During the play Blunt has an unexpected and unusual conversation with the queen; he mistakes her for his student which turns out to be hugely embarrassing for Blunt. Blunt who is currently standing high up on a ladder with his back to the queen, almost ranting at her “come along – we haven’t got all day”. The following sequence of events is humorous due to Blunt’s sheer disbelief that he was talking to the most important person in England and not his student. He realises who she was and immediately changes his tone of voice, his language and his stature; “your majesty, I’m so sorry”. This shows he has changed the tone of his voice from powerful and demanding to apologetic and timid. Therefore, he is no longer comfortable knowing that he is in the presence of his queen whom he has betrayed. His discomfort if further shown by the stage directions; he starts tall and powerful whilst standing on his ladder but is soon shown to be small and timid. This is shown when blunt ‘turn[s] sharply on the ladder and half-bow[s]’. This is another sign that his social status is dropping due to a higher figure of authority being present in the room.
Another physical sign that Blunt starts to get nervous is that he takes out his handkerchief meaning that he is needs something to fiddle with in his hands so that he can continue talking. The handkerchief is bad enough in itself but when he starts “wiping his hands on his handkerchief” it shows he is getting sweaty palms from talking to the queen after what he has done to his and her country.
Again art is used though as he talks to the queen about it almost so that he doesn’t get any personal questions:” Portrait painters tend to regard faces as not very still lives”. I feel he uses it as a barrier to protect himself from the fact that the queen could ask him questions on the topic of his love for the nation or in general about England which would mean Blunt would have to lie to the queen to hide his identity as a spy.
During Blunt’s conversations artwork is frequently used as a metaphorical description of Blunt’s secret life; “A great painting will still elude us, as art will always elude exposition”. This quotation shows a hidden double-ententre as it references to Blunt thinking that he is like a “great painting” because he believes that he will not get caught and that he could “still elude” the police by remaining free man. However it was foolish for Blunt to think this as he was caught just Han Van Meegeren who attempted to forge Vermeer. He was only discovered after a long period of time which is ludicrously symbolic to the events of Blunts secret life involving the Russians. They both remained elusive to the law because it was too hard for the authorities to judge who was real and who was a fake “at the time”.
As Blunt is delivering a lecture on the Triple Portrait he tells the class “the painting is a riddle, and this and similar riddles are quests one can pursue for years”. It is easy to depict that this statement would be delivered in a tone which would portray deep thought because it closely relates to himself as the “painting”. The painting would represent his life in this metaphor and the riddle the mysterious controversy surrounding it. From the same statement; “riddles are quests that can be pursued for years” it is a strong indication that he feels his very own “riddle” has been going on for years and that it has been the police’s “quest” to follow it. The effect of using these metaphors is that it constantly gives the audience a sense of importance to the play that they have to work out the plot from these frequent metaphoric hints that Bennett provides.
One of the pivotal metaphors within the play is the famous painting called An Allegory of Prudence. I believe this to be a main feature of the play because it gives us an insight into Blunt’s past, present and future and the way he sees them developing as well as how we interpret them. I personally interpret the painting in the sense that the three animals represent the three stages in Blunt’s life. I believe that the wolf on the left is meant to connote the idea of his past being devoured so that his work with the Russians is eaten up as well as all the evidence so that it protects the lion in the middle which represents the present. I also get the impression that the lion in the middle shows us that that Blunt is currently stuck in the Middle of his life because he can’t move forward. The dog on the right of the picture represents Blunt’s future which is being poorly guarded because the dog is not good enough, meaning his future is in limbo because he is on the verge of being exposed as a spy. The lion therefore stuck in the middle because the dog is not strong enough to protect his future from the lies.
As the play draws to a close Blunt gets exceedingly closer to becoming exposed as the traitor he is until he is finally revealed as a spy. Moments prior to the curtains drawing to a close “Chubb and Blunt sit spotlight for a moment, looking at each other, before the lights fade”. As the lights fade it shows the blatant representation of Blunt’s life fading away; his title of “Sir Anthony Blunt”, his job and his privacy. Therefore, as the light dies, Blunt dies. This also relates back to art once again due to his love of art dying as he does because he will never be able to analyse or study art; he will be in prison for the rest of his life. As it turned out though, the end of his life was sooner than most though it would be as he died two years after being sentenced in 1983.
In conclusion as you watch this play it’s plain to see that this play isn’t an average straight forward play. It is quite the opposite; the play is not only an extended metaphor, but an extended metaphor with an abundance of almost miniature metaphors within the entire play resulting in an intellectual play where the audience are constantly involved in the piecing together of the plot.
