Previous

Full title  Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder

Author Evelyn Waugh

Type of work Novel

Genre Realistic fiction; religious fiction

Language English

Time and place written 1944, Chagford, England

Date of first publication 1945

Publisher Chapman and Hall

Narrator The protagonist, Charles Ryder, narrates the novel himself.

Point of view  Charles narrates in the first person describing the thoughts and feelings he had when events occurred while adding his older, more mature perspective on past events.

Tone Nostalgic, philosophical, wistful, glib

Tense Past tense

Setting (time) 1920s–1940s

Setting (place) Oxford University, Brideshead Castle, London

Protagonist Captain Charles Ryder

Major conflict Charles Ryder wants to find a love that enriches his life for the long term.

Rising action At Oxford, Charles meets Lord Sebastian Flyte, who awakes in him a new love of beauty. Sebastian becomes an alcoholic and pulls away from Charles. Charles devotes himself to his art and marries for convenience but feels empty. Charles reunites with Sebastian’s sister Julia, and they begin a passionate affair. Charles and Julia plan to divorce their spouses and marry each other.

Climax Julia and Charles argue by the fountain. It becomes clear that their passion is not compatible with Julia’s Catholicism, and they must choose God or one another.

Falling action Lord Marchmain falls ill, and Charles argues against a priest giving Lord Marchmain his last rites. Lord Marchmain repents of his sins. Seeing this triumph of Catholicism, Charles and Julia break up. Charles visits Brideshead years later and celebrates the chapel’s reopening.

Themes Divine Grace; The Shallowness of Modernity; Love

Motifs Infidelity; art and architecture; war

Symbols Brideshead Castle; Aloysius; the fountain

Foreshadowing Book 1 sets up many of the eventual turns of the plot. Sebastian’s first drunken encounter with Charles foreshadows his eventual descent into alcoholism. In Book 1, Chapter 1, when Sebastian comments that his family lives at Brideshead, not him, it foreshadows the discord and alienation Sebastian will experience from his family. Charles’s early observation that Julia looks like a feminine Sebastian prefigures their future closeness and relationship.

Previous section Full Book Summary

Popular pages: Brideshead Revisited

Take a Study Break