What I don't like about about Julia's speech

I won't build up to it: I think the emotion is wrong. It just doesn't make sense that Julia would be reduced to hysterics by Bridey's comment about living in sin. She's been through this a long time and there is nothing in that comment to inspire that reaction. I think it is sexism plain and simple.

I recognize that many but not all women cry more than men but it just doesn't work.

More importantly, the explosion is unnecessary. If it were rewritten so that the emotion was anger and a little bit about "they know all about it" and the pamphlet at the back of the church it would work better followed by Julia angrily saying to Charles that it does make sense. But none of this stuff about Mummy dying with it. It's over the top and crass quite frankly

Perhaps biggest strike against it is that the whole scene is doing almost no useful work in the novel as it stands. If you left it out completely you'd miss very little. Lord Marchmain's soliloquy coming up does not fit realist conventions either but it does real useful work in the story. It could have been rewritten to be replaced with Charles saying he sat with him alone every day and then summarizing what he was told about the history of Brideshead and that would solve the stylistic problem. But all of it fits; it really belongs in the story. Julia's outburst does not.

The first post in the Brideshead series is here.

The next post will be here.