Art and culture play a central role in “The Tower.” Neville is a member of the British Council, an organization dedicated to the exchange of cultural ideas, and is himself an avid collector of cultural knowledge and experience. But Neville’s interest in art is primarily a means to elevate his own sense of self-importance; he never misses an opportunity to show off his “discoveries,” is “contemptuous” of Caroline’s desire to visit public galleries, and lectures endlessly on the works in “privately owned” collections. By characterizing Neville as pretentious and self-absorbed, the story calls the purpose of high-brow art into question.
Neville and Caroline’s encounter with the portraits of Niccolo and Giovanna di Ferramano further presses on the issue of art’s value or purpose. Caroline is struck by Giovanna’s youth and the tragedy of her death, and she declares that she does not like Niccolo; her reaction to the portraits is personal. Neville, on the other hand, values the paintings based on their aesthetic and academic significance, noting that Giovanna’s portrait is “generally thought to be the best thing in the collection” and that Niccolo’s is intriguing because of the unspoken scandal surrounding it. The juxtaposition of Neville and Caroline’s reactions demonstrates the way some people, rather than sincerely engaging with a piece of art, view it as a means to elevate their own status.
Despite her appreciation of Giovanna’s portrait, Caroline visits the tower in the hopes of elevating her own standing in Neville’s eyes. She approaches the tower as something to be possessed and added to her collection. As the only remaining structure of a destroyed village, the tower is implied to be both survivor and cause of the disaster. Here, the story acknowledges the longevity of art but also suggests there is a cost—that pursuing status and power inevitably leads to casualties, like the village and Giovanna. Similarly, Caroline sacrifices her own wellbeing for the sake of impressing Neville, entering the tower with impure, superficial motives. In this way, the story illustrates how engaging with art as a means of achieving status and power can ultimately harm—instead of enrich—people.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Art, Culture, and Pretense ThemeTracker
Art, Culture, and Pretense Quotes in The Tower
Triumphantly Caroline lifted her finger from the fine italic type. There was nothing to mar the success of this afternoon. Not only had she taken the car out alone for the first time, driving unerringly on the right-hand side of the road, but what she had achieved was not a simple drive but a cultural excursion. […] how gratifying if she could, at last, have something of her own to contribute to [Neville’s] constantly accumulating hoard of culture.
Though she could not have admitted it even to herself, Caroline had become almost anaesthetized to Italian art. Dutifully she had followed Neville along the gallery, listening politely while in his light well-bred voice he had told her intimate anecdotes of history, and involuntarily she had let her eyes wander around the room, glancing anywhere but at the particular portrait of Neville’s immediate dissertation.
Ah, I’m glad you picked that one out. It’s generally thought to be the best thing in the collection—a Bronzino, of course.
‘But how idiotic,’ she said to the air. ‘The whole thing’s absolutely pointless[.]’
