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Krason_MA Thesis.pdf (334.5 KB)

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You Can Go Home Again: The Misunderstood Memories of Captain Charles Ryder

Krason, Monica M.
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=csu1560934108115459

Abstract Details

2019, Master of Arts in English, Cleveland State University, College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences.
Critics have frequently commented on the nostalgic tone of Brideshead Revisited. Their assessment has been largely negative, with most considering Brideshead too sentimental about England’s aristocratic past. This current characterization fails to recognize Waugh’s critiques of such thinking in Brideshead, wherein he upends the nostalgic tropes of popular Oxford novels, illustrates the dangers of both insulated upper class living and thoughtless presentism through his depictions of various characters, and proposes a greater metaphysical drama through memory is at play in the novel. Brideshead offers nostalgia as an enlivening force which allows Charles Ryder to maintain a vibrant understanding for who he was and who he is now as a result, and consequently empowers him to move forward into an uncertain future. Waugh sees the past as a method for making sense of the present with memory bridging the gap between the two, while simultaneously rejecting any pretensions to preserve the past in its entirety. This theory is built into the narration of the novel itself, which is presented as an extended remembrance. Decoding the nuances of this narration reveals a shift in the narrator’s consciousness after interacting with his memories. By the epilogue, Charles as narrator has become inexplicably hopeful, which Waugh suggests is due to remembering, even that which must give Charles pain. Ultimately, I propose that Waugh’s nostalgia manages to be both melancholic and realistic, and as a result the elegy of Brideshead is more complex than critics have previously allowed.
Rachel Carnell (Committee Chair)
Adam Sonstegard (Committee Member)
Julie Burrell (Committee Member)
British and Irish Literature; Language Arts; Literature; Modern Literature
nostalgia, memory, Waugh, Brideshead Revisited, modernism, Oxford novel, World War II literature, twentieth century literature

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Krason, M. M. (2019). You Can Go Home Again: The Misunderstood Memories of Captain Charles Ryder [Master's thesis, Cleveland State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=csu1560934108115459

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Krason, Monica. You Can Go Home Again: The Misunderstood Memories of Captain Charles Ryder. 2019. Cleveland State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=csu1560934108115459.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Krason, Monica. "You Can Go Home Again: The Misunderstood Memories of Captain Charles Ryder." Master's thesis, Cleveland State University, 2019. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=csu1560934108115459

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

csu1560934108115459
518
© 2019, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Cleveland State University and OhioLINK.