A bestseller that securely established its author’s commercial reputation, Brideshead Revisited evokes mixed responses from critics, some of whom see it as a flawed novel. Its name became associated with the generation of writers who were children during World War I and middle-aged during World War II: Waugh, Anthony Powell, Graham Greene, George Orwell, and others. In 1980, the novel became a popular dramatic series produced by the BBC and successfully broadcast on PBS stations in the United States.
The novel takes the form of a flashback related by the first-person narrator, Charles Ryder. His military unit is billeted in the vicinity of Brideshead, the family seat of the wealthy and aristocratic Flyte family. Charles’s proximity to the house carries his thoughts back through his long association with the Flytes, beginning when he was at Oxford with Lord Sebastian Flyte, the feckless second son of Lord Marchmain.
Evelyn Waugh
Charles had quickly become a frequent visitor at Brideshead, where he meets the dull family heir, Bridey, and the two daughters of the family, Julia and Cordelia. When he married, Lord Marchmain had returned to the Catholicism of his ancestors, and much of the current generation’s story is concerned with the struggle for—and against—faith. In spite of the family’s long history, fine house, and financial advantages, the Flytes do not constitute an emotionally successful unit, and the stresses of being a Flyte drive Sebastian into self-destructive bouts of drinking.
Charles’s recollections are set within the frame of his current posting as the British army prepares for active duty in World War II. Charles despairs of their prospects, as represented by the incompetent junior officer Hooper. In contrast, his memories of his 20-year association with the Flytes—he nearly marries Julia and nearly inherits the family estate—take on a nostalgic glow, despite the chronicle of the family members’ imperfections.
As the friendship with Sebastian had grown, Charles had realized that Sebastian’s careless inebriation constitutes an escape from his family, and especially from his charming but possessive mother. Charles and Sebastian visit Lord Marchmain in Venice, where the family patriarch takes refuge from his wife with a mistress, Cara. Sebastian’s addiction to alcohol becomes so intense that he leaves Oxford under the supervision of Mr. Samgrass, an associate of his mother’s, but this effort to maintain his sobriety fails.
At one point, Charles becomes a facilitator of Sebastian’s search for oblivion: when the family members are collected together for Christmas, and the liquor cabinets are all locked up and Sebastian is kept penniless, Charles lends Sebastian two pounds that are immediately spent on a drunken spree. This indiscretion leads to a long break in Charles’s connection to Brideshead; Sebastian, too, escapes his keepers and eventually drifts to Morocco.
Charles did not fall in love with Julia until after both of them were married to other people. At first they conduct an affair, but they cannot be accepted in society as an unmarried couple. They each arrange to obtain a divorce; meanwhile, Lord Marchmain returns to Brideshead to spend his final days. He intends to leave the property to Julia and Charles, having disliked Bridey’s choice of a wife.
But when, on his deathbed, Lord Marchmain makes the sign of the cross in response to a priest, Julia also returns to the Church and refuses to divorce her husband—she abandons her love for Charles in preference to her duty to Church and spouse. Sebastian, they learn, has attempted to enter an order in Carthage and been refused, so he has taken the position of underporter to the monastery. Faith is restored throughout the surviving members of the family; however, happiness has not come with it.
Bibliography
Beaty, Frederick L. The Ironic World of Evelyn Waugh: A Study of Eight Novels. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1992.
Davis, Robert M. “Imagined Space in Brideshead Revisited.” In Evelyn Waugh: New Directions. Edited by Alain Blayac. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992.
Lygon, Lady Dorothy. “Madresfield and Brideshead.” In Evelyn Waugh and His World. Edited by David Pryce-Jones. Boston: Little, Brown, 1973.
Wilson, Edmund. “Splendors and Miseries of Evelyn Waugh.” In Critical Essays on Evelyn Waugh. Edited by James F. Carens. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1987.
Categories: British Literature, Literature, Novel Analysis
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