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Irony
Definition of Metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other. The comparison in a metaphor can be stated explicitly, as... read full definition
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other. The comparison in a metaphor... read full definition
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other... read full definition
Key Examples in Brideshead Revisited
Prologue
Explanation and Analysis—Brideshead Mentioned:
In the Prologue, an aged Charles learns that he and his soldiers have been stationed at Brideshead, now vacated by the Flyte family. In his moment of recognition, Charles experiences a flashback, recalling his time spent with Sebastian and Julia:
“What’s this place called?”
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; [...] 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 Themes:
Part 1, Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis—The Garden:
In the following excerpt from Part 1, Chapter 1, Charles describes the manner of his falling in love with Sebastian, utilizing both metaphor and allusion:
Unlock with LitCharts A+I went there uncertainly, for it was foreign ground and there was a tiny, priggish, warning voice in my ear which in the tones of Collins told me it was seemly to hold back. But I was in search of love in those days, and I went full of curiosity and the faint, unrecognized apprehension that here, at last, I should find that low door in the wall, which others, I knew, had found before me, which opened on an enclosed and enchanted garden, which was somewhere, not overlooked by any window, in the heart of that gray city.
Related Themes:
Part 1, Chapter 3
Explanation and Analysis—Conversational Weapons:
Throughout the first half of Part 1, Chapter 3, Charles engages in a metaphorical battle with his father, using conversation and social engagements as weapons. This warlike language permeates Brideshead Revisited, transfiguring normal social encounters into metaphorical representations of wartime action.
The following excerpt from Part 1, Chapter 3 is the first of several military metaphors Charles uses to describe the social power struggle between him and his father:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Next day, by chance, a weapon came to hand. I met an old acquaintance of school-days, a contemporary of mine named Jorkins. I never had much liking for Jorkins.
Related Themes:
Part 1, Chapter 5
Explanation and Analysis—Sebastian's Lost Youth:
In Part 1, Chapter 5, Charles uses a curious extended metaphor to describe Sebastian’s psyche:
Unlock with LitCharts A+By the blue waters and rustling palms of his own mind he was happy and harmless as a Polynesian; only when the big ship dropped anchor beyond the coral reef, and the cutter beached in the lagoon, and, up the slope that had never known the print of a boot, there trod the grim invasion of trader, administrator, missionary, and tourist—only then was it time to disinter the archaic weapons of the tribe and sound the drums in the hills; or, more easily, to turn from the sunlit door and lie alone in the darkness, where the impotent, painted deities paraded the walls in vain, and cough his heart out among the rum bottles.
Related Themes:
Part 2, Chapter 2
Explanation and Analysis—Julia, Removed:
In the following example of metaphor from Part 2, Chapter 2, Charles likens Julia to a military strategist, with a level of emotional and physical remove from the future consequences of her present actions:
Unlock with LitCharts A+[S]he lived apart in a little world [....]. She was wondering, dispassionately and leagues distant from reality, whom she should marry. Thus strategists hesitate over the map, the few pins and lines of colored chalk, contemplating a change in the pins and lines, a matter of inches, which outside the room, out of sight of the studious officers, may engulf past, present, and future in ruin or life.
Related Themes:
Part 3, Chapter 4
Explanation and Analysis—Vagabond Language:
In the following example of metaphor from Part 3, Chapter 4, Charles responds to Julia’s accusation that he has forgotten Sebastian, her brother and his once-friend, almost-lover.
Unlock with LitCharts A+“Perhaps,” I thought, [...] "perhaps all our loves are merely hints and symbols; vagabond-language scrawled on gate-posts and paving-stones along the weary road that others have tramped before us [...].”
I had not forgotten Sebastian. He was with me daily in Julia; or rather it was Julia I had known in him, in those distant Arcadian days.
Related Themes:
