Brideshead Revisited Evelyn Waugh

The novel is divided into three parts, framed by a prologue and epilogue.

Prologue

The prologue takes place during the final years of the Second World War. Charles Ryder and his battalion are sent to a country estate called Brideshead, which prompts his recollections of the rest of the story.

Et In Arcadia Ego

In 1923, protagonist and narrator Charles Ryder, an undergraduate reading history at a college very similar to Hertford College, Oxford, is befriended by Lord Sebastian Flyte, the younger son of the Marquess of Marchmain and an undergraduate at Christ Church. Both Charles and Sebastian had matriculated at Oxford in the Autumn of 1922, Charles doing so shortly before his 19th birthday. The following year, Sebastian introduces Charles to his eccentric friends, including the haughty aesthete and homosexual Anthony Blanche. Sebastian also takes Charles to his family's palatial country house, Brideshead Castle, in Wiltshire,[1] where Charles later meets the rest of Sebastian's family, including his sister, Lady Julia.

During the long summer holiday, Charles returns home to London, where he lives with his widowed father, Edward Ryder. Charles is called back to Brideshead after Sebastian incurs a minor injury, and Sebastian and Charles spend the remainder of the holiday together.

Sebastian's family is Catholic, which influences the Flytes' lives as well as the content of their conversations, all of which surprises Charles, who had always believed Christianity was "without substance or merit". Lord Marchmain had converted from Anglicanism to Catholicism to marry his wife, but he later abandoned both his marriage and his new religion, and moved to Venice. Left alone, Lady Marchmain focuses even more on her faith, which is also enthusiastically espoused by her elder son, the Earl of Brideshead ("Bridey"), and by her younger daughter, Lady Cordelia.

Brideshead Deserted

The Flyte family becomes aware of Sebastian's drinking problem and attempts to stop him from drinking which only worsens the situation. Lady Marchmain falls out with Charles and he leaves Brideshead for what he thinks is the last time.

Julia marries the rich but unsophisticated Canadian-born businessman and politician Rex Mottram. This marriage causes great sorrow to her mother because Rex, though initially planning to convert to Catholicism, turns out to be a divorcé with an ex-wife living in Canada. He and Julia subsequently marry without fanfare in the Savoy Chapel, an Anglican church where marriage between divorcés with one or more prior living spouses is permissible.

Sebastian descends into alcoholism, drifting away from the family over a two-year period. He flees to Morocco, where his drinking ruins his health. He eventually finds some solace as an under-porter and object of charity at a Catholic monastery in Tunisia. Sebastian's drifting leads to Charles's own estrangement from the Flytes.

Julia asks Charles to go and find Sebastian because Lady Marchmain (Sebastian's mother) is ill. Charles finds Sebastian in the monastery in Morocco. Sebastian is too ill to return to England, so Charles returns to London to see Brideshead and sort out Sebastian's financial affairs.

Charles is commissioned by Brideshead to paint images of Marchmain House in London before its demolition. The paintings are very successful. Charles talks to Cordelia while he paints and discovers more about the Flyte family.

A Twitch Upon the Thread

Charles finds success as an architectural painter and visits Latin America to portray the buildings there. Charles marries and fathers two children, but he becomes cold towards his wife, Celia, and she is unfaithful to him. Julia separates from Rex Mottram and Charles eventually forms a relationship with her.

Charles and Julia plan to divorce their respective spouses so they can marry each other.

Cordelia returns from ministering to the wounded in the Spanish Civil War with disturbing news about Sebastian's nomadic existence and steady decline over the past few years. She predicts he will die soon in the Tunisian monastery.

On the eve of the Second World War, the ageing Lord Marchmain, terminally ill, returns to Brideshead to die in his ancestral home. Appalled by the marriage of his elder son Brideshead to a middle-class widow past childbearing age, he names Julia heir to the estate, which prospectively offers Charles marital ownership of the house. However, Lord Marchmain's return to the faith on his deathbed changes the situation: Julia decides she cannot enter a sinful marriage with Charles, who has also been moved by Lord Marchmain's acceptance of the Last Rites.

Epilogue

The plot concludes in the early spring of 1943 (or possibly 1944 – the date is disputed).[2] Charles is "homeless, childless, middle-aged and loveless". He has become an army officer and finds himself unexpectedly billeted at Brideshead, which has been taken into military use. He finds the house damaged by the army, but the private chapel, closed after Lady Marchmain's death in 1926, has been reopened for the soldiers' use. It occurs to him that the efforts of the builders – and, by extension, God's efforts – were not in vain, although their purposes may have appeared, for a time, to have been frustrated.[3]