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Kenneth Widmerpool is a fictional character in Anthony Powell's novel sequence ''A Dance to the Music of Time'', a 12-volume account of upper-class and bohemian life in Britain between 1920 and 1970. Regarded by critics as one of the more memorable characters of 20th century fiction, Widmerpool is the antithesis of the sequence's narrator-hero Nicholas Jenkins. Initially presented as a comic, even pathetic figure, he becomes increasingly formidable, powerful and ultimately sinister as the novels progress. He is successful in business, in the army and in politics, and is awarded a life peerage. His only sphere of failure is his relationships with women, exemplified by his disastrous marriage to Pamela Flitton. The sequence ends with Widmerpool's downfall and death, in circumstances arising from his involvement with a New Age-type cult. Literary analysts have noted Widmerpool's main defining characteristics as a lack of culture, small-mindedness, and a capacity for intrigue; generally, he is thought to embody many of the worst aspects of the British character. However, he has the ability to rise above numerous insults and humiliations that beset him to achieve positions of dominance through dogged industry and self-belief. In this respect he represents the meritocratic middle class's challenge to the declining power of the traditional "establishment" or ruling group, which is shown to be vulnerable to a determined assault from this source. Among the more prominent names suggested as real-life models for Widmerpool have been Edward Heath, the British prime minister 1970–74, and Reginald Manningham-Buller who was Britain's Attorney General in the 1950s. Others of Powell's contemporaries have made claims to be the character's source, although Powell gave little encouragement to such speculation. Widmerpool has been portrayed in two British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) radio dramatisations of the novel sequence (1979–82 and 2008) and in Channel 4's television filmed version broadcast in 1997. ==Context: ''A Dance to the Music of Time''== The novel sequence ''A Dance to the Music of Time'' comprises 12 volumes spanning a period of approximately 50 years; from the early 1920s to the first years of the 1970s. The title is taken from Nicolas Poussin's 1634–36 painting of the same name.〔Spurling, p. xi〕 Through the eyes of a narrator, Nicholas Jenkins, the reader observes the changing fortunes of a varied collection of mainly upper-class characters.〔Spurling, p. vii〕 Their ambience is a bohemian world of art, literature and music, intermingled with more the practical spheres of politics, business and the military. In a 1971 study of the novels, the journalist and editor Dan McLeod summarised the theme of the sequence as that of a decaying establishment, confronted by "aggressive representatives from the middle classes elbowing their way up". The latter are prepared to suffer any number of indignities in their pursuit of power but the establishment proves capable of resisting the advance of "all but the most thick-hided and persevering" of outsiders. Kenneth Widmerpool becomes the principal embodiment of these incomers. The first three volumes are set in the 1920s and follow the main characters through school, university and their first steps towards social and professional acceptance. The next three are placed in the 1930s; the protagonists become established, put down roots, watch the international situation anxiously and prepare for war. The background for the seventh, eighth and ninth volumes is the Second World War, which not all the characters survive. The final three books cover the 25 years from the early days of the post-war Attlee government to the counterculture and protests of the early 1970s.〔Spurling, pp. 311–330〕 During the long narrative, the focus changes frequently from one group to another; new faces appear while established characters are written out, sometimes reappearing after many volumes, sometimes not at all, though news of their doings may reach Jenkins, through one or other of his many acquaintances. Apart from Jenkins, Widmerpool is the only one of the 300-odd characters who takes part in the action of each of the 12 volumes.〔Berberich, p. 75〕 Richard Jones, writing in the ''Virginia Quarterly Review'', suggests that the novels may be regarded as "the dance of Kenneth Widmerpool, who is Jenkins's fall-guy, tormentor, and antithesis". Widmerpool dogs Jenkins's career and life; in the opening pages of the first book at school, he is encountered running through the mists, in the vain hope of athletic glory. In the final stages of the last book he is running again, this time at the behest of the quasi-religious cult that has claimed him.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Kenneth Widmerpool」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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