Whispering Glades Character Analysis

Hollywood in the 1940s is centered on outward appearances, cultivating a veneer of glamor and prestige, but beneath the surface is a localized version of the American culture and its intense focus on turning anything that can produce a profit into a sprawling business. In The Loved One Waugh uses the funeral business to show this commercialization, and religion to illustrate the exploitation of what should be a revered practice. He also implements caricatures into his characterization to better illustrate how human nature acts in society.

Whispering Glades is a premier funeral home, catering to the wealthy that populate the Hollywood metropolitan area. Everything about the practice is linked to selling their product: Death, and the potential to control it. They do this by way of the Dreamer, who states that preparing for death in advance makes one happy and fulfilled, so those with an excess of money buy plots and decide on their funerals in advance. Even pets can be buried in their own graves, although this tends to take place at the looked-down-upon Happier Hunting grounds, so that every member of the family can be bled for every cent that can be extorted. In this way the uncontrollable, ubiquitous death

Monetary gain and vanity drive the human race, leading to the loss of morality and the spreading of corrupt practices. Human nature can be broken down in stereotypes of callousness and low expectations, exerting effort only to advance themselves in the eyes of others. This baseness leads to failings in society as self-interest takes over from empathy and common improvements for the world as a whole, not just for individuals. Waugh condemns society for their own shallowness as it is leading to the destruction of the world as a cooperative venture amongst man and turning into a series of competing businesses, where only one can turn a