Character Analysis (AQA A-Level English Literature A): Revision Notes
Character Analysis
Introduction to the novel
The Go-Between by L.P. Hartley explores the complex nature of human relationships through its carefully crafted characters. At the heart of the story is Leo Colston, who reflects on his past as a young boy during a fateful summer in 1900. The novel uses a frame narrative, where the older Leo in 1952 looks back on events that shaped his emotional life.
Key context:
- Author: L.P. Hartley
- First published: 1953
- Setting: Primarily Brandham Hall, Norfolk, England
- Time period: Summer of 1900 (with framing chapters set in 1952)
- Genre: Novel exploring love, class and duty
The story centres on young Leo becoming an unwitting messenger in a love affair between Marian Maudsley and Ted Burgess. This experience tests his innocence and imagination, ultimately leading to his emotional withdrawal from relationships in adult life.
The frame narrative structure is crucial to understanding the novel's impact. By showing us both the innocent young Leo and the damaged adult Leo, Hartley demonstrates the long-term psychological consequences of the events at Brandham Hall. This dual perspective allows readers to appreciate both the immediate tragedy and its lasting effects.
The protagonist: Leo Colston
Young Leo (summer 1900)
Leo is the novel's central consciousness, an imaginative and sensitive thirteen-year-old boy visiting his schoolmate's grand estate. Several key traits define his character at this age:
Innocence and naivety: Leo possesses a child's innocent perspective on the adult world around him. He interprets the kindness shown by Marian and Ted as genuine affection for him personally, not recognising that he is being used as a convenient messenger between the lovers.
Eagerness to please: Leo desperately wants to fit in at Brandham Hall and gain acceptance from those he admires. This people-pleasing tendency makes him vulnerable to manipulation, as he struggles to refuse requests even when they make him uncomfortable.
Imagination and sensitivity: Leo has a rich imaginative life and is highly attuned to emotions and atmospheres. His sensitivity means he picks up on tensions and feelings, though he lacks the maturity to properly interpret them.
Child-centred worldview: Like most children, Leo's values and vision are shaped by his own self-centred perspective. He doesn't fully grasp how his actions affect others or understand the adult complications surrounding him.
Adult Leo (1952)
By the time of the frame narrative, Leo has become a bachelor librarian in his sixties who describes himself as a "foreigner in the world of the emotions". This powerful self-description reveals how profoundly the summer of 1900 affected him:
- His discovery of the diary triggers the release of repressed memories
- He has withdrawn from emotional relationships throughout his adult life
- The tragic outcome of the affair caused him to repress both the incident and his own emotions
- His complicity in the events haunts him decades later
Exam tip: Leo's transformation from innocent child to emotionally withdrawn adult demonstrates the novel's exploration of how childhood trauma shapes adult identity. Consider how Hartley uses Leo's limited perspective as a narrative device to create dramatic irony and engage readers in the unfolding tragedy.
Marian Maudsley
Marian is a young woman caught between conflicting desires and social expectations. Her character embodies the novel's central tension between love and duty.
Character traits
Spirited yet self-centred: Marian possesses an attractive, lively personality but also displays a degree of self-absorption. She pursues what she wants without fully considering the consequences for others, particularly for young Leo.
Torn between two worlds: Marian faces an impossible choice:
- Her passionate love for Ted Burgess, the tenant farmer
- Her family's expectation that she marry Hugh Trimingham, the aristocrat
This conflict is not simply about romantic preference. It represents a clash between personal desire and social duty, between passion and responsibility.
Marian's position reflects the limited agency of women in Edwardian society. Despite her relative privilege as a wealthy woman, she is still subject to family pressure and social expectations regarding marriage. Her rebellion through the affair with Ted can be seen as both an assertion of personal choice and a challenge to the rigid class system.
Sympathetic but manipulative: While Marian genuinely cares for Leo in some ways (buying him clothes and a bicycle), her interest is not entirely unselfish. She involves him in her affair with Ted by asking him to carry secret messages between them. She responds to his discomfort with kindness, but this kindness serves to keep him compliant.
Class consciousness: Marian is acutely aware of social hierarchies. She loves Ted despite knowing he is "socially beneath her", and this awareness adds to her internal conflict. Her family has become wealthy by owning the Maudsleys' ancestral estate, creating additional complexity around status and belonging.
Exam tip: When analysing Marian, consider how Hartley presents her as both victim and manipulator. She is trapped by social expectations but also uses Leo to pursue her own desires. This complexity makes her a more realistic and sympathetic character than a simple villain.
Ted Burgess
Ted represents passion, physicality and the limitations imposed by class divisions in Edwardian England.
Character profile
Physical vitality: Ted is described as virile and physically attractive, embodying a raw masculinity that contrasts with Hugh's more refined aristocratic bearing. His physicality is closely linked to his identity as a farmer and his connection to the land.
Passionate nature: Ted's love for Marian is driven by genuine passion and sexual desire. Unlike Hugh's love, which is intertwined with duty and social obligation, Ted's feelings are presented as more immediate and visceral.
Kindness to Leo: Despite his reluctance to involve a young boy in an illicit affair, Ted treats Leo with kindness. His love for Marian eventually overrides his hesitation about using Leo as a messenger.
Father figure role: Ted serves as something of a father figure to Leo, particularly in matters relating to sexuality and adult relationships. This makes his suicide especially traumatic for Leo, as it represents the destruction of this guiding presence.
Class limitations: Ted would be a suitable romantic match for Marian in terms of personality and attraction, but his lack of wealth and lower social class make their union impossible in the rigid class system of the time.
Ted's tragic fate
After Ted and Marian are discovered together by Mrs Maudsley and Leo, Ted takes his own life. This suicide intensifies Leo's reaction to the entire situation, compounding his sense of guilt and responsibility. The tragedy demonstrates how the rigid class system destroys lives and happiness.
Ted's suicide can be interpreted in multiple ways: as an act of despair over the impossibility of his relationship with Marian, as shame at the exposure of their affair, or as a recognition that his social position makes any future with Marian impossible. His death serves as the ultimate critique of the class system that prevents genuine love from flourishing.
Hugh (Viscount Trimingham)
Hugh represents the aristocratic ideal of duty, honour and social responsibility, even as he embodies a declining social order.
Character qualities
Embodiment of aristocratic values: Hugh possesses all the virtues traditionally associated with the responsible aristocracy:
- Excellent taste and manners
- Strong sense of duty and obligation
- Commitment to "doing the right thing"
- Focus on preserving family name and estate
Impoverished nobility: Although Hugh holds the title of Viscount Trimingham, he has returned from the Boer War to find his family impoverished. The Maudsleys now own the family estate. This reversal of fortunes adds complexity to his relationship with Marian - their marriage will restore the estate to the family name.
Physical scarring: Hugh bears a disfiguring scar on his face from the Boer War. This external mark symbolises the changing nature of the aristocracy and perhaps the damage done to old social orders.
Love versus duty: Hugh's feelings for Marian are inseparable from his sense of obligation. He loves her, but his love is fundamentally different from Ted's passionate desire. Hugh's love is bound up with responsibility, family honour and social restoration.
Kindness and integrity: Hugh treats Leo with genuine kindness and uses him to convey messages to Marian without any illicit purpose. He maintains his integrity throughout, eventually marrying Marian even after discovering she is pregnant with Ted's child.
Doing "the right thing": Hugh consistently acts according to his code of honour, even when it might not serve his immediate interests. His decision to marry Marian despite her pregnancy shows his commitment to duty and family above personal pride.
Hugh's character challenges simplistic readings of the novel. While he might initially appear less sympathetic than the passionate Ted, his genuine kindness, integrity, and willingness to raise another man's child demonstrate admirable qualities. His character invites readers to consider whether duty-bound love is necessarily inferior to passionate love.
Mrs Maudsley
Mrs Maudsley functions as an antagonistic force, representing the oppressive power of social convention and parental control.
Character analysis
Controlling nature: Mrs Maudsley exhibits an excessive need to control her daughter and orchestrate events according to her wishes. Her controlling behaviour stems from her investment in Marian's marriage to Hugh.
Social ambition: As the principal advocate for Marian's marriage to Hugh, Mrs Maudsley is driven by social ambition. The match would secure her daughter's position and connect the family to the aristocracy.
Conflict with Marian: Her need to be in control creates a fundamental conflict between herself and her daughter. This tension between maternal authority and a daughter's desire for autonomy reflects broader themes about individual freedom versus social expectation.
Nervous breakdown: When Mrs Maudsley discovers Marian with Ted, the shock causes her to suffer a nervous breakdown. This collapse suggests that her rigid worldview cannot accommodate the reality of her daughter's transgression. The discovery shatters her carefully constructed plans and sense of control.
Catalyst for tragedy: Mrs Maudsley's discovery of the lovers, with Leo as witness, triggers the chain of events leading to Ted's suicide and the permanent damage to Leo's emotional life.
Mrs Maudsley's nervous breakdown is significant because it reveals the fragility underlying her apparent strength and control. Her rigid adherence to social expectations leaves her unable to cope when reality fails to conform to her plans. This suggests that the oppressive social system damages not only its victims but also those who enforce it.
Supporting characters
Marcus Maudsley
Marcus is Leo's schoolmate who unwittingly facilitates the events of the novel:
Social climbing: Marcus is described as a schoolboyish snob who has good manners and desires to know successful people. He cultivates friendships based on social advantage.
Class consciousness: Impressed by Leo's home address of "Court Place," Marcus pursues Leo's friendship at school. This reveals the extent to which social status determines relationships in this world.
Invitation to Brandham Hall: At his mother's suggestion to invite a companion home for the summer, Marcus chooses Leo. This decision sets the entire tragedy in motion.
Attack of measles: Marcus's illness with measles gives Leo the freedom to wander the estate unsupervised, making him available to serve as messenger between Marian and Ted.
Edward Trimingham
Edward appears only in the frame narrative set in 1952:
The next generation: Edward is the grandson of Marian and Ted (raised as Hugh's son and heir), who has become the current Viscount Trimingham.
Refusal to marry: In his twenties, Edward refuses to marry the woman he loves because he believes his family has been cursed since that fateful summer.
Living with the past: Although the house has been rented to a girls' school, Edward still lives there, symbolising how the past continues to haunt the present.
Leo's return: When Marian asks the elderly Leo to carry another message for her - this time to Edward - Leo's willingness to do so suggests his tentative emergence from his emotional shell.
Lingering effects: Edward's character demonstrates that the events of 1900 continue to reverberate through subsequent generations, affecting relationships and life choices decades later.
Character relationships and thematic significance
The central triangle: Marian, Ted and Hugh
The romantic triangle at the heart of the novel embodies the conflict between:
- Passion versus duty
- Individual desire versus social expectation
- Love versus class hierarchy
Marian loves Ted but is expected to marry Hugh. Ted represents genuine passion but social impossibility. Hugh represents duty, security and social acceptance but perhaps less passionate love.
The Triangle as Metaphor
The love triangle is not merely a plot device but a sophisticated exploration of the tensions within Edwardian society. Each relationship represents different values:
- Marian and Ted: Passionate, physical love that defies social boundaries
- Marian and Hugh: Socially sanctioned union based on duty and mutual benefit
- Ted and Hugh: Contrasting forms of masculinity and approaches to love
The impossibility of reconciling these competing values drives the novel's tragedy.
Leo's position
Leo occupies a unique position that makes him valuable as a go-between:
- Too young to fully understand adult sexuality and desire
- Eager to please and therefore easily manipulated
- Able to move freely between different social spaces
- Trusted by all parties due to his perceived innocence
Class dynamics
The characters illustrate the rigid class system of Edwardian England:
- The Maudsleys have wealth but seek aristocratic status through Marian's marriage
- Hugh has title and breeding but needs wealth
- Ted has neither title nor wealth, making him an impossible match for Marian
- Leo occupies a middle position - respectable enough to visit but not wealthy
Manipulation and misunderstanding
Several characters manipulate Leo, though with varying degrees of awareness:
- Marian uses his innocence to facilitate her affair
- Ted reluctantly accepts Leo's help due to his passion for Marian
- Mrs Maudsley uses Leo as a companion for Hugh to facilitate the engagement
- Even Marcus initially befriends Leo partly due to the prestige of his address
These manipulations occur because Leo misunderstands the nature of adult relationships and his own role in them.
Leo's Innocence as Dramatic Device
Leo's innocence is crucial to the plot because it makes him an unwitting accomplice in the affair. His naivety means he doesn't recognise the sexual nature of the relationship between Marian and Ted, interpreting their meetings as simple friendship. This dramatic irony engages readers, who understand more than the child narrator does.
Key themes reflected through characters
Loss of innocence
Leo's journey from innocent boy to emotionally damaged adult reflects the novel's exploration of how experience destroys innocence. His willing participation in the affair stems from his inability to understand its implications.
The loss of innocence theme operates on multiple levels. Leo loses his childhood innocence about adult relationships and sexuality, but he also loses his faith in the goodness of the adults around him. The discovery scene forces him to witness something he cannot process, leading to psychological trauma and emotional repression.
Consequences of class division
The tragedy occurs because love cannot transcend class boundaries in Edwardian society. Ted and Marian's genuine love is deemed impossible due to social hierarchy, leading to deception, discovery and death.
Duty versus desire
Hugh and Ted represent two different approaches to love - duty-bound affection versus passionate desire. Marian is torn between these two modes of relating, and the conflict destroys lives.
The past's power over the present
The frame narrative shows how traumatic events continue to shape lives decades later. Both Leo and Edward remain prisoners of that summer in 1900, unable to form healthy emotional relationships.
Intergenerational Trauma
The novel demonstrates that trauma extends beyond the individual who experiences it. Edward's refusal to marry despite being born after the events shows how the effects of that summer continue into the next generation. The "curse" he perceives is really the legacy of repression, shame, and unresolved emotional damage.
Emotional repression
Leo's transformation into a "foreigner in the world of the emotions" demonstrates how repressing traumatic experiences leads to emotional withdrawal and isolation.
Key Points to Remember:
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Leo Colston transforms from an innocent, imaginative boy into an emotionally withdrawn adult after being used as a messenger in a forbidden love affair. His character demonstrates the lasting impact of childhood trauma and his description of himself as a "foreigner in the world of the emotions" captures his lifelong disconnection from relationships.
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Marian Maudsley embodies the conflict between passionate love (for Ted) and social duty (marrying Hugh). She is sympathetic yet self-centred, caring for Leo but also manipulating him to serve her own desires. Her character reveals the limited agency of women despite their social privilege.
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Ted Burgess represents passionate, physical love constrained by class barriers. His kindness to Leo and his role as a father figure make his tragic suicide intensify the impact of events on the young boy, adding to Leo's sense of guilt and loss.
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Hugh Trimingham exemplifies aristocratic duty and honour, marrying Marian despite her pregnancy to restore his family's estate and name. His love for Marian is inseparable from his sense of obligation, yet his integrity and kindness make him a sympathetic character.
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Mrs Maudsley's controlling nature and social ambitions drive the plot forward, with her discovery of the lovers triggering the tragedy. Her nervous breakdown shows the fragility of rigid social expectations and suggests that the oppressive social system damages those who enforce it.
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The characters collectively explore themes of class division, duty versus passion, innocence lost, and the power of past trauma to shape present lives. The frame narrative with Edward Trimingham shows these effects continuing across generations, with trauma creating a "curse" that prevents healthy emotional relationships even decades later.