Brideshead Revisited Epilogue Summary & Analysis

It is 1943 and Charles’s company discusses what to do with Brideshead now that they have taken it over for army purposes. The other officers complain that there are not many facilities nearby but that the lawns may be turned into a training ground. Charles does not tell them that he has been there before, and they send him to look the house over. Charles sets off with Quarter Commander to do this.

Charles knows that the army will desecrate Brideshead, a place which is sacred to him because it reminds him of his past loves. This represents the desecration of the Catholic Church, which, in Britain, largely fell into the background during the 20th century. Waugh also opposed many of the changes that were made in the Church around this time.

Active Themes

As they walk around the house, the Quarter Commander tells Charles that there is no one in the house but some servants who live upstairs and an old priest who has survived the Blitz and reopened the chapel. He tells Charles that the house belongs to Lady Julia Flyte, who now works abroad with a women’s party.

The Blitz was a period of prolonged bombing in London carried out by the Germans in World War II. The legacy of Catholicism survives here, through the chapel. Julia has followed in Cordelia’s footprints and taken up charity work. This shows that, although Julia once left her faith, this has not prevented her from returning to it. Thus, this suggests that God is permissive and allows people to stray as far as they want from him before they return. Catholicism holds out hope for redemption through the practice of confession or through sacramental rites, like baptism.

Active Themes

Many of the rooms have been destroyed by the soldiers. The Quarter Commander leads Charles to the painted study and notes that the soldiers have made a mess of it. He likes the pictures on the walls, though and says the house has plenty of space for offices. The Quarter Commander leads Charles outside onto the terrace and shows him where a road has been built through the grounds. They reach the fountain, and the Commander says that the landlady loves this spot and will not have it removed. The soldiers, however, have thrown rubbish and cigarette butts into the fountain.

This is the room Charles painted when he stayed with Sebastian. Julia (the landlady) loves the fountain because of her memories of it. This suggests that, although she no longer tries to recapture her happiness through worldly things, her love for Charles was still important to her. It is sad and ironic, then, that this has been desecrated and treated disrespectfully. Through this, Waugh suggests that modernity has no respect for the past.

Active Themes

The Quarter Commander leaves Charles, and he wonders alone through the house. He bumps into a servant who recognizes him. She is carrying tea for Nanny and Charles offers to take it up for her. Nanny is very surprised to see Charles and does not recognize him at first. She tells him that Brideshead and Beryl’s home was bombed, and their other house seized for offices, so they are staying in a hotel.

Nanny has stayed the same and still lives in her own calm world, and concerns herself with the fortunes of the Marchmain children. The news of Brideshead and Beryl’s house suggests that war is a levelling experience, and that people of every class are affected by it.

Active Themes

Nanny asks Charles if he heard Rex’s speech on the radio: he was very unpleasant about Hitler, and Nanny is pleased by this. She never really liked Rex, she says, but she has been proven wrong now. Charles asks if Nanny, has heard from Julia, and she says that Julia is in Palestine. Charles promises to visit Nanny again and leaves.

Rex has become a successful politician and is popular in the war effort. Nanny supports him because he hates the Germans, who attacked Britain during World War II. Rex is a symbol of modernity and thrives in wartime because, Charles suggests, modernity is intrinsically destructive. Rex is based on a real politician from this period: the grandson of the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill.

Active Themes

Charles finds Hooper downstairs and asks for his orders. Hooper says he doesn’t know them, and Charles says that it is his fault for disappearing. He tells Hooper to begin work quickly and organize the house. Hooper asks how Charles knows the place and Charles says that it belonged to friends of his. It reminds him of his first visit with Sebastian, when Sebastian said that Brideshead was where his family lived.

Charles’s company is very disorganized. This suggests that the army itself is disorganized, and that Charles does not view his duty as important or worthwhile. He has lost faith in the organization and purpose of army life. Charles no longer feels connected to Brideshead because it has changed so much. He has lost touch with the Marchmains and is now an outsider among them, because he is not Catholic.

Active Themes

Hooper thinks it is strange that one family lived in such a large house. Charles says that it is handy now, but Hooper says this was not its purpose. Charles says that, perhaps, this is the joy of building: one never knows what will happen to the thing that one builds. It is like having a child, he says. He adds that he has lost the right to watch his own son grow up and that he has no one, nowhere to go, and no love in his life. Hooper laughs uncomfortably and hurries off.

Hooper, who represents modernity, is from a poor family and views Brideshead as wasteful. He does not appreciate it aesthetically, the way that Charles does, and sees it as an inefficient use of space. Charles realizes that one cannot control how one’s art will be viewed or interpreted, or how the modern world will change. One must, instead, surrender to change. Charles’s reference to his son refers to the idea that humans are God’s children, but that God cannot control whether humanity loves him or not, because humans have free will.

Active Themes

Quotes

Left alone, Charles goes to visit the chapel. He says a prayer there and then walks back through the house. He thinks sadly that the builders did not know how the house would be used and that all their work has gone to waste. Still, he thinks, perhaps it has not gone to waste at all. Perhaps something good will come out of all this tragedy in the end, because something eternal remains in the house and in the world at large. When Charles makes it back to camp, his second-in-command says that Charles seems unusually chirpy.

At first, Charles is pessimistic about the change at Brideshead, and sees it as emblematic of the destructive modern world. However, his hope returns when he acknowledges that he cannot judge whether change is good or bad because he does not understand the whole plan and is not an authority. Instead, Charles decides, the only true authority in the world is God, but humans cannot understand the intricacies of God’s plan because they are inferior to Him. This implies Charles’s conversion to Catholicism, as he lets go of his attempts to control everything and surrenders to the idea of a higher power in the figure of God.

Active Themes

Brideshead Revisited

Evelyn Waugh

Brideshead Revisited: Epilogue Summary & Analysis