Brideshead Revisited
Novel by Evelyn Waugh, published in 1945. A young man, an old aristocratic family and the pervasive grip of the Roman Catholic Church.
When his army unit is stationed at Brideshead, the narrator Charles Ryder revisits his emotional attachment to the previous occupants of the castle: the Marchmains, a family of aristocratic Roman Catholics.
The main story is set between 1923 and the early 1940s: Charles befriends Sebastian Flyte, who is a handsome fellow student, but whimsical, troubled and prone to alcohol. Soon he introduces Charles to his family: his elder brother "Bridey", his sisters Julia and Cordelia as well as his mother, a devout believer. Charles also learns that Lord Marchmain is living in "exile": he has renounced his faith and moved to Venice with another woman (who, since his wife will not agree to a divorce, is considered his mistress).
Sebastian is overcome by his drinking problem: "Flyte" proves a telling name, and the young man escapes to Africa, where he eventually learns of his mother's death. Sebastian's health deteriorates, and he is taken in by monks as "some kind of saintly down‐and‐out" (Drabble).
In the meantime, Charles becomes a successful artist, but he enters into an unhappy marriage, and so does Julia. Having fallen in love with each other, they both plan to divorce their spouses. Lord Marchmain even makes Julia the heir of Brideshead, and Charles imagines what it would be like to live in and own that house. However, on his deathbed, Lord Marchmain returns to the Catholic faith and receives the sacraments. Julia's conscience is stirred; she decides that she cannot get a divorce after all and must never see Charles again.
The narrator joins the army, a decision that ultimately leads him back to Brideshead. Visiting the house one more time, he feels that he has "forfeited the right to watch my son grow up" and that he is "homeless, childless, middle-aged, loveless" (416). However, the novel - apart from evoking nostalgia for the English nobility - emphasises faith as a source of solace and reconciliation. Like Sebastian and Lord Marchmain before him, Charles seems to have converted, and when he returns from his prayer - "an ancient, newly-learned form of words" (416) -, his second-in-command finds him "unusually cheerful" (417).
Sources
- "Brideshead Revisited." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. Ed. Margaret Drabble and Jenny Stringer. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
- Waugh, Evelyn. Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder. London: Penguin, 2011.