Death of a Hero by Richard Aldington
"Death of a Hero" by Richard Aldington is a novel centered on the life and demise of George Winterbourne during World War I. The narrative is framed through the perspective of a friend who reflects on George's actions and mental state leading up to his death. George is depicted as a man influenced by his troubled upbringing, marked by neglect and complex parental relationships, which instilled in him a deep-seated resentment and a desire for personal freedom. His quest for autonomy leads him into a series of tumultuous relationships, particularly with two women, Elizabeth and Fanny, who embody different facets of progressive ideals regarding love and sexuality.
As the war progresses, George grapples with feelings of despair and alienation, ultimately succumbing to a sense of purposelessness. The conflict reveals his inner turmoil and highlights his struggle against societal expectations and personal demons. In a poignant turn, George's journey culminates in a tragic choice during battle, raising questions about the nature of heroism and the impact of war on the human psyche. Aldington’s work explores themes of love, individuality, and the psychological toll of conflict, presenting a critical perspective on the romanticized notions of heroism associated with wartime.
On this Page
Death of a Hero by Richard Aldington
First published: 1929
Type of work: Novel
Type of plot: Political
Time of plot: World War I
Locale: England
Principal characters
George Winterbourne , the protagonistMr. George Winterbourne , his fatherMrs. George Winterbourne , his motherElizabeth , his wifeFanny Welford , his mistress
The Story:
When word comes that George Winterbourne was killed in the war, his friend tries to reconstruct the life of the dead man to see what forces caused his death. The friend served with George at various times during the war, and it is his belief that George deliberately exposed himself to German fire because he no longer wanted to live.
George’s father is a sentimental fool and his mother a depraved wanton. The elder Winterbourne married primarily to spite his dominating mother, and his bride married him under the mistaken notion that he was rich. They resigned themselves to mutual hatred, and the mother showered her thwarted love on young George. She imagined herself young and desirable and was proud of her twenty-two lovers. Her husband went to a hotel when she was entertaining, but he prayed for her soul. They were the most depressing parents to whom a child could be exposed, and they caused young George to hate them both. Soon after receiving word of their son’s death, the elder Winterbourne is killed in an accident. After thoroughly enjoying her role as a bereft mother and widow, Mrs. Winterbourne marries her twenty-second lover and moves to Australia.
By the time he reached young manhood, George mingled with all sorts of unusual people. He dabbled in writing and painting, and sexual freedom was his goal, even though he experienced little of it. At the home of some pseudointellectual friends, he first met Elizabeth. They were immediately compatible: Both hated their parents, and both sought freedom. At first, Elizabeth was shocked by George’s attacks on Christianity, morals, the class system, and all other established institutions, but she decided that he was a truly “free” man. In fact, it was not long before she adopted his ideas; soon free love was the only thing she would talk or think about.
George and Elizabeth considered themselves extremely sensible. They did not talk of love, only sex, and they saw no reason why they should marry to experience sex as long as they were careful not to have a baby. They decided that there would be no sordidness to cloud their affair, and that they were both free to take all the other lovers they pleased. That was freedom in an intelligent way. Elizabeth was even more insistent of that than George.
When, however, Elizabeth mistakenly thought that she was pregnant, her progressive ideas disappeared and she insisted that George marry her at once for the sake of her honor and reputation. They were married, much to the horror of their families. When Elizabeth learned that she was not pregnant—in fact, the doctor told her that she could not possibly have a child without an operation—her old ideas returned. She became an evangelist for sex, even though she detested the word. Marriage made no difference in George’s and Elizabeth’s lives. They continued to live separately and to meet as lovers.
When Elizabeth made a trip home, George became the lover of her best friend, Fanny Welford, another enlightened woman. He was sure that Elizabeth would not mind, for she had become the mistress of Fanny’s lover, but to his surprise Elizabeth created a scene over Fanny. On the surface, the young women remained friends, each unwilling to admit a bourgeois dislike of the situation.
When war broke out, George was drafted and immediately sent to France. The war and the killing horrified George, and obsessively he began to think about his own death. He was brave, but not from any desire to be a hero; rather, the monotony of his existence seemed to demand that he keep going even though he was ready to drop from fatigue. The knowledge of the ill-concealed dislike between Fanny and Elizabeth began to prey on his mind. There seemed to be only two solutions: To drift along and accept whatever happened or to get himself killed in the war. It seemed to make little difference to him or anyone else which course he chose. His letters to his two women depressed each of them. He could have spared himself his anxiety, for each took other lovers and gave little thought to George.
George’s depression increased. He felt that he was degenerating mentally as well as physically and that he was wasting what should have been his best years. He knew that he would be terribly handicapped if he did live through the war, that those not serving would pass him by.
George was made an officer and sent back to England for training. There he lived again with Elizabeth, but she left him frequently to go out with other men. Fanny, too, seemed to care little whether she saw him or not. Talk of the war and his experiences obviously bored them, and they made only a small pretense of interest. He spent his last night in England with Fanny while Elizabeth was off with someone else. Fanny did not bother to get up with him the morning he left. She awoke lazily and went back to sleep again before he even left the flat.
Back at the front, George found that he was ill-suited to command a company. Although he did his best, he was constantly censured by his colonel, who blamed George for all the faults of his untrained and cowardly troops. George could think of little but death. During a particularly heavy German shelling, he simply stood up and let the bullets smash into his chest.
Bibliography
Ayers, David. “Proto-Fascism of Richard Aldington’s Death of a Hero.” In English Literature of the 1920’s. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999. Ayers’s examination of Death of a Hero focuses on the novel’s relationship to fascism and its treatment of war, women, and male-male relations.
Bergonzi, Bernard. Heroes’ Twilight: A Study of the Literature of the Great War. New York: Coward, McCann, 1966. Bergonzi devotes several pages of this readable and wide-ranging study to Death of a Hero, arguing that the novel suffers from the author’s lack of detachment from his subject.
Doyle, Charles. “Port-Cros and After, 1928-1929.” In Richard Aldington: A Biography. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1989. Includes a substantial, balanced discussion of Death of a Hero, with critical commentary on its principal themes and literary merits. Acknowledges the stylistic flaws but argues that the novel played an essential role in the “imaginative reconstruction” of the war.
McGreevy, Thomas. Richard Aldington: An Englishman. London: Chatto & Windus, 1931. McGreevy, a personal friend of Aldington, includes an extensive, if rather subjective, study of Death of a Hero. Focuses on the novel’s formal characteristics.
Morris, John. “Richard Aldington and Death of a Hero—or Life of an Anti-Hero?” In The First World War in Fiction: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Holger Klein. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1977. Judicious and attentive critique of the novel, with a particular focus on the problems of satiric tone.
Smith, Richard Eugene. Richard Aldington. Boston: Twayne, 1977. An accessible introduction to Aldington’s life and works. Includes a chapter on Death of a Hero and a useful bibliography of criticism to 1976.
Willis, J. H., Jr. “The Censored Language of War: Richard Aldington’s Death of a Hero and Three Other War Novels of 1929.” Twentieth Century Literature 45, no. 4 (Winter, 1999): 467. Critiques four novels written after World War I—Aldington’s Death of a Hero, Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front, and Frederick Manning’s The Middle Parts of Fortune–to demonstrate how these authors responded to the obscenity laws of the 1920’s, which made it difficult for writers to portray the bitter experiences of modern warfare realistically.
Zilboorg, Caroline. “’What Part Have I Now That You Have Come Together?’: Richard Aldington on War, Gender, and Textual Representation.” In Gender and Warfare in the Twentieth Century: Textual Representations, edited by Angela K. Smith. New York: Manchester University Press, 2004. Analysis of Death of a Hero, focusing on its treatment of World War I and the relationships between men and women during the war.