Brideshead Revisited (Waugh)

Discussion Questions 
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also, consider some of these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Brideshead Revisited:

1. Charles Ryder is enamored of the wealth, beauty and privileged life he finds at Brideshead, a paradise, "very near heaven." Yet beneath the surface glamor lie discontent, anxiety, resentment —chinks in the perfect armor of the Flyte family—that presage later problems. Can you identify some of those chinks?

2. What is the reason for Sebastian's decline? Trace its beginnings and the role that Lady Marchmain plays.

3. Why does Julia marry Rex Mottram?

4. The overriding theme of the novel is Catholicism and the opening of one's life to grace. At one point the inevitability of grace is described as the "twitch upon the thread," referring to how a fisherman gently wiggles the line to bring in the catch. You might explore the role that religion (or its rejection) plays in the life (or ultimate fate) of the characters—Sebastian (with his teddy bear), Charles, Julia, Lady Marchmain and her husband.

5. Is Lord Marchmain's deathbed conversion genuine?

6. Critics have found Brideshead Revisited elitist, saying that the work champions the life of the artistocracy over the life of the middle class? Do you find evidence of that in the work? Or is that an unfair assertion.

7. Does Charles's conversion at the end feel convincing to you? Were you suprised?

8. For indepth commentary, read Frank Kermode's Introduction, found on the Alfred A. Knopf site (scroll to bottom of page).

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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