Brideshead Revisited

by

Evelyn Waugh

Brideshead Symbol Analysis

Brideshead Symbol Icon

The house in Brideshead Revisited, known as Brideshead Castle, represents the Catholic Church. The house itself invokes Catholic imagery, as its domed roof resembles the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica. Its grand, aesthetic style also contrasts with the traditional architecture of Britain, and reflects the difference between Catholic churches (which are famously lavish and decorative) and Protestant churches (which are deliberately austere). The name “Brideshead” is also significant because, in Christian doctrine, the Church is often referred to as the “bride” of Christ—the “marriage” between the teachings of Christ and those of the Catholic Church comprise the teachings of Catholicism. The Church in Rome is also the seat of the Pope, who is the “head” of the Catholic Church. The combination of these two ideas in the name “Brideshead” reflects the idea that Charles’s experiences at Brideshead also represent his experience with Catholicism. He is introduced to Catholicism by the Marchmain family, who live in Brideshead—they are members of the Catholic Church and are literally inside Brideshead just as they are figuratively enmeshed in the rituals and traditions of the church. Though Charles is initially unfamiliar with Catholicism and skeptical of its practices, he grows close to the family and attached to the house over time, a gradual transformation that parallels his conversion to Catholicism at the end of the novel when he returns to Brideshead.

Brideshead Quotes in Brideshead Revisited

The Brideshead Revisited quotes below all refer to the symbol of Brideshead. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Innocence, Experience, and Redemption Theme Icon
).
Prologue Quotes

He told me and, on the instant, it was as though someone had switched off the wireless, and a voice that had been bawling in my ears, incessantly, fatuously, for days beyond number, had been suddenly cut short; an immense silence followed, empty at first, but gradually, as my outraged sense regained authority, full of a multitude of sweet and natural and long forgotten sounds: for he had spoken a name that was so familiar to me, a conjuror’s name of such ancient power, that, at its mere sound, the phantoms of those haunted late years began to take flight.

Related Characters: Charles Ryder (speaker)
Related Symbols: Brideshead
Page Number: 16-17
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 1, Chapter 3 Quotes

“We’ll have a heavenly time alone,” said Sebastian, and when next morning, while I was shaving, I saw from my bathroom window Julia, with luggage at her back, drive from the forecourt and disappear at the hill’s crest, without a backward glance, I felt a sense of liberation and peace such as I was to know years later when, after a night of unrest, the sirens sounded the “All Clear.”

Related Characters: Charles Ryder (speaker), Sebastian Flyte, Julia Flyte
Related Symbols: Brideshead
Page Number: 86
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 1, Chapter 4 Quotes

Here under that high and insolent dome, under those coffered ceilings; here, as I passed through those arches and broken pediments to the pillared shade beyond and sat, hour by hour, before the fountain, probing its shadows, tracing its lingering echoes, rejoicing in all its clustered feats of daring and invention, I felt a whole new system of nerves alive within me, as though the water that spurted and bubbled among its stones, was indeed a life-giving spring.

Related Characters: Charles Ryder (speaker), Sebastian Flyte
Related Symbols: Brideshead, Fountain
Page Number: 90
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 1, Chapter 5 Quotes

He claimed to love the past, but I always felt that he thought all the splendid company, living or dead, with whom he associated slightly absurd; it was Mr. Samgrass who was real, the rest were an insubstantial pageant. He was the Victorian tourist, solid and patronizing, for whose amusement these foreign things were paraded.

Related Characters: Charles Ryder (speaker), Sebastian Flyte, Lady Marchmain, Mr. Samgrass, Ned
Related Symbols: Brideshead
Page Number: 124
Explanation and Analysis:

And since Sebastian counted among the intruders his own conscience and all claims of human affection, his days in Arcadia were numbered. For in this, to me, tranquil time Sebastian took fright. I knew him well in that mood of alertness and suspicion, like a deer suddenly lifting his head at the far notes of the hunt; I had seen him grow wary at the thought of his family or his religion, now I found I, too, was suspect.

Related Characters: Charles Ryder (speaker), Sebastian Flyte
Related Symbols: Brideshead
Page Number: 144
Explanation and Analysis:

Mr. Samgrass’s deft editorship had assembled and arranged a curiously homogeneous little body of writing—poetry, letters, scraps of a journal, an unpublished essay or two, which all exhaled the same high-spirited, serious, chivalrous, other-worldly air and the letters from their contemporaries, written after their deaths, all in varying degrees of articulateness, told the same tale of men who were, in all the full flood of academic and athletic success, of popularity and the promise of great rewards ahead, seen somehow as set apart from their fellows, garlanded victims, devoted to the sacrifice.

Related Characters: Charles Ryder (speaker), Sebastian Flyte, Lady Marchmain, Lord Marchmain, Mr. Samgrass, Ned
Related Symbols: Brideshead
Page Number: 157
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 1 Quotes

“Well. I’m fond of him too, in a way, I suppose, only I wish he’d behave like anybody else. I’ve grown up with one family skeleton, you know papa. Not to be talked of before the servants, not to be talked of before us when we were children. If mummy is going to start making a skeleton out of Sebastian, it’s too much. If he wants to be always tight, why doesn’t he go to Kenya or somewhere where it doesn’t matter?”

Related Characters: Julia Flyte (speaker), Charles Ryder, Sebastian Flyte, Lady Marchmain, Lord Marchmain
Related Symbols: Brideshead, Skull
Page Number: 186
Explanation and Analysis:

But as I drove away and turned back in the car to take what promised to be my last view of the house, I felt that I was leaving part of myself behind, and that wherever I went afterwards I should feel the lack of it, and search for it hopelessly, as ghosts are said to do, frequenting the spots where they buried material treasures without which they cannot pay their way to the nether world.

Related Characters: Charles Ryder (speaker), Sebastian Flyte, Lady Marchmain
Related Symbols: Brideshead
Page Number: 194
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 2 Quotes

This was the creature, neither child nor woman, that drove me through the dusk that summer evening, untroubled by love, taken aback by the power of her own beauty, hesitating on the cool edge of life; one who had suddenly found herself armed, unawares; the heroine of a fairy story turning over in her hands the magic ring; she had only to stroke it with her fingertips and whisper the charmed word, for the earth to open at her feet and belch forth her titanic servant, the fawning monster who would bring her whatever she asked, but bring it, perhaps, in unwelcome shape.

Related Characters: Charles Ryder (speaker), Julia Flyte
Related Symbols: Brideshead
Page Number: 207
Explanation and Analysis:
Epilogue Quotes

No, I said, not what it was built for. Perhaps that’s one of the pleasures of building, like having a son, wondering how he’ll grow up. I don’t know; I never built anything, and I forfeited the right to watch my son grow up. I’m homeless, childless, middle-aged, love-less. Hooper.

Related Characters: Charles Ryder (speaker), Hooper –
Related Symbols: Brideshead
Page Number: 401
Explanation and Analysis:
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Brideshead Revisited PDF

Brideshead Symbol Timeline in Brideshead Revisited

The timeline below shows where the symbol Brideshead appears in Brideshead Revisited. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Part 1, Chapter 1
Innocence, Experience, and Redemption Theme Icon
Charles has been to this house, Brideshead Castle, many times, but he remembers his first visit most fondly. It is 1923 and... (full context)
Innocence, Experience, and Redemption Theme Icon
Suffering, Persecution, and Martyrdom Theme Icon
Authority, Rebellion, and Love Theme Icon
...hair cut, the barber tells him that Sebastian is the son of the Marquis of Brideshead and that he came into the shop to buy a “hairbrush for his teddy bear.”... (full context)
Innocence, Experience, and Redemption Theme Icon
Suffering, Persecution, and Martyrdom Theme Icon
Authority, Rebellion, and Love Theme Icon
Globalization, Culture, and Modernity Theme Icon
...of large, iron gates and along a winding path through trees, until the house at Brideshead comes into view. It is a huge, ancient manor, with a large domed roof. Charles... (full context)
Innocence, Experience, and Redemption Theme Icon
Suffering, Persecution, and Martyrdom Theme Icon
Authority, Rebellion, and Love Theme Icon
...she wakes up. Nanny tells them that Julia, Sebastian’s sister, is on her way to Brideshead and will arrive shortly, but Sebastian says that they cannot stay. (full context)
Part 1, Chapter 2
Suffering, Persecution, and Martyrdom Theme Icon
Authority, Rebellion, and Love Theme Icon
War and Peace Theme Icon
Globalization, Culture, and Modernity Theme Icon
Not long after Charles and Sebastian’s outing to Brideshead, Jasper comes to visit Charles and rebukes him for keeping the wrong sort of company.... (full context)
Part 1, Chapter 3
Innocence, Experience, and Redemption Theme Icon
War and Peace Theme Icon
...friends with the news that Sebastian is badly injured, Charles immediately prepares to leave for Brideshead. His father is not disappointed to see him go, though he pretends to resent Charles... (full context)
Innocence, Experience, and Redemption Theme Icon
Authority, Rebellion, and Love Theme Icon
Charles catches the train out to Brideshead and, on the way, agonizes about all the possible accidents in which Sebastian could have... (full context)
Innocence, Experience, and Redemption Theme Icon
Authority, Rebellion, and Love Theme Icon
...cannot go away for the summer. He begged her not to leave him alone at Brideshead and, when she refused to stay, he asked for Charles to be sent for. As... (full context)
Innocence, Experience, and Redemption Theme Icon
War and Peace Theme Icon
Globalization, Culture, and Modernity Theme Icon
Julia asks why, when Charles and Sebastian visited Brideshead, they didn’t stay to see her. Charles says that Sebastian insisted. Julia says that Charles... (full context)
Part 1, Chapter 4
Innocence, Experience, and Redemption Theme Icon
Suffering, Persecution, and Martyrdom Theme Icon
Authority, Rebellion, and Love Theme Icon
...feeling of relaxation, or “languor,” which only exists in young people. During his summer at Brideshead, he feels like he is in paradise and wishes he could stay there always. Sebastian... (full context)
Innocence, Experience, and Redemption Theme Icon
Suffering, Persecution, and Martyrdom Theme Icon
Authority, Rebellion, and Love Theme Icon
Globalization, Culture, and Modernity Theme Icon
...the fountain. The fountain is originally from Italy but was taken apart and relocated to Brideshead. Charles struggles with the drawing but is pleased with the final product. He asks Sebastian... (full context)
Innocence, Experience, and Redemption Theme Icon
Suffering, Persecution, and Martyrdom Theme Icon
Authority, Rebellion, and Love Theme Icon
Charles and Sebastian also discover the wine cellar beneath Brideshead, and ask Wilcox to bring up bottles for them to drink. The wine is very... (full context)
Authority, Rebellion, and Love Theme Icon
Globalization, Culture, and Modernity Theme Icon
...ignoring his political party. He complains that they have probably got an English cook at Brideshead now. They move on to a café for coffee after dinner, and Lord Marchmain tells... (full context)
Part 1, Chapter 5
Innocence, Experience, and Redemption Theme Icon
Suffering, Persecution, and Martyrdom Theme Icon
Authority, Rebellion, and Love Theme Icon
War and Peace Theme Icon
...Lady Marchmain, Sebastian is annoyed that Charles likes his mother. Lady Marchmain invites Charles to Brideshead for Christmas, and Charles agrees to come. A few days later, Charles bumps into Julia... (full context)
Authority, Rebellion, and Love Theme Icon
Globalization, Culture, and Modernity Theme Icon
When Charles arrives at Brideshead for Christmas, he finds Mr. Samgrass is there as well. Mr. Samgrass tells Charles that... (full context)
Suffering, Persecution, and Martyrdom Theme Icon
Authority, Rebellion, and Love Theme Icon
Charles and Sebastian go to Brideshead for Easter and, for the first time, Sebastian gets extremely drunk in front of his... (full context)
Innocence, Experience, and Redemption Theme Icon
Suffering, Persecution, and Martyrdom Theme Icon
Authority, Rebellion, and Love Theme Icon
...he agrees to live with Mgr. Bell. He was not happy during his time at Brideshead, and Lady Marchmain says she is very sorry about the way that things worked out. (full context)
Part 2, Chapter 1
Suffering, Persecution, and Martyrdom Theme Icon
Authority, Rebellion, and Love Theme Icon
At Brideshead during Christmas time, Mr. Samgrass tells a story about his and Sebastian’s trip into the... (full context)
Suffering, Persecution, and Martyrdom Theme Icon
Authority, Rebellion, and Love Theme Icon
When Charles arrived at the train station for Brideshead two nights ago, he bumped into Sebastian and Mr. Samgrass. He was surprised because he... (full context)
Suffering, Persecution, and Martyrdom Theme Icon
Authority, Rebellion, and Love Theme Icon
Globalization, Culture, and Modernity Theme Icon
...to paint a panel in the study: something he has done on every visit to Brideshead, since his first summer with Sebastian. The study is a refuge for Charles during family... (full context)
Innocence, Experience, and Redemption Theme Icon
Suffering, Persecution, and Martyrdom Theme Icon
Authority, Rebellion, and Love Theme Icon
...secretly hated them all along, but Charles feels nothing during her lecture. As he leaves Brideshead, Charles tells himself that he will never go back. Still, he feels that he has... (full context)
Authority, Rebellion, and Love Theme Icon
Globalization, Culture, and Modernity Theme Icon
...the place and is a little suspicious. Charles asks Rex if he was mentioned at Brideshead after he left, and Rex says that Lady Marchmain felt guilty about what she said... (full context)
Part 2, Chapter 2
Innocence, Experience, and Redemption Theme Icon
Suffering, Persecution, and Martyrdom Theme Icon
Authority, Rebellion, and Love Theme Icon
Globalization, Culture, and Modernity Theme Icon
On the night that Julia collects Charles from the station, to take him to Brideshead, all she can think about is who she is going to marry. This is what... (full context)
Suffering, Persecution, and Martyrdom Theme Icon
Globalization, Culture, and Modernity Theme Icon
...middle of the Atlantic, and it is 1936, 13 years since they first met at Brideshead. (full context)
Part 2, Chapter 3
Innocence, Experience, and Redemption Theme Icon
Authority, Rebellion, and Love Theme Icon
Globalization, Culture, and Modernity Theme Icon
Charles goes to Brideshead to tell the family what has happened. Brideshead accepts Charles’s suggestion that Sebastian must be... (full context)
Authority, Rebellion, and Love Theme Icon
Globalization, Culture, and Modernity Theme Icon
...says, she loves him “more than anyone.” She tells Charles that Lord Marchmain will sell Brideshead to get out of debt and that it will be replaced by a block of... (full context)
Innocence, Experience, and Redemption Theme Icon
Suffering, Persecution, and Martyrdom Theme Icon
Authority, Rebellion, and Love Theme Icon
Globalization, Culture, and Modernity Theme Icon
...Marchmain will not return to England, and Cordelia says they have closed the chapel at Brideshead. She begins to talk of Catholicism, and Charles jokes that she is trying to convert... (full context)
Part 3, Chapter 1
Innocence, Experience, and Redemption Theme Icon
Authority, Rebellion, and Love Theme Icon
Globalization, Culture, and Modernity Theme Icon
...of critical success, Charles begins to feel that his work, which began when he painted Brideshead, has lost something. He travels to South America and paints ruins in the jungle, then... (full context)
Suffering, Persecution, and Martyrdom Theme Icon
Globalization, Culture, and Modernity Theme Icon
...Charles thinks over everything Julia has told him. She told him about her childhood at Brideshead and her fond memories of religion as a child. She is unhappy in her marriage... (full context)
Innocence, Experience, and Redemption Theme Icon
Authority, Rebellion, and Love Theme Icon
Globalization, Culture, and Modernity Theme Icon
...him that Sebastian has completely vanished, and that Cordelia works for an ambulance in Spain. Brideshead lives in Brideshead Castle and is a strange, solitary figure there. Lord Marchmain still remains... (full context)
Part 3, Chapter 2
Innocence, Experience, and Redemption Theme Icon
Globalization, Culture, and Modernity Theme Icon
...has met an acquaintance of his, a Mr. Samgrass, who says that he knows the “Brideshead set.” Charles says that he is going to Brideshead that night but that he didn’t... (full context)
Innocence, Experience, and Redemption Theme Icon
Globalization, Culture, and Modernity Theme Icon
...time at Oxford. Anthony tells Charles that he saw his first exhibition (the paintings of Brideshead) and that, although the work is not to his taste, he felt that it showed... (full context)
Innocence, Experience, and Redemption Theme Icon
War and Peace Theme Icon
Globalization, Culture, and Modernity Theme Icon
...the exhibition, and his meeting with Anthony, while the two have dinner. Rex is at Brideshead with a party of friends when they arrive, and they talk about the possibility of... (full context)
Part 3, Chapter 3
Authority, Rebellion, and Love Theme Icon
Globalization, Culture, and Modernity Theme Icon
One night, two years into their relationship, Charles and Julia sit by the fountain outside Brideshead and reminisce about their meeting on the boat. Charles has been trying to paint her... (full context)
Innocence, Experience, and Redemption Theme Icon
Authority, Rebellion, and Love Theme Icon
War and Peace Theme Icon
As they watch the sunset on Brideshead, Julia tells Charles that she wants to marry him and to divorce Rex. Charles doesn’t... (full context)
Innocence, Experience, and Redemption Theme Icon
Suffering, Persecution, and Martyrdom Theme Icon
Globalization, Culture, and Modernity Theme Icon
Suddenly, Julia recovers. She gets up, says that Brideshead’s news is a shock, and walks back into the house. She fixes her make-up and... (full context)
Part 3, Chapter 4
Innocence, Experience, and Redemption Theme Icon
War and Peace Theme Icon
Globalization, Culture, and Modernity Theme Icon
...everyone takes Celia’s side. Julia’s divorce is a lengthy process, and Rex moves out of Brideshead. He gives a ferocious speech in parliament about the possibility of war and does not... (full context)
Innocence, Experience, and Redemption Theme Icon
Authority, Rebellion, and Love Theme Icon
...he knows that he has not forgotten Sebastian; he is reminded of him constantly by Brideshead and by Julia. The next day, he asks Cordelia to tell him everything she knows... (full context)
Part 3, Chapter 5
Innocence, Experience, and Redemption Theme Icon
Globalization, Culture, and Modernity Theme Icon
While Charles and Julia finalize their divorces and Brideshead prepares to get married, Lord Marchmain suddenly announces that he will return to Brideshead. This... (full context)
Innocence, Experience, and Redemption Theme Icon
Authority, Rebellion, and Love Theme Icon
Globalization, Culture, and Modernity Theme Icon
Lord Marchmain complains frequently about Beryl. He does not want her to inherit Brideshead and finds her vulgar and crude. Lord Marchmain says he will leave the house to... (full context)
Innocence, Experience, and Redemption Theme Icon
Suffering, Persecution, and Martyrdom Theme Icon
Authority, Rebellion, and Love Theme Icon
...family live a long time and talks of his Aunt Julia who was alive when Brideshead was built and who lived to be 88. He talks of his ancient bloodline and... (full context)
Innocence, Experience, and Redemption Theme Icon
Suffering, Persecution, and Martyrdom Theme Icon
Authority, Rebellion, and Love Theme Icon
...oxygen tank to help him breathe. He asks Cordelia what happened to the chapel at Brideshead, and she says it has been closed. Lord Marchmain asks if she thinks it was... (full context)
Epilogue
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Suffering, Persecution, and Martyrdom Theme Icon
Authority, Rebellion, and Love Theme Icon
War and Peace Theme Icon
Globalization, Culture, and Modernity Theme Icon
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... (full context)
Innocence, Experience, and Redemption Theme Icon
Suffering, Persecution, and Martyrdom Theme Icon
Authority, Rebellion, and Love Theme Icon
War and Peace Theme Icon
...of his. It reminds him of his first visit with Sebastian, when Sebastian said that Brideshead was where his family lived. (full context)