A Character - Analysis

Introduction

Alfred Lord Tennyson’s "A Character" presents a coolly observant portrait of a man who reasons grandly about the world while remaining inwardly empty. The tone is ironic and quietly contemptuous, shifting between clinical description and subtle mockery. Occasional tenderness is withheld, replaced by a steady focus on the subject’s vanity and spiritual sterility.

Relevant background

Tennyson wrote in the Victorian era, a time of scientific discovery and moral questioning that often produced poems exploring doubt, faith, and social manners. The poem’s preoccupation with appearances and intellectual posturing reflects Victorian anxieties about sincerity, social performance, and the loss or reconfiguration of religious certainty.

Main themes: appearance versus reality

One central theme is the gap between outward presentation and inner substance. The character pronounces on “the nothingness of things” and yet “could not all creation pierce / Beyond the bottom of his eye,” suggesting shallow perception. Repeated gestures of grooming—he “smooth’d his chin and sleek’d his hair”—underscore how surface care substitutes for genuine insight.

Main themes: affectation and self-consumption

The poem critiques affectation and self-regard. Lines like “Himself unto himself he sold: / Upon himself himself did feed” depict self-consumption as almost commercial or parasitic. His detached manner—“stood aloof from other minds / In impotence of fancied power”—shows that his confidence masks impotence rather than strength.

Main themes: aestheticizing and moral emptiness

Closely related is the theme of aestheticizing life while denying deeper moral or spiritual reality. He can claim the earth is “beautiful” after noting that others miss divinity in common things, yet his appreciation is performative. The contrast between speaking of virtue and having a “lack-lustre dead-blue eye” links rhetorical refinement to inner moral pallor.

Imagery and recurring symbols

Clothing, grooming, and visual metaphors recur: glass, silk, and chisell’d features emphasize surfaces and reflections. The “glass” suggests self-examination that sees only reflection, not truth. The “bottom of his eye” and “dead-blue eye” compress visual impotence into a bodily symbol of spiritual blindness. These images reinforce the poem’s critique of seeing as mere spectacle.

Conclusion

Tennyson’s brief portrait condemns a kind of elegant sterility: intellect and taste turned inward and rendered harmless by vanity. Through ironic tone, repeated surface imagery, and pointed character detail, the poem warns that fluent observation and neat manners can mask a profound inability to apprehend or participate in life’s deeper realities.