticizes Dennis for what she regards as his irreverence toward religion and refers to deceased people as “passing over,” which implies that she believes in life after death. When she takes the barbiturates in an apparent attempt to die by suicide, she’s disappointed that she experiences no sense of “shifting, lifting, setting free and afloat the grounded mind” (131)—sensations she evidently expected to have while transitioning to the afterlife. Finally, when she decides to inject herself with the embalming cyanide, the narrative states, “The matter was between herself and the deity she served” (133). Apparently, her dedication to her work and extreme reverence for the dead simplify her to decide that death is a plausible and painless alternative to dealing with her personal relationship dilemma.

Once the chief scriptwriter at Megalopolitan Pictures, Sir Francis entertained Hollywood’s biggest stars in his backyard swimming pool. However, that was years ago. As the story opens, the swimming pool is empty, cracked, and full of weeds, and Sir Francis is washed up—a Hollywood has-been relegated to the publicity department.

However, even in his diminished state, Sir Francis retains his sense of blue-blood superiority. He expresses condescending opinions about Americans, describing them as people who talk a lot but don’t say anything worthy of a British ear. He heartily agrees with his friend Sir Ambrose’s opinion that a Britisher should never accept a job beneath him. When the studio abruptly fires him, Sir Francis has too much British pride to settle for a lowly job like his young friend Dennis did. Therefore, he dies by suicide. Sir Francis’s death occurs early in the novel, but he's a catalyst character; his death sets into motion the rest of the story, leading Dennis to Whispering Glades, where he meets Aimée.