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Stream of Consciousness
Epilogue
Explanation and Analysis:
The writing style Waugh uses in Brideshead Revisited is intended to reflect the narrator's education and upbringing. Charles speaks like an Oxford graduate, using rare or antiquated English words and complicated metaphors. Note the following example of this elevated speech, taken from the epilogue:
The builders did not know the uses to which their work would descend; they made a new house with the stones of the old castle; year by year, generation after generation, they enriched and extended it; year by year the great harvest of timber in the park grew to ripeness; until, in sudden frost, came the age of Hooper; the place was desolate and the work all brought to nothing; Quomodo sedet sola civitas. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.
This writing style contradicts Charles's various professions: first, as an architectural painter; second, as a soldier and later commander in the British Army. These jobs are straightforward and at times utilitarian—neither are particularly literary in character. The juxtaposition between Charles's profession and use of language serves to constantly remind readers of the way that Charles doesn't quite fit into the world around him. He cannot entirely embrace Sebastian and Anthony's world of hedonism and debauchery; neither does he fit in with the Oxford academic crowd or the Flyte family's Catholic circle. He is not entirely at peace in the army, nor with Celia. All in all, Charles is a man experiencing a crisis of identity and purpose, and the novel's language and style reflects this.
