In Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh highlights the problems of the formation of the human personality, carefully draws the relationship between the hero and his environment in the context of educational influence, the presence of the storyline of travel. " Brideshead Revisited " is a mockery of the outdated in the era of world wars views on the upbringing and development of the individual, but not on the very idea of education.
A good half of the novel is a description of the relationship of the main characters with older members of their families, but the main thing is how these relationships are presented. The father of Charles Ryder and the mother of Sebastian Flyte are the embodiment of two opposing pedagogical approaches: actual self-elimination and suffocation, and, according to the author's undoubted conviction, the first approach is fraught with far less negative consequences. In the novel it is the lack of continuous influence and careful control that leads to the development of a self-sufficient and developed personality. Regardless of how the main character assesses his life it is undoubtedly that the level of his social adaptation is much higher than that of all the young Flytes combined. Ryder manages to find his place in life, gain recognition and create a "full family" - that is, to fulfill and overfulfill the average program of the average person. Another thing is that, to his own trouble, Charles Ryder is not an average person. But his real or imaginary, unimportant, achievements are completely inaccessible to the victims of the suffocating love of Lady Marchmain, the entire storyline of which can be interpreted as a history of pedagogical errors.
The pedagogical mistakes of Lady Marchmain are reduced to two points: over-protection and idealization of reality. They are closely related: over-protection is a tool to bring living people into some ideal state, more precisely, into a state of conformity with ideals, the key to which is given by a "surprisingly homogeneous volume" compiled by Mr. Samgrass. The obligatory set includes "severe inspired asceticism", "chivalry is not of this world", sacrifice and, of course, exuding faith. At the same time, it is not difficult to notice the absolute preference given to Lady Marchmain by her sons - those who are destined to continue the family and, if possible, wear martyrs' crowns. With regard to daughters, a caring mother shows surprising indulgence, allowing, in particular, Julia to get closer, and then to marry someone whom even a thirteen-year-old girl describes as "an amazing boob." The exactitude of Lady Marchmain extends only to Brideshead and Sebastian, both of whom react equally to her-flight.
In addition to education in a pure, so to speak, kind, in Brideshead Revisited there are examples of self-education, in a dramatic form presented in the image of Julia. Her monologue at the fountain about sin, fall and redemption is an obvious attempt to instruct on the true path, uttered on behalf of the Parent - in this case not conditional-psychological, but quite real, though the late Lady Marchmain. However, instead of frequent spiritual renewal, the matter ends in the complete collapse of her personal life, for self-education in this case means not a development, but a step backward, a return to the vicious circle of the plants instilled by the mother. Lady Marchmain wins a posthumous battle: her daughter is not destined to really grow up. This immaturity is emphasized by the timeless beauty of Julia, who, apparently, is not destined to become a venerable matron at least outwardly, and her inability to become a mother.
And at the same time the best pages of the novel describe the power of the educational - in all respects - impact of earthly beauty and real life with its unpretentious joys. With unexpected lyricism, Waugh shows how the grandeur of the hero's soul is shaped by the grandeur of the baroque palace, the greenery of ivy in Oxford, the friendly intercourse, the observation of other people, the frantic joy of the storm, the inspired creativity, the love - the whole world that does not fit into the schemes and infinitely wider than any ideal ideas about it. To merge with the flow of life, to allow yourself an organic being, devoid of painful reflections, to rewrite other people's scenarios with your own hand-perhaps this is the main result of genuine education, unattainable for virtually all the heroes of the novel. It is not an accident that the main character and narrator of the novel briefly and exhaustively characterizes the period of his life, full of worldly success, but devoid of love as "ten dead years". And the parodic romance of upbringing inevitably turns out not to be a novel about how not to educate - but, in general, about how not to live.
