Death
Death is situated as imagery throughout the novel staring on not just the first page, but the opening line. The reader is introduced to Anthony Bridgerton as a man who has known he will die you. From that point forward, death permeates the narrative. A black croquet mallet is singled out and vocally identified as “the mallet of death” and the inconceivability of his father’s death from a simple bee sting is the psychological trauma driving his life story. The imager of is even treated with paradoxical irony:
“Death wasn’t frightening to a man alone. The great beyond held no terror when one had managed to avoid attachments here on earth.”
Lightning
Lightning is another example of repetitive imagery that keeps popping up over and over in the narrative. Sometimes it used figuratively for descriptive purposes—“with lightning-quick movements, his teeth grazed the delicate thin skin on the inside of her wrist”—but more often than not the lightening imagery is a hybrid of the literal and the metaphorical with thematic intent related to illumination of the mind:
“Anthony closed his eyes as he let out a weary and nervous exhale, wondering what the hell he was going to do about the complication that lay beside him in the bed. But even while his eyes were shut, he saw the flash of lightning that lit up the night, turning the black of the inside of his eyelids into a bloody red-orange.”
Gut Punch
Anthony Bridgerton must have been quite the little scamp when he was a kid because he apparently knows the feeling of being punched in the gut very well. His mind turns to a singularly repetitive precise phrase on three separate occasions to describe his emotional response to words or actions from another:
“After several more seconds of fluttering, she finally managed to open her eyes all the way and met his gaze. Anthony felt as if he‟d been punched in the gut"
“`What do you think when you make love to me?’ Anthony felt as if he‟d been punched in the gut."
“She remained utterly still, and then she brought her eyes to his. They were blazing with hatred, and something worse. Disdain. Anthony felt as if he‟d been punched in the gut."
The Rake
Anthony is identified early on—and explicitly—as a rake by Lady Whistledown in her Society Paper. She will not be the last to use this term. In fact, it is a term that peppers the narrative like seasoning which serves to make Anthony most desirable and repellent at the same time, according to whomever is using it. But what is a rake, anyway? Leave it to Lady Whistledown to clarify:
“A rake (lower-case) is youthful and immature. He flaunts his exploits, behaves with utmost idiocy, and thinks himself dangerous to women. A Rake (upper-case) knows he is dangerous to women. He doesn’t flaunt his exploits because he doesn’t need to…He doesn’t behave like an idiot for the simple reason that he isn’t an idiot…He has little patience for the foibles of society.”
