DOCSLIB.ORG

SUFFERING in EVELYN WAUGH's BRIDESHEAD REVISITED Thesis

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
SUFFERING in EVELYN WAUGH's BRIDESHEAD REVISITED Thesis BEYOND SINS AND SYMPTOMS: SUFFERING IN EVELYN WAUGH’S BRIDESHEAD REVISITED Thesis Submitted to The College of Arts and Sciences of the UNIVERSITY OF DAYTON In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for The Degree of Master of Arts in English By Sarah Elizabeth Miller UNIVERSITY OF DAYTON Dayton, Ohio May 2021 BEYOND SINS AND SYMPTOMS: SUFFERING IN EVELYN WAUGH’S BRIDESHEAD REVISITED Name: Miller, Sarah Elizabeth APPROVED BY: David J. Fine, Ph.D. Faculty Advisor Assistant Professor, Department of English Susan Trollinger, Ph.D. Faculty Reader Professor, Department of English Bro. Thomas A. Wendorf, S.M., Ph.D. Faculty Reader Associate Professor, Department of English ii ABSTRACT BEYOND SINS AND SYMPTOMS: SUFFERING IN EVELYN WAUGH’S BRIDESHEAD REVISITED Name: Miller, Sarah Elizabeth University of Dayton Advisor: Dr. David J. Fine This work interrogates the ongoing popularity of Catholic Modern novelist Evelyn Waugh's 1945 classic Brideshead Revisited as a novel that depicts the modern struggle to find hope and meaning in the midst of suffering after the widespread onset of modernity and decline of Christianity in the wake of World Wars I and II. I argue that Waugh's characterization of Sebastian Flyte, a lapsed Catholic aristocrat struggling with familial dysfunction and subsequent alcoholism, confounds both traditional models of sin as well as psychological frameworks of diagnosis. Employing close readings from the novel as well as historical and theological context, I demonstrate that Sebastian's suffering falls into the no-mans-land between modernity and spirituality, highlighting the failures of each to support healing and the importance of embracing suffering with compassion. iii Dedicated to Emma Vansuch, who knows what it means to love those who suffer iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My humble thanks are due to my advisor Dr. David Fine for his patient and enthusiastic guidance over the duration of this project and to my readers Dr. Trollinger and Bro. Wendorf for their sharp, expert insights during the revision process. My writing is stronger and my ideas are clearer because of their generous engagement with this work. I would also like to thank my fellow graduate students Alexis Gallion, Jennifer Ryan, and Mary Kate Caserta for their companionship and encouragement which have formed my time in the English program here at the University of Dayton. I admire their hard work and their kind hearts and I am privileged to have them as part of my UD community. Finally, my parents Mark and Nancy and my fiancé Kyle have cheerfully sacrificed their time, energy, and resources to carry me through to graduation. For their steadfast support, they have my love and gratitude forever. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………………...iii DEDICATION……………………………………………………………………………iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………………………………………………….v CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………..1 CHAPTER II CONDEMNING SEBASTIAN…………………………………………….5 CHAPTER III DIAGNOSING SEBASTIAN……………………………………............12 CHAPTER IV LOVING SEBASTIAN………………………………………………….23 REFERENCES…………………………………………………………………………..34 vi CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Evelyn Waugh’s classic 1945 novel Brideshead Revisited presents a modern justification for Catholic spiritual belief, yet it remains an immersive work of fiction that continues to attract secular readers, as well as viewers of its various screen adaptations. While popular audiences certainly appreciate the aesthetic appeal of a period drama, as evidenced by the overwhelming success of such television shows as Downton Abbey and Bridgerton, their continued interest in Brideshead Revisited may run deeper than the historical fiction craze. At the center of Waugh’s masterpiece is the dilemma of the modern subject searching for meaning after the collective loss of faith philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche characterizes as the death of God (104). Essentially, modern developments in areas such as science and psychology, as well as modern warfare during Word Wars I and II undermined popular confidence in a benevolent God who imposes moral order on the universe. These events leave the modern subject unmoored, struggling inwardly for a way of understanding the world. Particularly riveting to Catholic and secular audiences of Brideshead Revisited alike is Sebastian Flyte, a character who highlights the fragile struggle between belief and modern development. Sebastian is a lapsed Catholic aristocrat and the narrator Charles’ first love. The novel aptly describes Sebastian as “arresting” (Waugh 29) “charming” (58) and “loved…wherever he goes” (349). In fact, the only person who does not perceive Sebastian’s charm is Sebastian himself. Sebastian is volatile, vacillating throughout the novel from playful innocence to despairing self-condemnation that 1 ultimately leads to alcoholism. The roots of these violent shifts become apparent as Waugh reveals how Sebastian’s childhood nostalgia and lingering Catholic faith are at odds with his parents’ separation and the hastening onset of modernity around him in the wake of World War I. Sebastian is soon caught in the no-man’s-land between two systems of meaning- making; his pious Catholic mother Lady Marchmain seeks to remedy his alcoholism through moralistic religious correction, while his worldly future brother-in-law Rex Mottram hopes to use psychological treatment to cure him. Despite the attempted interventions of both parties, Sebastian remains so tortured that his continued suffering calls both their religious and psychological approaches to his condition into question. Sebastian’s trajectory provides a window into the shortcomings of religious and secular approaches to modern suffering. The two disparate attitudes toward Sebastian help to reveal the central issue at stake in the novel, so that the character of Sebastian in his suffering embodies the conflict between spirituality and secularism. He illustrates Waugh’s awareness of the failures of the practices of both Catholicism and Modernism to confront the wounds of modernity, as the former retreats in fear of sin and the latter dismisses its existence. Like Sebastian, modern readers are in earnest need of a remedy, a middle way between the extremes of fear and dismissal. I argue that, through its depiction of Sebastian, Brideshead Revisited reckons with the failures of both moral condemnation and secular diagnosis as ways to respond to human frailty. Instead, the novel illustrates the sacred power of love that is willing to enter into suffering with the beloved. The novel neither clings to a traditional model of sin that insists on blame and punishment nor dismisses the concept of spiritual 2 brokenness in favor of exclusively psychological healing, but gestures toward a notion of human brokenness that makes gentle allowance for psychological frailty while preserving the possibility of spiritual healing and wholeness. Whether Sebastian’s pain is the result of mental illness or of voluntary sin, Brideshead Revisited suggests to modern readers that compassion is the only response capable of restoring hope for those who suffer. My approach in this essay to Sebastian’s suffering mirrors the chronological progression of Waugh’s novel as it confronts the twentieth century’s unfolding crisis of faith. Waugh guides readers through Europe’s fading religious nostalgia into the iconoclasm of modernity, searching along the way for a means of reconciling Catholic tradition and secular development. Likewise, I entertain orthodox religious interpretations of Sebastian and then secular psychological ones before proposing a reading that reckons with the tension between them. In Chapter II, Condemning Sebastian, I consider critics and characters who apply a Catholic theological worldview to the circumstances of Brideshead Revisited and who thus ultimately condemn Sebastian as sinful. I identify Sebastian’s mother Lady Marchmain as a tragic illustration of modern spirituality devoid of compassion for the mystery of suffering and explore why her ardent piety is insufficient to remedy her son’s worsening faith or health. Chapter III, Diagnosing Sebastian, is devoted to psychological methods of evaluating Sebastian’s scrupulous behavior and addiction. Waugh’s champion of modernity Rex Mottram illustrates the danger of an exclusively psychological perspective, which also proves ineffective in healing Sebastian’s suffering. Thus, I explore the limitations of modernity devoid of spirituality. Chapter IV, Loving Sebastian, considers Charles’ enduring love for Sebastian as a powerful refuge in the midst of his suffering. Just as Waugh’s characters eventually 3 revisit Christ’s Bride, the Catholic Church, in this section I revisit the possibility of a usable theology grounded in compassion for the modern subject. Both religious and secular approaches to suffering can temper one another’s weaknesses and together bring about healing when they prioritize love for those who suffer. 4 CHAPTER II CONDEMNING SEBASTIAN Orthodox Catholic readings of Brideshead Revisited often exhibit a preoccupation with the themes of sin and conversion in the novel. This emphasis casts Waugh’s characters as faithful representations of Catholic belief in redemption through ultimate adherence to Catholic moral law. One such reading by Douglas Patey argues that Charles’ development demonstrates “genuine love is possible only for those whose spiritual house is in order” (Patey 20). According to this reading, Charles’ indulgent relationships with Sebastian and later Julia are unsustainable and “inadequate” (20)
Load more

Recommended publications
  • An Analysis on the Novels of Evelyn Waugh and Their Adaptations Evan J
    Claremont Colleges Scholarship @ Claremont CMC Senior Theses CMC Student Scholarship 2016 The alueV of Attending University: An Analysis on the Novels of Evelyn Waugh and their Adaptations Evan J. Molineux Claremont McKenna College Recommended Citation Molineux, Evan J., "The alueV of Attending University: An Analysis on the Novels of Evelyn Waugh and their Adaptations" (2016). CMC Senior Theses. Paper 1407. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/1407 This Open Access Senior Thesis is brought to you by Scholarship@Claremont. It has been accepted for inclusion in this collection by an authorized administrator. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Claremont McKenna College The Value of Attending University: An Analysis on the Novels of Evelyn Waugh and their Adaptations submitted to Professor Kathryn Stergiopoulos by Evan Molineux for Senior Thesis Spring 2016 April 25, 2016 i Table of Contents Acknowledgements I. Introduction . 1 – 7 II. The Transformative Effects of Oxford in Brideshead Revisited . 8 - 30 III. Paul Pennyfeather’s Chaotic Journey through Decline and Fall . 31 - 55 IV. The Bright Young Things of Vile Bodies . 56 - 70 V. The Reaffirming Power of Evelyn Waugh Through Film and Television . 71 - 85 Works Cited ii Acknowledgements I would like to thank my thesis advisor, Professor Kathryn Stergiopoulos, for her patience, guidance, support, and constructive criticism over the past two semesters. Without her or her colloquiums, this thesis would not have been nearly as enjoyable to work on. I would also like to thank the rest of the literature department for helping to nurture my love for a subject that I have truly enjoyed studying over the past four years.
    [Show full text]
  • Tours, Talks & Private Views 2011
    Tours, Talks & Private Views 2011 Tours The best way to experience the extensive Castle Howard landscape is to walk through it, measuring what you see with your eye and your feet. The route between the Temple, Mausoleum, Pyramid, Mock Fortifications, Gatehouse, and Avenue is full of dramatic surprises; with each step you travel through the landscape but also journey back in time to the early 18th century when the grounds were first fashioned, and on to later eras when these features were changed or restored. The Mausoleum Mausoleum tours last Mausoleum Tours 2-2½hrs, Monumental Visit the most mysterious and imposing tours slightly longer; sensible footwear is building in the Castle Howard landscape, where recommended, see generations of the Howard family are buried website for further in the vaults beneath the spectacular chapel. details. The evening tour The tour also includes a visit to the Temple of on 7 June includes wine the Four Winds not normally open to the public. and canapés in the Temple. The premium Monumental Tours tour on 2 June includes This circuit walk covers the heart of the famous lunch in the Grecian Hall after the morning tour, 18th-century landscape taking in the Avenue, followed by a rare Gatehouse, Mock Fortifications, Pyramid, opportunity to view Mausoleum, and Temple, with exclusive access estate maps and other to these buildings. material from the archives. The Temple of the Four Winds The Pyramid Talks The 2011 series of talks is divided into a spring and an autumn went smoothly and not so smoothly during the visit, as well as the disastrous season, with an opportunity to sign up to all four events if you wish.
    [Show full text]
  • EVELYN WAUGH NEWSLETTER and STUDIES Volume 27, Number 3 Winter 1993
    EVELYN WAUGH NEWSLETTER AND STUDIES Volume 27, Number 3 Winter 1993 BARD IA MARTIN STANNARD'S MILITARY MUDDLE By Donat Gallagher (James Cook University, Australia) When reading Martin Stannard's No Abiding City [entitled Evelyn Waugh, The Later Years in the USA], for review, I was struck by what seemed an exceptionally large number of factual errors, unsupported claims, imputations of motive, overstatements and misreadings. The inaccuracy seemed so pervasive as to undermine the book's value as a work of record. In order to test this impression, I decided to examine a short neutral passage that would serve as a fair sample. The passage chosen for scrutiny had to be brief, and about an easily researched subject. The subject also had to be incapable of having stirred the prejudices of the biographer or the reviewer, or of awakening those of the readers of the book or review. Pages 28-31 of No Abiding City were selected because they dealt with a very minor military operation, viz. a Commando raid on Bardia, and with a humdrum article Waugh wrote about it. No issue of class, religion, politics, literary theory or internal military squabbling arises. Nor does the spectre of professional rivalry, for no one, I imagine, seeks the bubble reputation in a war of words about Bardia. The three pages narrate the events of the raid, using information drawn from Waugh's article and diaries. In addition, criticisms are made of Waugh on the basis of real and purported discrepancies between the article and the diaries. Little is said about the genesis of the article or about the administrative difficulties attending its publication.
    [Show full text]
  • EVELYN WAUGH NEWSLETTER and STUDIES Vol
    EVELYN WAUGH NEWSLETTER AND STUDIES Vol EVELYN WAUGH NEWSLETTER AND STUDIES Vol. 33, No. 3 Winter 2003 Wights Errant: Suffixal Sound Symbolism in the Novels of Evelyn Waugh by Simon Whitechapel He who hesitates is lost. Particularly in the novels of Evelyn Waugh, where little serves to damn a character as readily as hesitation and uncertainty. In the prologue to Brideshead Revisited (1945), for example, Charles Ryder accompanies his C.O. on an inspection of the camp: ‘Look at that,’ said the commanding officer. ‘Fine impression that gives to the regiment taking over from us.’ ‘That’s bad,’ I said. ‘It’s a disgrace. See that everything there is burned before you leave camp.’ ‘Very good, sir. Sergeant-major, send over to the carrier-platoon and tell Captain Brown that the C.O. wants this ditch cleared up.’ I wondered whether the colonel would take this rebuff; so did he. He stood irresolutely prodding the muck in the ditch, then he turned on his heel and strode away.1 The C.O. is never named, perhaps because Waugh had already bestowed his favorite suffix of contempt on another character in the prologue, Hooper, who accordingly joins Beaver, Trimmer, Atwater, Dr Messinger, Mulcaster, Corker, Salter, Lord Copper, Peter Pastmaster, Box-Bender, Pennyfeather, and Ryder among what might be called Waugh’s wights errant. The last two characters, who are partly autobiographical, prove that Waugh did not spare himself: Paul Pennyfeather, the hero of Decline and Fall (1928), suffers misfortune after misfortune because he is too trusting and unassertive, and Charles Ryder, the narrator of Brideshead, though perhaps partly shielded by his patrician “y”, is still worthy of serious blame for his behavior.
    [Show full text]
  • Marston Lafrance SWORD of HONOUR
    Marston LaFrance SWORD OF HONOUR: THE IRONIST PLACATUS Sword of Honour offers plenty of critical problems quite sufficient unto themselves, but they are further complicated by the mere fact of the trilogy's place in the canon. Because it comes at the end of Waugh's long career the reader is bound to be influenced, more or less unavoidably, by his general view of the earlier work, by his overall conception of an author whom he has enjoyed- or resented- for almost four decades. At least three such general views seem to have emerged over the years, and a brief look at them will suggest that a fourth might prove useful. Those readers who consider Waugh "essentially a comedian", 1 for example, should find Men at Arms the most attractive part of the trilogy, and thus it should surprise no one that this book, the least important of the three, has been called "the best of Waugh's novels".2 Readers convinced that Waugh is the twentieth century's archetypal snob, and prejudiced champion of a defunct aristocracy, must find Officers and Gentlemen impossible and parts of Unconditional Surrend er difficult to accept. Those who view him as primarily a disgruntled Tory satirist- probably the majority, and the best of the lot- will find abundant grist for their aesthetic mills throughout the trilogy, but they will also encounter solid blocks of material which their machinery canno t easily accommodate. There is nothing conspicuously satiric about the relationship between Guy and his father,3 about the deaths of Gervase and lvo, Tony Box-Bender's becoming a monk, Guy's betrayal by Virgini a, Guy's devotion to the ideal represented by Sir Roger of Waybroke, Guy's escape from Crete, Mr.
    [Show full text]
  • Books and Articles by Evelyn Waugh Black Mischief (1930), Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1938
    BIBLIOGRAPHY Books and articles by Evelyn Waugh Black Mischief (1930), Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1938. Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder (1945), Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1962. Decline and Fall (1928), Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1937. Edmund Campion (1935), London: Cassell, 1987. A Little Learning, London: Chapman and Hall, 1964. Put Out More Flags (1942), Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976. Scott-King’s Modern Europe, in Work Suspended and Other Stories (1947), Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1982. The Sword of Honour Trilogy (1952, 1955, 1961), Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1984. Vile Bodies (1930), Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1938. “Beau Brummells on £60 A Year”, Daily Express, 13 February 1929, 5. “Commando Raid on Bardia”, Life, 17 November 1941, 63-66, 71, 72, 74. “Failure of a Mission”, review of Miss Fire, by Jasper Rootham, The Tablet, 11 May 1946, 241. “Fan-Fare”, Life, 8 April 1946, 53, 54, 56, 58, 60. “Introduction”, to Christie Lawrence, Irregular Adventure, London: Faber and Faber, 1947, 11-13. “Marshal Tito’s Regime”, The Times, 23 May 1945, 5. “Marshal Tito’s Regime”, The Times, 5 June 1945, 5 [both under the pseudonym “A British Soldier Lately in Yugoslavia”]. “Marshal Tito’s Visit”, Spectator, 19 December 1952, 846. “Marshal Tito’s Visit”, Sunday Times, 1 February 1953, 6. “Mr Waugh Replies”, Sunday Express, 14 December 1952, 3. “Our Guest of Dishonour”, Sunday Express, 30 November 1952, 2. “President Tito’s Visit”, The Times, 24 March 1953, 9. “A Self-Made Myth”, review of Tito Speaks: His Self Portrait and Struggle with Stalin by Vladimir Dedijer, The Month NS 9 (April 1953), 240-45. 332 In the Picture “Tito and Stepinac”, New Statesman and Nation, 31 January 1953, 122.
    [Show full text]
  • EVELYN WAUGH NEWSLETTER and STUDIES Vol
    EVELYN WAUGH NEWSLETTER AND STUDIES Vol. 36, No. 1 Spring 2005 “The Funniest Book in the World”: Waugh and The Diary of a Nobody by Peter Morton Flinders University Evelyn Waugh did not enjoy his Christmas of 1946. It was the second after the war and the national mood was somber. Troops were still being demobilized and the food rationing was worse than ever. As a Christmas “bonus” the government had allowed an extra eight pence worth of meat (half to be corned beef), but bread and potatoes were about to be rationed for the first time. To top it all, the weather was deteriorating and the winter 1946-7 would be the worst in living memory. Waugh, then in his early 40s, was en famille at Piers Court, and that was always a trial in itself. And he felt beleaguered. New houses were encroaching on his land, the socialist “grey lice” were in government, taxes were punitive and he was thinking of emigrating to Ireland. He tried to stay in fairly good humor on the day itself, for the sake of the children, but without much success. He was disgusted by his children’s shoddy presents and the general disorder. Their lunch was cold and ill-cooked. His wife had given him some caviar, but he had eaten that the week before. All in all, it was a “ghastly” day. He had already told his diary that he was looking forward to his forthcoming stay in hospital, for an operation on his hemorrhoids, to get away from them all.[1] The one bright spot of the day was his mother’s gift: a copy of George & Weedon Grossmith’s Diary of a Nobody, the seventh edition (J.
    [Show full text]
  • Brideshead Revisited
    1 | P a g e “Snobbery, sin and salvation*” – Why Should We Bother Revisiting Brideshead? (*with apologies to Henry Mount) (APE THEME: The Danger of a Single Story) PAMELA NEETHLING (EPWORTH HIGH SCHOOL) Arthur Evelyn St John Waugh was born on October 28, 1903, the second son of a more than respectable middle class, High Church Anglican British family with some distinguished ancestors. His father, Arthur, was a literary critic, publisher and author, and Waugh’s older brother, Alec, also enjoyed a respectable career as an author – although according to his nephew, Auberon, his uncle “wrote many books, each worse than the last”! After the devastating infidelity of his first wife, also called Evelyn, with one of their best friends, Waugh would persevere on a spiritual journey which probably began at Oxford and convert to Catholicism. This conversion would inform everything he did, and was, for the rest of his life, not least of which his writing. During the course of his prolific writing life, despite Waugh’s “untenable opinions” (as George Orwell put it), which unfortunately appear to have included anti-Semitism and xenophobia, he would go on to be described by Orwell as “almost as good a novelist as it is possible to be” and by novelist Graham Greene, shortly after Waugh’s passing in April 1966, as “the greatest novelist of my generation”. Heady praise for a man who has variously been described as a cynical churl; a misogynist, possibly a “permanent adolescent” (by Cyril Connolly, referring to a “certain type of Englishman doomed to relive school days”) and famously mean, cruel and hurtful to his family and friends – so much so that when Nancy Mitford challenged him on his behaviour, he retorted that nobody could imagine how horrid he would be if he weren’t a Catholic.
    [Show full text]
  • A STUDY GUIDE by Marguerite O'hara
    A STUDY GUIDE BY MArguerite O’hARA http://www.metromagazine.com.au http://www.theeducationshop.com.au OVERVIEW > This film, Brideshead Revisited (2008) directed by Julian Jarrold, has been adapted for the screen from Evelyn Waugh’s 1945 novel of the same name. It tells the story of Charles Ryder and the Marchmain family in the period between the First and Second World Wars in England. The novel has been adapted for the screen before, most famously in an eleven- part British television series in 1981. This is a story about love, sexuality, religion, class, families and identity. It explores story as we are carried along by the intensity of these the connections between all these things in a narrative that is people’s lives and loves as they come together, trav- richly detailed. While the story is set between the wars from el, move apart and come together again. We want the 1920s to the 1940s, its themes are universal. to know how it will all end. Will Lady Marchmain’s will and insistence on her children’s adherence to the tenets of her Catholic faith prevail? What does it mean to be happy? Do family loyalties and values inevitably prevail as we face the complexities of life? Curriculum Relevance What do we discover about life in England between the two wars when the social order was changing Brideshead Revisited will have interest in so many ways? Are class differences and social and relevance for students at middle and aspirations different today? How have attitudes to- senior secondary levels, as well as wards sexuality changed over the past eighty years? tertiary students studying in a number of areas In what ways is this story relevant to our lives today? including: Synopsis • ENGLISH – exploring a complex narrative that moves between several time periods and socie- Brideshead Revisited is an evocative and poignant ties; understanding the psychological dimensions ..
    [Show full text]
  • Evelyn Waugh's "Brideshead Revisited": Paradise Lost Or Paradise Regained?
    Evelyn Waugh's "Brideshead Revisited": Paradise Lost or Paradise Regained? VALERIE KENNEDY It is worth asking why, in a secular and post-roman tic age, a myth of the Fall should have such validity. .. One answer, I think, is that the experience of being abandoned, of losing an unconditional love, and thereby of forfeiting the simple confidence and wholeness which it sanctions, is a common childhood tragedy. (Thurman 327) i. Introduction AJrideshead Revisited was first published in a limited edition in 1944, then in a revised edition for the general public in 1945, and then again, fifteen years later, in another revised edition, in 1960.1 The novel caused great controversy on its first appearance because of the striking changes it presented in Waugh's style and subject- matter.2 Previously known to his readers as a purveyor of ironic, apparently nihilistic black comedy and as a writer of no explicit moral or religious persuasion, Waugh emerges in Brideshead Re• visited as the author of a Catholic apologia whose dominant mode is that of realism. The novel traces the emotional, moral, and spiritual development of its protagonist and first-person narrator, Charles Ryder, through his relations with the Flyte family. As Waugh puts it in his i960 Preface to the novel, its "perhaps pre• sumptuously large" theme is "the operation of divine grace on a group of diverse but closely connected characters" ( 7 ). In the first edition "Warning," he described the theme even more precisely as "the workings of the divine purpose in a pagan world, in the fives of an English Catholic family, half-paganized themselves, in the world of 1923-1939" (quoted in Heath 163).
    [Show full text]
  • Evelyn Waugh: an Oxonian Life Parallels Brideshead Revisited
    - Evelyn Waugh: An Oxonian Life Parallels Brideshead Revisited An Honors Thesis by Krista M. Pomeroy Thesis Advisor - Dr. Joanne Edmonds Ball State University Muncie, Indiana May 2000 - - Abstract English writer Evelyn Waugh has been known for using characters from his life in many of his literary works, including his novel Brideshead Revisited. Through analyzing my study abroad trip to Harris Manchester College in Oxford, England, the novel itself, and Evelyn Waugh's life, I discuss the comparisons that can be drawn and conclude with why I think many of the similarities cannot be avoided. - - - Acknowledgements Many thanks go to Dr. Joanne Edmonds for guiding me through the thought process of my thesis and for giving me the opportunity to travel to Oxford. I would also like to thank Erin, DeiDei, David, Sam, Aimee, Emily, Julia, Shea, Noelle, Natalie, Dr. John Emert, Dr. Joanne Edmonds, and Dr. Tony Edmonds for making our Harris Manchester study abroad trip a memorable experience. I would not trade it for anything. All my love (til Monday), Krista M. Pomeroy -- -- 2 - Evelyn Waugh: An Oxonian Life Parallels Brideshead Revisited On Saturday, July 24, 1999, I, along with ten other Ball State University Honors College students, stepped into a world of beauty and tradition. Oxford University is famous for its medieval buildings with their reaching spires and for its aspiring academics. We were in Oxford to study abroad at Harris Manchester College and to experience the culture that has inspired its visitors for centuries. Oxford has been the muse of many poems and novels, and reading a selection of these was a portion of our assignment while in England.
    [Show full text]
  • Cultural and Moral Heritage of Catholicism in Brideshead Revisited
    European Scientific Journal April 2014 edition vol.10, No.11 ISSN: 1857 – 7881 (Print) e - ISSN 1857- 7431 CULTURAL AND MORAL HERITAGE OF CATHOLICISM IN BRIDESHEAD REVISITED Ladislava Ivancova, MA University of Economics in Bratislava, Slovakia Abstract This article analyses the historical novel by an English novelist, Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited. Introduction to the novel provides a brief account of circumstances behind Waugh´s motivation to write the novel and its criticism. The author analyses the conversion of the main character in the novel, Charles Ryder, to the Catholic faith. The re/conversion of another character, Julia, to the Old Faith is discussed and analysed further in the article. Through comparison of codes of behaviour of other characters from the novel, the author presents two miscellaneous characters of people. The author states that the difference between these people stems from their different approach towards the values that represent the Roman Catholicism, which formed the character of people in the past. The author focuses on the influence of religion accepted in childhood on the adult life of an individual. The paper also contains analyses of characters that represent the modern age era following the World War II. The analysis puts these characters, agnostics, in a sharp contrast with the Anglo-Catholics. The Marchmains represent the people of the past, who lean on their family traditions that originate from their long preserved history and Catholic culture. Keywords: Evelyn Waugh, catholic faith, modern era, culture, England Introduction Considered by many to be Waugh's best work, the novel, on the background of 1920s and 1940s England, broaches a complicated structure of relationships among the members of an orthodox Catholic family of aristocrats.
    [Show full text]