Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Brideshead Revisited, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Innocence, Experience, and Redemption
Suffering, Persecution, and Martyrdom
Authority, Rebellion, and Love
War and Peace
Globalization, Culture, and Modernity
Summary
Analysis
On a misty spring morning in England in 1944, Captain Charles Ryder looks out across the army camp in which he and the rest of the “C” Company have lived since the previous winter. The camp is on the outskirts of the city and, as Charles looks down at it, he realizes that he no longer enjoys his role in the army, and that he is not afraid of what is to come because this camp is the worst place he has been.
Brideshead Revisited is set during World War II. Although being a soldier was generally revered as a brave and honorable pursuit during this time, it’s clear that Charles is disillusioned with the war and no longer passionate about his role as a Captain.
Themes
The army offices at the camp have been set up in an old farmhouse, which was due to be demolished before the start of the war. Charles can see that people had already begun to lay pipes and dig up the fields before the war started. Opposite the camp is a lunatic asylum, and the soldiers make jokes about the inmates there. Charles thinks that madness is the natural result of “a century of progress,” but one of his subordinates, a young man named Hooper, is jealous of the inhabitants of the asylum and comments that Hitler would have killed them all. He says that “Hitler has the right idea.”
Ironically, World War II, which caused destruction throughout Europe, has saved the farmhouse from demolition and given it a new purpose. The inmates mirror the soldiers, as the soldiers are essentially trapped in their military and cannot escape and war, which itself is like a form of madness. Along with World Wars I and II, the early-20th century was also a period of extreme technological and social change. Although this is commonly thought to represent “progress,” Charles thinks that it is really a regression and that the modern world is a brutal place. This is confirmed when Hooper implies that it would be better to kill the lunatics: Hooper is a symbol of modernity to Charles, and his comment supports the idea that the modern world is callous.
Themes
When the “C” Company first arrived at the camp, they were enthusiastic about the future and heard rumors that they would soon be sent to the Middle East. However, as time went on, they began to lose hope and got used to everyday life in the camp and venturing into the nearby town. Charles is their commanding officer and is meant to inspire the men and keep their spirits up, but he cannot motivate himself to do this. Most of the men he knew in his battalion at the start of the war have been killed or promoted, and the replacements drink every evening before dinner.
Many men considered it to be a matter of pride and honor to participate in World War II and fight for their countries. However, even Charles, the company’s Captain, cannot muster up the sense of duty necessary to motivate his own men. This suggests that Charles has become gripped by the tedium of everyday life in the camp and thus disillusioned with his former notions of what serving in the army would be like. He has clearly lost control of his men, and discipline is lax in the camp.
Themes
During his time at the camp, Charles begins to feel his age. That morning, as he lay in bed, he realized that his “last love,” his love for the army, had passed away. It reminds him of the breakdown of a marriage, in which one partner suddenly realizes they no longer love the other. He feels that he knows army life intimately, the way one knows a wife, but now, after four years, he is disillusioned with it and can see through the charms he once admired.
Youth is associated with love throughout the novel, and Charles likely feels old because, like a young man growing apart from his first love, he has come to recognize the military for what it really is beneath its glamorized public persona. His comparison between war and divorce suggests that Charles has been disillusioned in romantic love as well as in his career as a Captain, and that he may be divorced himself.
Themes
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The “C” Company must get ready to leave the camp that morning. Charles thinks that the camp looks like the site of an archeological dig. Charles tries to imagine the way that academics in the future might write about the site. They might think that it was evidence of an ancient civilization ruled by “tribal anarchy.”
Charles is clearly educated and has an academic background. He has read academic books and can imagine the style in which they are written. Charles is also very detached and lives in an imaginative world of his own. He believes that archeologists in the future will think that 20th-century society was violent and lawless, which Charles suggests it is, although it pretends to be “civilized.”
Themes
Charles finds that a window has been broken in the night and has not been recorded in the “damages book,” and goes in search of Hooper, who is meant to inspect the camp. Hooper is unpopular with the other men and not very good at his job, but Charles likes him. He feels sorry for Hooper because, on Hooper’s first night at the camp, the Colonel took a dislike to him and made him cut his hair in front of all the other men.
The “damages book” implies that there extensive records are kept of everything that happens in the army. This suggests that there is also a dull, bureaucratic side to military life—not unlike the civilian sector. Charles is clearly quite a sympathetic man and pities Hooper because he is socially ostracized. The Colonel likely cut Hooper’s hair to make an example of him for the other men, and to reinforce the strict uniformity and discipline that the army requires.
Themes
Hooper is not enthusiastic about the army and has never dreamed about being a soldier or read about historical battles, the way that Charles did as a boy. Hooper loves efficiency but is very inefficient and impractical himself. Charles feels that Hooper represents the younger generation and playfully replaces the word “youth” with the word “Hooper” when he hears about young people’s activities.
Hooper has been conscripted into the army, whereas Charles signed up willingly and has a lifelong belief in patriotism and the idea of war as heroic—an idea that has clearly come to pass as Charles has come to recognize the tedium and meaninglessness of war. Hooper represents the modern world for Charles, suggesting that the 20th century, like Hooper himself, loves efficiency but is inefficient. This is demonstrated by World War I and World War II, in which countries tried to use efficient new weaponry to fight wars. However, war dragged on for much longer than expected, and the result was more chaos and destruction, rather than a cleaner or less painful conflict.
Themes
Hooper trudges out to meet Charles and explains that he is late because he had to pack his kit. Charles tells Hooper that his servant should pack for him, but Hooper says he does not like to irritate the servants in case they get back at him another time. Charles sends Hooper off to inspect the camp and the C.O. approaches Charles. The C.O. spots the broken window and rebukes Charles for not writing it up. He then inspects a nearby ditch and triumphantly comes across a patch of rubbish that has been left there. He tells Charles to clean it up, but Charles orders another officer to do it, and the C.O. slinks away.
Charles’s nonchalant attitude toward servants suggests that he is of a relatively high social class, and that having family servants was a common occurrence when he was growing up. Hooper is younger than Charles, and from a working-class background, so he’s less familiar with this. The idea that servants will “get back” at their masters suggests that the discipline between servants and masters has broken down and predicts that, soon, having servants will be a thing of the past. The C. O. looks for reasons to discipline Charles, because Charles disrespects his authority. However, the C. O. backs down, and this suggests that the C. O. has lost his men’s respect.
Themes
The Company depart, and Hooper asks Charles where they are going. Charles doesn’t know, and Hooper hopes that they will be deployed to fight just so that he can say he has been in the war. They get on a train which travels slowly through the English countryside. The C.O. calls Charles and the other officers into his carriage and berates them again for the rubbish left at camp. He tells them that when they arrive that at the next location, the “C” Company will unpack the train. Hooper complains to Charles that the men will be annoyed: their company gets all the worst jobs.
Hooper does not dream of military glory and simply wants to fit in with other men his age who have been part of the war. The C. O. punishes Charles’s company for Charles’s insolence. This clearly happens often and suggests that Charles dislikes authority and is not a good leader for his men.
Themes
They arrive in the dark that evening, and Charles orders his men to unload. They seem pleased to have a real job to do. Another officer approaches and tells Charles that they are camped in a large country manor with a “village and a pub” nearby. Charles finally gets to bed in his hut in the early hours of the morning, just as it begins to rain.
The men like this job because it gives them a sense of purpose. This suggests that they lack direction while they wait to be deployed in army camps, demonstrating the mundane reality of military life that fails to live up to how the soldiers likely imagined their time at war would be.
Themes
The next morning, Charles asks his second-in-command where they are. When the man tells him the name of the place, Charles feels as though all the noise in his mind has been muted, and a sense of peace and silence reigns. Charles goes to the door of the hut and looks out; he sees the river, called the Bride, which flows among the trees to an old “Doric temple.” The grounds are beautiful and were designed to look old and grow in beauty as the place aged.
It is implied that Charles knows the place, and that his return to it brings him a sense of calm, as though he has returned home. This suggests that Charles feels out of place in his current role, and perhaps in his current stage in life as a whole, and that his past holds a sense of peace that he’s been lacking. The grounds of the house have been designed to look old, suggesting that whoever built them believed that the past is superior to, and more beautiful than, the present.
Themes
Hooper trudges up to Charles and tells him that the house is hidden behind a nearby hill. Hooper has had a look around and says the house is very old and grand, with a Roman Catholic chapel built onto it. In the chapel, an old man is taking mass with a priest. Hooper says that there is a fountain outside the house and Charles tells him that he knows this: he has been here before.
The grounds are very large, and this is clearly a stately manor and the home of a very wealthy Catholic family. There were many country houses of this sort in England, which were repurposed during World War II, and which remain in existence as heritage sites today.
Themes
