Success and Failure

Throughout The Browning Version, the ideas of success and failure are used to define characters. Andrew Crocker-Harris is considered a failure by everyone, including himself. Andrew's intelligence as a classics scholar is never questioned. Yet because he is unpopular, and perceived as a strict schoolmaster and a bad jokester, he is regarded as a failure.

His marriage is also a failure. Andrew has not met Millie's expectations on any front. This failure is emphasized by her flagrant affairs with other men, including her current lover, Frank Hunter. Thus, Andrew's failings have usurped his wife as well.

In The Browning Version, success is equated with popularity and sports. Frank Hunter is a successful schoolmaster because he relates better to the boys and teaches a less demanding subject than the classics. He lets John Taplow mock Andrew without penalty. Hunter also gives Taplow golf tips.

Similarly, one of...