SOURCE: “The Absurdity of the Hedonist in Huxley's ‘The Gioconda Smile,’” in Studies in Short Fiction, Vol. VII, No. 2, Spring, 1970, pp. 328-30.

In the following essay, Watt argues that in his story “The Gioconda Smile,” Huxley crystallizes a significant theme that appears in his work as he seeks value and meaning in life—the absurdity of the hedonist.

“The Gioconda Smile,” perhaps Aldous Huxley's best-known short story, presents in cameo form one of the leading themes of his major fiction.¹ The utter insufficiency of the hedonist's way of life is a recurring idea in Huxley's fiction, an idea that conveys his seminal theme of the essential absurdity of a life without genuine purpose. Henry Hutton's inner conflict in the story reflects the need of the Huxley hero somehow to temper his irresponsible frivolity and to acquire some substantive emotional, moral, or religious values. Like so many of Huxley's...