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Personification
Definition of Satire
Satire is the use of humor, irony, sarcasm, or ridicule to criticize something or someone. Public figures, such as politicians, are often the subject of satire, but satirists can take... read full definition
Satire is the use of humor, irony, sarcasm, or ridicule to criticize something or someone. Public figures, such as politicians, are often the subject of... read full definition
Satire is the use of humor, irony, sarcasm, or ridicule to criticize something or someone. Public figures, such as politicians... read full definition
Prologue
Explanation and Analysis—Archaeologists:
During the Prologue, Charles remarks on his uninspired military surroundings, making observations about the architecture as an archaeologist might observe a dig site. These observations end up being rather satirical in nature:
The smoke from the cook-houses drifted away in the mist and the camp lay revealed as a planless maze of short-cuts, superimposed on the unfinished housing-scheme, as though disinterred at a much later date by a party of archaeologists.
“The Pollock diggings provide a valuable link between the citizen-slave communities of the twentieth century and the tribal anarchy which succeeded them. Here you see a people of advanced culture, capable of an elaborate draining system and the construction of permanent highways, over-run by a race of the lowest type.”
Charles imagines his surroundings at Brideshead as a kind of inverse archaeological site, satirizing wartime by referring to soldiers as a "race of the lowest type." This passage could also serve as satire of contemporary, pre-war British society, comparing Brideshead to a "citizen-slave community." Archaeological language, utilized with a twinge of irony, reveals certain truths about the inequalities of British class organization. British people are citizens, yes, but they reside within a deeply unequal country shaped by centuries of monarchical rule and peasant oppression. As landed gentry, Sebastian and his family are part of the problem.
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