The Concept of ‘House’ in Evelyn Waugh’s Work: An Analysis of ‘Decline and fall’, ‘Vile Bodies’, ‘A Handful of Dust’, ‘Work suspended’, ‘Brideshead revisited’ & ‘Sword of Honor’

Abstract

Review of six novels “Decline and fall, Vile Bodies, A handful of dust, Work suspended, Brideshead revisited & Sword of Honor” written by Evelyn Waugh shows, how the terminology “house” figures as an important factor in developing the theme in the novels. Despite many variations of theme in the different groups of his novels, taken without any chronological order, there is one particular aspect, in Waugh’s novels that reappears most constantly, that is the theme of the house; it is an element in his novels about which generalizations can most readily be made. It is a recurring symbol that seems to stand for a great deal that Waugh finds worth preserving and attaining even though it is nearly inaccessible and can rarely be presented to the reader seriously. Study indicates that the Country-‘house’ and the changing role of his father was Waugh’s concern. ‘House’ occupies an important place in novels written by Evelyn Waugh. Analysis of fictions reveals that Waugh used the character of the house in most affluent manner. ‘House’ for Waugh, symbolizes transmission of customs and beliefs, occasions, morale, and culture. While elaborating the concept of house he deals with the residents with humor, respect and with pity and sorrow. Writer follows a particular pattern while addressing the house; he treats the occupants of the house stately with comic respect. His first novel “Decline and Fall”, the perception and morality concerned with the noble house seems under threat. The fear of losing the country house is framed on the perception and conditioning rather than any form of learning. Waugh attaches values and reservations to the house. Contrary, in Vile Bodies it is analyzed that Waugh followed the same Pattern to expose the positive content and influence of the house. A number of characters - Adam, Nina, Agatha and others were portrayed in rebellion against the naturally followed customs and ceremony represented by Doubting Hall and Anchorage House. Evelyn Waugh tries to showcase the positive side of the English House instead of the eccentric, which was presented by his earlier novels. Evelyn Waugh projects the ineffectiveness of the modernization which is deficient in every attribute associated with the house. In handful of dust Evelyn Waugh seems to have developed a striking contrast between Tony’s Gothic house and Brenda’s London flat where she begins the spend most of her time later. Beaver’s mother, with whose son Brenda is committing adultery, “is subdividing a small house in Bulgaria “into six small flats at three pounds a week, of one room each and a bath”. In the novel scoop though Waugh may be whimsical or ambivalent about the attributes of Boot Magna, he is quite definite about Lord Copper’s mansion: it is “frightful”, “execrable”, where Boot encounters a page-boy whose face is “of ageless evil”. All that remains is for the world of Boot Magna to triumph finally over the world of politics, of Lord Copper and of London “that atrocious city”. In his later novels like ‘work suspended’ Evelyn Waugh begins to present the positive side of the English house instead of the eccentric, which was presented in his earlier novels. The pattern is the same. By emphasizing the positive contents and influence of the House, the novelist shows the futility of the modern age, which is devoid of every virtue, order and restraint associated with the house. The hero of Work Suspended, a novelist who is looking for a “house” recognizes that the devotion of people of his generation to domestic architecture is “wistful, half romantic, and half aesthetic”. John Plant himself is conscious of the house’s positive value, which plays a great role in forming a man’s personality. Brideshead Revisited, one of the most familiar and most disputed of country-house novels, opens sometime after the outbreak of hostilities. Like the earlier two, moreover, Waugh’s novel makes the national crisis a moment for wistfully taking stock of the English Past. In Brideshead Revisited, the challenge to order and tradition is more insidious. Brideshead stands for the ideal values of aristocracy - honor, continuity and order - to which has been added Roman Catholicism. Waugh has removed every “taint” of oddness from the place, an act that seems to reveal his “true” feelings, after all: Brideshead is positive good; the civilized rural existence (steeped in a Catholic past) is one of the last remaining outposts of sanity in a preposterous society.  In Sword of Honour,it directly concerned with the country-house theme the Crouchback seat of Broome, like the other elements just discussed, both resembles its counterparts in Waugh’s previous novels and notably differs from them at the same time. Evelyn Waugh’s funny and experimental satire of houses proclaims a new generation coming and taking on the world, they reveal the darkness and hollowness under the shining surface of high life.

Keywords: Clean and square; house; philistinism; Universe; good life; architecture; humor; comic; portrayal.

DOI: 10.7176/JLLL/70-01

Publication date:July 31^st 2020