page_title: Kenneth Widmerpool
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Kenneth Widmerpool / Character / Career
context_page_description: 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 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.
context_section_description: At school (not identified but generally recognised as Eton) (description of wartime bomb damage tallies), Widmerpool is undistinguished academically and athletically, a "gauche striver" in the words of one literary commentator. He is the object of some ridicule, chiefly remembered for wearing the "wrong kind of overcoat" on his arrival at the school. Driven by ambition, instead of going on to university ("much better get down to work right away") he is articled to a firm of solicitors, declaring this to be a springboard to wider horizons in business and politics. When Jenkins encounters him a few years after school, Widmerpool has achieved some social success and is a regular invitee at dinner-dances. He has also acquired a commission as a lieutenant in the Territorial Army.
  Through his social contacts Widmerpool secures a job in the politico-legal department of the Donners-Brebner industrial conglomerate, a post that brings him into close contact with Sir Magnus Donners, for whom he exhibits a respect bordering on reverence. He develops a talent for intrigue, which irritates Sir Magnus to the extent that Widmerpool is asked to leave the organisation. He joins a City firm of bill-brokers and still under the age of 30, becomes an influential and respected figure in the financial world. By the late 1930s, Widmerpool is advising Donners-Brebner again. Just before the outbreak of war in September 1939, he oversees a scheme on behalf of Donners to corner the Turkish market in chromite and emerges unscathed when the project collapses.
  At the beginning of the war Widmerpool joins the army and with the advantage of his Territorial commission is rapidly promoted. By mid-1940 he holds the rank of major and is serving as Deputy-Assistant-Adjutant-General at Divisional Headquarters in Northern Ireland. Jenkins becomes his junior officer and observes Widmerpool's industry and his skill as a manipulator. Among the rank and file troops at headquarters, serving as a mess waiter, is Charles Stringham.  Widmerpool is embarrassed by the presence of his former school-fellow, and engineers his transfer to a mobile laundry unit, which is  sent to Singapore  where Stringham meets his death. In June 1941, Widmerpool is transferred to London as a Military Assistant Secretary at the Cabinet Office. Promotions to lieutenant colonel and colonel follow and he is appointed an OBE. In his new post he is close to the centres of power and is able to influence war policy and settle old scores. He is complicit in the death of another school rival, Peter Templer, who as the result of a policy recommendation by Widmerpool, is abandoned while on a secret mission in the Balkans. Just after the end of the war, Widmerpool surprises his acquaintances by marrying Stringham's niece, Pamela Flitton, an ATS driver, whose sex life is rumoured to be "gladiatorial".
  Since the mid-1930s, Widmerpool's political leanings have been generally to the left, (possibly as a result of  his brief association with the radical Gypsy Jones in the late 1920s). In 1945 he becomes a Labour Member of Parliament during the postwar Attlee government and eventually receives (unspecified) minor ministerial office in the administration. He is also one of the backers of a left-leaning magazine, Fission, through which he hopes to propagate his economic and political views. He is an assiduous promoter of good relations with eastern European countries and is suspected by some of a secret communist allegiance. After losing his parliamentary seat in the 1955 General Election Widmerpool continues to promote east–west friendship and trade and is thought to have become wealthy as a result. Doubts as to his motives remain and rumours connect him with Burgess and Maclean. In 1958, Widmerpool is appointed a life peer and takes his seat in the House of Lords. His eastern European activities again arouse suspicion, questions are asked in parliament and it seems likely that he will be charged with spying but the investigation is dropped without explanation. His marriage to Pamela is disintegrating; for yea
caption: School Yard at Eton, Widmerpool's presumed school
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