52 pages • 1 hour read
Evelyn WaughBrideshead Revisited
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1945A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Critical Context: Gay Desire in Brideshead Revisited
Since its publication in 1945, Brideshead Revisited has been read as a novel that addresses queer desire. The responses to this reading have varied enormously over time, though acceptance of the gay undertones in Sebastian and Charles’s relationship (and the inclusion of an overtly gay character, Anthony Blanche) has not faced a linear increase. The novel’s early reception was largely positive, a stance that would later confound Waugh, who confessed to disliking the novel in his later years.
The novel’s piety and adherence to religion as the path to any possible happiness meant it faced little criticism for its inclusion of queer characters. Yet critics agreed that “homosexuality” (as it was then commonly termed) was a prevailing theme; psychoanalytic studies in the 1950s cited Sebastian’s intense affection for Aloysius the bear, even into adulthood, as a symbol of queerness as originating in a failure of normative sexual development (Stevenson, Olive, and D. W. Winnicott. “The First Treasured Possession: A Study of the Part Played by Specially Loved Objects and Toys in the Lives of Certain Children.” The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, vol. 9, no. 1, 1954, pp. 199-217). Critics in the 1980s and 1990s began to address Brideshead’s presentations of queer desire more neutrally, some terming it as a “closet drama,” a nod to the notion of the “closet” as a state of concealed sexuality and the broader Closet Drama genre, which refers to a play intended for reading privately or in small groups, as opposed to being publicly performed (Sinfield, Alan. “Closet Dramas: Homosexual Representation and Class in Postwar British Theater.” Genders, vol. 9, 1990, pp. 112-31).
The Banned Books Project from Carnegie Mellon University notes that the biggest attempt to ban Waugh’s novel came in 2005, in an Alabama case that “aimed to perpetuate faith and morals among young people, as well as to shelter them. The legislation would prevent the allocation and use of public funding for ‘purchase of textbooks or library materials that recognize or promote homosexuality as an acceptable lifestyle’” (Bortner, Jennifer. “Evelyn Waugh, ‘Brideshead Revisited.’” The Banned Books Project, 20 Dec. 2021). The bill ultimately failed, but it brought into question the status of classics that mention queer relationships.
Socio-Historical Context: England in the 1920s and 1930s
The 1920s and 1930s in England saw rapid social change. World War I, with its massive casualties, contributed to shifting social attitudes in this era; all British women over 21 gained the vote in 1928 and the socialist-leaning Labour Party gained political prominence. Despite this, significant class and gender divisions remained. Women still were routinely excluded from higher education and employment, particularly as prevailing social values dictated that married women should not be in the workforce. A 1927 bill was proposed (but did not pass) that would have allowed married or soon-to-be-married women to be fired for their marital status.
The working class was encouraged to seek only a limited education, though mass media such as films meant that the working class and middle class had more contact with one another than in the previous decades. Though the 1920s were prosperous, the Wall Street crash of 1929 led to economic depression in the 1930s, with unemployment numbers skyrocketing. This affected even the upper classes, whose centuries-long dependence on agrarianism had been declining in profitability since the middle of the 19th century.
Depression-era suffering created a sharp political divide, with both the far-left Communist party and the far-right Fascist party gaining prominence in England; the corresponding rise of the Nazi party in German contributed to the overall anxieties about the state of politics in Europe. As the decade continued, the promise of another war became more and more certain. While Edward VIII’s abdication of the British throne in 1936 was primarily due to his relationship with divorced socialite Wallis Simpson (as alluded to in several conversations in Brideshead), concerns that Simpson may be affiliated with the Nazi party contributed to the scandal. Edward himself was known as sympathetic to the Nazi position. England entered World War II in 1939.
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