Themes (AQA A-Level English Literature A): Revision Notes
Themes
L. P. Hartley's The Go-Between explores complex themes that interweave throughout the narrative. Understanding these central themes is essential for analysing how Hartley critiques Edwardian society whilst examining universal human experiences of love, betrayal, and the loss of childhood innocence.
Social class and hierarchy
The novel vividly depicts the strict social hierarchy of Edwardian England, set against the backdrop of Brandham Hall during the summer of 1900. This grand country estate serves as a microcosm of the wider class system, where the aristocratic Maudsley family and the wealthy Viscount Trimingham occupy the highest social positions, whilst farmer Ted Burgess represents the working class.
Key aspects of class division:
- The upper classes maintain their superiority through rigid social conventions and expectations
- Relationships across class boundaries are deemed unacceptable and scandalous
- Marriage serves as a tool for preserving and enhancing social status rather than expressing genuine affection
Leo Colston, a middle-class schoolboy, finds himself caught between these two worlds. His role as messenger in Marian's illicit affair with Ted makes him unknowingly complicit in challenging the class system. This participation ultimately contributes to the novel's tragedy.
Hartley uses the narrative to critique how this hierarchical system causes destruction. Ted's suicide and the revelation of the child's questionable paternity demonstrate how society values maintaining appearances over human happiness. The system is exposed as hypocritical—love between social classes becomes impossible, yet the ruling class preserves its power through deception.
Exam tip: When discussing class, consider how Leo's middle-class position makes him vulnerable to manipulation by both the upper and lower classes.
Loss of innocence
At the heart of the novel lies Leo's painful transformation from a naive twelve-year-old into a deeply damaged adult. The sweltering summer of 1900 serves as the turning point in Leo's life, marking the abrupt end of his childhood innocence.
The famous opening line captures this theme perfectly: The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there. This establishes the nostalgic lens through which older Leo views his youth, recognising that his younger self inhabited a completely different world of understanding.
The process of losing innocence:
- Leo begins the summer with romantic notions of heroes and villains, viewing the world through a child's simplified lens
- His exposure to the adult world of sexual passion and deceit shatters his innocent perspective
- Witnessing the affair's discovery and Ted's subsequent suicide leaves lasting psychological trauma
- The revelation of betrayal destroys Leo's ability to trust or form meaningful relationships
Hartley complicates this theme by suggesting that innocence itself contains the seeds of future corruption. The intense summer heat and Leo's isolation at Brandham Hall create an atmosphere of unease, foreshadowing the darkness beneath the surface. The novelist implies that innocence is fragile and temporary, inevitably destined to be lost through exposure to adult realities.
Key vocabulary:
- Nostalgia: A sentimental longing for the past, often viewing it through rose-tinted glasses
- Disillusionment: The painful realisation that beliefs or ideals are false or unrealistic
Love, sex, and marriage
Hartley presents a stark contrast between different types of relationships, exploring how social pressures corrupt genuine emotion. The passionate love affair between Marian Maudsley and Ted Burgess stands in direct opposition to Marian's pragmatic, socially appropriate marriage to Viscount Trimingham.
The forbidden love: Marian and Ted's relationship represents intense, authentic passion that defies social conventions. Their love is characterised by:
- Physical desire and emotional connection that transcends class boundaries
- Secrecy and danger, making their meetings charged with excitement
- Inevitability of tragedy, as society cannot accommodate their union
- Use of Leo as innocent go-between, highlighting how their passion affects others
For young Leo, glimpsing this adult sexuality proves confusing and disturbing. He associates their physical relationship with primal energy but lacks the understanding to comprehend its true nature. This forbidden knowledge contributes to his psychological damage.
The arranged marriage: In contrast, Marian's eventual marriage to Trimingham represents social duty over personal feeling. This relationship demonstrates:
- How the upper classes prioritise status and wealth over emotional compatibility
- The role of marriage as a business transaction securing family interests
- The compromises required to maintain social position
- The hypocrisy of appearing respectable whilst concealing scandalous truths
Hartley suggests that genuine love demands self-sacrifice. Marian teaches this lesson through her choices, though at tremendous cost. The elderly Leo's final message to her grandson implies that their love endured despite everything—it could not be erased, only repressed by social forces.
Secrets and forbidden knowledge
Leo's role as the 'go-between' symbolises the dangerous nature of hidden information. His innocent participation in carrying messages between Marian and Ted places him at the centre of a web of concealment that ultimately destroys lives.
The burden of secrets: The novel explores how keeping secrets isolates individuals and distorts their understanding of reality. For Leo, the knowledge he possesses but cannot fully comprehend creates lasting psychological damage. Key aspects include:
- Social secrets: The affair threatens the social order, requiring elaborate deception to conceal
- Sexual secrets: Leo's exposure to adult sexuality before he can understand it warps his development
- Personal isolation: Keeping secrets separates Leo from the other characters, leaving him vulnerable and confused
- Future consequences: The burden of hidden knowledge haunts Leo into old age, preventing him from forming normal relationships
Warning: Hartley demonstrates that concealed truths breed tragedy. The pressure to maintain appearances leads directly to Ted's suicide and the falsification of the child's parentage. Meanwhile, Leo becomes a victim of knowledge he neither sought nor understood, demonstrating how secrets harm the innocent.
The primal scene Leo witnesses—discovering Marian and Ted together—represents the moment when forbidden knowledge irreversibly corrupts innocence. This traumatic memory haunts him for decades, illustrating how some truths, once known, cannot be unknown.
Consider: How does Leo's role as messenger reflect the broader theme of communication and misunderstanding in relationships?
Memory and the past
The novel's frame narrative structure places memory at the centre of its exploration of time and identity. Older Leo's act of revisiting his childhood experiences in 1900 from the vantage point of the 1950s allows Hartley to examine how we reconstruct and interpret our past.
Nostalgia and distortion: Memory does not provide objective truth but rather a nostalgic, emotionally coloured version of events. The opening line—The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there—acknowledges this fundamental strangeness. When we look back, we view our younger selves as almost alien beings operating under different rules and understandings.
Key themes in memory:
- The past remains indelible, shaping identity even when we try to forget it
- Childhood experiences, particularly traumatic ones, echo throughout our lives
- Memory offers the possibility of understanding, if not healing
- The act of remembering can be both painful and necessary
Dual narrative voices: Hartley employs two distinct perspectives:
- The innocent young Leo experiencing events without full comprehension
- The elderly Leo reflecting back with adult understanding but also emotional distance
This technique highlights the contrast between childhood wonder and adult melancholy. The older narrator recognises what his younger self could not see, creating dramatic irony whilst also revealing the impossibility of truly recapturing the past.
Forgiveness versus erasure: The novel questions whether the past can ever be truly laid to rest. Leo's return to Brandham Hall at novel's end suggests the need for confrontation and resolution. However, Hartley implies that time's passage is irreversible—we cannot undo the past, only come to terms with it. The theme asks whether forgiveness and understanding can provide redemption, or whether some losses remain permanent.
Key points to revise:
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Social class: The rigid Edwardian hierarchy at Brandham Hall proves destructive, preventing genuine love across class boundaries and privileging appearance over truth. Leo's middle-class position makes him vulnerable to manipulation from both sides.
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Loss of innocence: Leo's transformation from naive child to damaged adult occurs through exposure to adult secrets of sex and betrayal. The famous opening line establishes the past as fundamentally different and unreachable.
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Love and marriage: Passionate love between Marian and Ted contrasts with the pragmatic arranged marriage to Trimingham. Hartley suggests authentic love requires sacrifice but cannot survive social pressure.
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Secrets: Leo's role as go-between symbolises how hidden knowledge distorts reality and damages innocence. The burden of secrets breeds isolation, tragedy, and lasting psychological harm.
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Memory: The frame narrative structure explores how we reconstruct the past through nostalgia and emotional colouring. Time's passage is irreversible, but understanding offers potential redemption.
Exam tip: These themes interconnect throughout the novel. Strong exam responses demonstrate how class hierarchies necessitate secrets, which destroy innocence, whilst memory attempts to make sense of past trauma.