Novel Title: Decline and Fall

Decline and Fall is a novel by the English author Evelyn Waugh, first published in 1928. It was
Waugh's first published novel. Decline and Fall is based in part on Waugh's schooldays at
Lancing College, undergraduate years at Hertford College, Oxford, and his experience as a
teacher at Arnold House in north Wales.[1] It is a social satire that employs the author's
characteristic black humour in lampooning various features of British society in the 1920s.
The novel's title is a contraction of Edward Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the
Roman Empire. The title alludes also to the German philosopher Oswald Spengler's The Decline
of the West (19181922), which first appeared in an English translation in 1926 and which
argued, among other things, that the rise of nations and cultures is inevitably followed by their
eclipse. Waugh read both Gibbon and Spengler while writing his first novel.[2] Waugh's satire is
unambiguously hostile to much that was in vogue in the late 1920s, and "themes of cultural
confusion, moral disorientation and social bedlam...both drive the novel forward and fuel its
humour."[3] This "undertow of moral seriousness provides a crucial tension within [Waugh's
novels], but it does not dominate them."[4] Waugh himself stated boldly in his 'Authors Note' to
the first edition: 'Please bear in mind throughout that IT IS MEANT TO BE FUNNY.'

Plot summary
Modest and unassuming theology student Paul Pennyfeather falls victim to the drunken antics of
the Bollinger Club and is subsequently expelled from Oxford for running through the grounds of
Scone College without his trousers. Having thereby defaulted on the conditions of his
inheritance, he is forced to take a job teaching at an obscure public school in Wales called
Llanabba, run by Dr Fagan. Attracted to the wealthy mother of one of his pupils, Pennyfeather
becomes private tutor to her boy, Peter, and then engaged to be married to herthe Honourable
Mrs Margot Beste-Chetwynde (who later becomes "Lady Metroland," and appears in Waugh's
other novels).[5] Pennyfeather, however, is unaware that the source of her income is a number of
high-class brothels in South America. Arrested on the morning of the wedding, after running an
errand for Margot related to her business, Pennyfeather takes the fall to protect his fiance's
honour and is sentenced to seven years in prison for traffic in prostitution. Margot marries
another man with government ties and he arranges for Paul to fake his own death and escape. In
the end he returns to where he started at Scone. He studies under his own name, having
convinced the college that he is the distant cousin of the Paul Pennyfeather who was sent down
previously. The novel ends as it started, with Paul sitting in his room listening to the distant
shouts of the Bollinger Club.
This is Waugh's first book, and one of his finest. This is an absurd story of a young man, expelled (or
"sent down") from Oxford for indecent behaviour, who obtains a job as a teacher at a less than
salubrious third-rate public school in Wales and is then entrapped in a series of bizarre events that
take him on a rollercoaster ride through upper-class circles. The central character, Paul
Pennyfeather, is a naive soul, full of gusto and enthusiasm, but lacking in common sense. The use of
the term "sent down from Oxford" to describe his "decline" is lightweight in comparison to his
subsequent "fall" (another type of being "sent down"); although I can't help feeling that in the world

of the Oxbridge undergraduate, the expulsion from Oxford is the true fall in his life.
I was a little disappointed by the latter half of the book, the rollercoaster speeds up, and it does feel
rushed and a little too contrived by the final chapters. But this is Waugh's first novel, so a minor
issue in the overall context of the amusing storylines and entertaining characters.
Plot: I was so pleasantly surprised at my enjoyment of this book. I had not expected to find it as good
or as easy to read as it ended up being. The plot follows the story of Paul Pennyweather who within
the first 2 pages is forced to leave oxford university through no fault of his own. This leads him to
starting a career in a boys school and ends up meeting a very important lady through this job. The
plot was funny to say the lease. I love a school novel and this was an interesting one. It also gave a
really clear idea on the life style of the 1920s. There was a very similar tone to the great Gatsby but
with less of a party lifestyle. The ending was brilliant I was so motivated to read those last few pages!
Characters: Paul was a misfortunate character, things just kept happening to him. Like most of the
characters in the book they had misfortune and the cards did not play out to them. Which felt lie to
me a comment on the society at the time. Paul always had a really good humour to him and I enjoyed
reading about him and his lack of complaining made me really idolize him.
Favourite aspects: I liked the 3rd section mostly, it was a brilliant section to read. The writing of it
was really descriptive and kept and easy tone to it. Making the whole novel a lot easier to read then I
had anticipated.
Themes: The main theme is the idea of society in the 1920s, I love this era. So to read about it and to
see how it effects different classes and views was really interesting.
Structure: The 3 part structure was really nice, it showed clearly the significance of the 3 events in his
life. The section where also more fun to read as you could see the shifts in class and how each time
the event ended it was a significant point.

This was Waugh's first novel and was received with great acclaim, even by my old favourite Arnold
Bennett. However I find it like eating whipped cream. It goes down easy, but doesn't fill me up.
Clearly I lack the required level of sensibility to appreciate Waugh. Which is to say an addiction to
the riotous upper classes. If you think there is nothing better than a snazzily dissolute aristocrat then
this is the satire for you.
It romps from Bullingdon Club style antics at Oxford via cut price private schools, white slavery,
prison and back again. The hero learns nothing, but is simply spun round full circle on Fortune's
wheel.
What is earnest is for Waugh laughable and comes in for punishment or abuse whether that be the
League of Nations or Prison reformers. But the rakish, so long as they are blue-blooded, will survive
and thrive.

Being of a tragically earnest disposition myself Waugh sharpens my appreciation for Madame
Guillotine as an agent for social improvement. But it would be a sad world if we all thought alike.
According to the introduction to the Penguin edition, referring to his own work Waugh said
I regard writing not as investigation of character but as an exercise in the use of language, and with
this I am obsessed. I have no technical psychological interest. It is drama, speech and events that
interest me.
Yet he is very precise in his depiction of English class conscious society. Witty, funny, and piercingly
critical, it portrays in Paul Pennyfeather the stereotypical, quintessential English gentleman who
sails effortless through life's up and downs (in this respect, the passing of Lord Tangent with no
consequences for those involved is also a gem).
The "cover story" is itself hilarious, with Paul's almost perfect composure providing a comedic
counterpoint to the innumerable catastrophes befalling him and those around him.
I can imagine how contemporaries must have loved and laughed at the myriad of clever references to
the contemporary political and cultural elites. At the same time, society is severely reprimanded:
from the justice system, to the press, to conventions and privilege, which I read all as different
manifestations of the same "ill", the English class system.
There are further reflections of what it all means - there are several references to suicide here and
there, but also to some form of renewal, as in the many lives of Grimes, Philbrick and Fagan, not to
mention Paul himself and Margot. And then there is Otto Silenus' simile between a Paris Luna Park
ride and people notion of life
People dont see that when they say life they mean two different things. They can mean simply
existence, with its physiological implications of growth and organic change. They cant escape that
even by death, but because thats inevitable they think the other idea of life is too the scrambling
and excitement and bumps and the effort to get to the middle. And when we do get to the middle, its
just as if we never started. Its so odd.
And is it different lives, or different identities? Paul's return to Scone as an unrecognised, new Mr
Pennyfeather and his last conversation with Peter seem to come down for the latter.
The writing is also beautiful throughout, carrying the reader effortlessly along, though at points
Waugh seems to want to remind somewhat more explicitly how good he is at this
Surely he had followed in the Bacchic train of distant Arcady, and played on the reeds of myth by
forgotten streams, and taught the childish satyrs the art of love? Had he not suffered unscathed the
fearful dooms of all the offended gods of all the histories fire, brimstone and yawning earthquakes,
plague and pestilence? Had he not stood, like the Pompeian sentry, while the Citadels of the Plain fell
to ruin about his ears? Had he not, like some grease-caked Channel-swimmer, breasted the waves of
the Deluge? Had he not moved unseen when darkness covered the waters?

Evelyn Waugh's first novel, Decline and Fall, is a delightful satiric comedy. It is based in part on
Waugh's undergraduate years at Hertford College, Oxford, and his experience as a teacher in Wales.
He is sent down from Oxford and as a result takes a position at the Llanabba school in Wales. The
school itself is dingy, depressing, and seems always on the verge of coming apart at the seams. The
masters, Captain Grimes, Mr. Prendergast, and Paul, are all unqualified for their positions, the
students are frightfully undisciplined, and little or no learning ever takes place within Llanabba
Castle's walls. In this episode and others I encountered the author's not so subtle satire and
characteristic black humor in lampooning various features of British schools and society in the
1920s.
The novel's title is a contraction of Edward Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the
Roman Empire. But it also alludes to the German philosopher Oswald Spengler's The Decline of the
West (19181922), which first appeared in an English translation in 1926 and which argued, among
other things, that the rise of nations and cultures is inevitably followed by their eclipse. Waugh read
both Gibbon and Spengler while writing his first novel.
I tremendously enjoyed the picaresque adventures of its hero, Paul Pennyfeather, as he encountered
barely believable difficulties in "getting along". Waugh's characterization is superb while his satire is
unambiguously hostile to much that was in vogue in the late 1920s, and themes of cultural change
and confusion, moral disintegration and social decay all drive the novel forward and fuel its humor.
This book was a joy to read even if you do not participate in all of Mr. Waugh's inside references. It is
a worthy introduction to the novels of one of the finest authors of our century. (less)

Decline And Fall is Waugh at his most piercing, polemical and disturbing. The cast of irredeemable
characters behaving outrageously and voicing opinions of such venom and prejudice makes for
unsettling - yet hilarious - reading. Unlike lesser haters, Waugh doesn't secretly love or admire them,
he hates them all. It's difficult to unpick the authorial voice from the ridiculous views of some of the
most preposterous protagonists, and this is the charm of the work - you won't read it and feel
uplifted, in fact you'll be lucky if you don't feel a bit sullied.
It's the outbursts that are the best, such as the vicar commenting that an interest in liturgical matters
in the laity is usually a sign of the onset of madness, or Dr Fagan's rant about the Welsh - "we can
trace almost all of the disasters of English history or the influence of Wales. Think of Edward of
Caernarvon, the first Prince of Wales, a perverse life...and an unseemly death, then the Tudors and
the dissolution of the Church, then Lloyd George, the temperance movement, Nonconformity and
lust stalking hand in hand through the country, wasting and ravaging." Can't argue really....
If you think of Waugh as Brideshead, repressed sexuality and country house psychosexual drama,
Decline And Fall will disabuse you. One of the most caustic, difficult and unloveable of authors he
fathered the decline in deference by portraying the upper classes as demented, sexually
dysfunctional, avaricious, stupid and morally bankrupt. It's probably best he's not around to see the
celebrity obsessed, Hello/Heat culture of the times, or George Osborne as chancellor.... (less)

I have been re-visiting books which I read in my youth. This is an interesting activity. I began reading
Tess of the D'Urbervilles in this vein, only to find that I had never read it in the first place. More

about that later. Reading 'Decline and Fall' which I probably read while I was at Oxford, and
generally a fan of Waugh's use of language I was preparing myself for a treat. I was ready to luxuriate
back into a bubble-bath of wit. I recalled the opening scenes of the Bollinger Club (so opportunely
recalled in that our new Prime Minister was a member of the Bullingdon Club whose practices are
most likely those satirised here). The Dons crouch at the window rubbing their hands in glee at the
fines to be collected from the youthful vandalism and Waugh emits the immortal descrpition ..'it is
the sound of English county families baying for broken glass'. However, what must have appeared
rippingly humorous in 1928 - when Mrs Beste-Chetwynde, the guest of honour, turns up with her
black boyfriend called 'Chokey' - is written in a form of cold racism mesmerisingly unfunny to today's
perceptions. Try reading this without your stomach turning:
'I think it's an insult bringing a nigger here,' said Mrs Clutterbuck. 'It's an insult to our own women.'
'Niggers are all right,' said Philbrick. 'Where I draw the line is a Chink, nasty inhuman things. I had a
pal bumped off by a Chink once. Throat cut horrible, it was, from ear to ear'.
Clearly Waugh ascribes the words to the character, who in the latter sentence is a duplicitous
confidence trickster posing as a butler, but the Chokey theme carried on long enough to cure me
completely of any nostalgia I might have had for this book.

I really enjoyed Decline and Fall. It was certainly not on the level of Sword of Honor or Brideshead
Revisited, but it was a delightful read.
I'd recently listened to the BBC adaptation that someone (Judy? Nigeyb?) recommended, so I had a
pretty good idea of the story, but the book was so much better. There were several times when I burst
out laughing at Waugh's humor. I especially loved the Arnold Bennett comment in the Resurrection
chapter.
What I didn't love were Waugh's racist remarks. I know such attitudes were widespread and socially
acceptable at the time, but I still find it shocking and disappointing that Waugh would participate.
And given that his homosexual affairs made him part of a forbidden and despised group himself, it
does seem to me that he should have had more sensitivity. I had to remind myself that he was also
scathing in his judgment of the upper classes, that he wasn't "just" singling out one group. I do
wonder what he was like in his personal relationships with others.....
As in Sword of Honor, Waugh's use of names was often hilarious. Grimes, Clutterbuck, Tangent,
Viscount Metroland, lady Circumference--funny and appropriate.
The little poems and Waugh's own illustrations added to my enjoyment of the book too.
And I loved Professor Silenus's explanation of life as being like the wheel at Luna Park. It was the
highlight of the book for me.
So glad to have read this! (less)

Evelyn Waugh's first novel, published in 1928 is a dark satire, with some spot on observations on
public school life (private schools in the UK), religion and modern life. The title takes a leaf out of
Gibbon's 'The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' and Oswald Spenglers 'Decline
of The West' and follows the rise in fortunes and then the decline of the hapless Paul Pennyfeather.
Paul is sent down for indecent behaviour due to the wild antics of others, but despite his inability to
teach he gets a job at a school and all kinds of mayhem unfolds. He comes across a mixture of
characters all cyphers for Waugh's critiques and observations of society. Pennyfeather falls for the
charms of the very wealthy 'Lady Metroland', Margot Beste-Chetwynde who makes her income from
illicit means.
Lady Metroland was loosely based on Lady Edwina Mounbatten who was rumoured to have had
affairs with the musician Leslie 'Hutch' Hutchinson and actor Paul Robeson. At one point, we meet
Margot's black lover Sebastian Cholmondeley or 'Chokey' as he is known. He gives a speech that is
reminiscent of Shylock's in Shakespeare's 'The Merchant of Venice'.
The book is very funny in parts and sends up a range of people, institutions and life generally.
Cultural and moral confusion happens faster than the average typing speed. Sadly, it is let down by
the casual racism and stereotyping of the black character Sebastian. I suspect that Waugh was poking
fun at the racists, however such comments made uncomfortable reading. A part from this, an
amusing novel.
(less)

I liked this title a little less than A Hand full of Dust. The absurdity of HFD was there, but this was
definitely a lighter treatment of interbellum bedlam. The most disturbing part of this book and other
Waugh books is how accurately he depicts bland characters who are anti-Romantic. By this I mean
characters who go along with whatever life gives them without sorrow or happiness and without
really fighting for anything. life passes by their dim perception and then they die.
At some point in this book the drunk 13-year-old Earl of someplace or other remarks that there are
two kinds of people in this world: dynamic and non-dynamic. Paul, the main character realizes that
he is not the dynamic type, but feels no regret for not being of the character and thinks nothing more
about it.
There is a brilliant section about King's Thursday, a renaissance estate torn down and replaced with
a minimalist cube of a house. Once again, absolutely no regret for destruction of a house that
required 20 servants to run, for a self-sufficient cube. It is an architectural treatise that begins to feel
like analogy and then devolves into nothing in particular. Which leaves me to wonder what the book
was about and also why I need to feel that it was about anything at all.

In a little foreword to this novel the author entreats us to bear in mind throughout that his book is
meant to be funny, and we have, though at times somewhat strenuously, to take him at his word.

And Mr. Waugh is funny, with that mingling of worldly wisdom and bunkum which is the ne
plus ultra of your masterly undergraduate.
He affects to tell the story of a varsity man who was sent down, but the story is, as it is intended
to be, so very silly that he has had merely to interest himself in its superficial presentation, and
he manages this so extremely well that one is occasionally reminded of P. G. Wodehouse, though
it must be added that Mr. Wodehouse has a far greater knowledge of human nature than appears
to reside at present in Mr. Waugh's consciousness. But anyway "Decline and Fall" is a great lark;
its author has an agreeable sense of comedy and characterisation, and the gift of writing smart
and telling conversation, while his drawings are quite in tune with the spirit of the tale.

Explanation of the title

I find it quite difficult to say what the connection is between the title and the story.
`Decline and Fall' implies that the main character during the story gets into trouble and
ends in the gutter, while Paul Pennyfeather, the main character of this book, gets indeed
in all kinds of trouble, but finally gets back to the right road again.

So to explain the title I guess I have to look a little bit further. Now I find Mrs. Margot
Beste-Chetwynde. When we first get to now her, she is a popular, rich woman from the
Upperclass, who enjoys a lot of respect in society. This changes during the story, her
popularity is declining, until she has to fit in, in the rest of society to save her good name
and her place in the Upperclass.
The tone in which Waugh describes the whole high society of Great Britain at the
beginning of the 20th century, is why I think this decline of status is maybe where Waugh
is pointing at with her title. The whole story makes the English Upperclass, or rather the
whole `class-thing' kind of laughable.
Overview
The story starts at Scone College, Oxford, on Bollinger evening. On this evening the (adult)
Upperclass members of the so called Bollinger Club have dinner together, drink a lot and
finally behave more and more outrageous. Paul Pennyfeather, a Middleclass student in
his third year Theology becomes a victim of this lot, with his suspension from the school
as result. His guardian is not willing to help Paul with the trouble he came into completely
innocent, and that is why he needs to go to find himself a job. He goes to a scholastic
agent and a mister Levy of this agent gets him a job at a school in Wales.


Although he has no experience whatsoever, Paul is accepted as the new junior assistant
on Llanabba Castle. His colleges captain Grimes and mister Prendergest make that he
feels at home quite soon and so he starts his life as a teacher.
One day the school organizes a sports day. There will be some of the most eminent
parents to watch the students during the games. Margot Beste-Chytwynde, a widow, is
one of them. Paul falls in love with her. When she asks him to join her and her son Peter
during the holidays to tutor Peter, Paul immediately agrees.
And so Paul gets to know Margot better and better. He knows she wants to get married
again and one day he has the courage to ask her. She is content and agrees, although she
wants to ask Peter for his opinion. When the boy reacts enthusiastically, she tells Paul she
will make her decision in the morning. Of course she decides to marry him - she liked him
from the start - and so Paul gets engaged with one of the richest women of High Society.
Margot leads a business in South-America. At first it is kind of vague what kind of business
it is, but it turns out that it has to do something with slave trade. Three days for the
wedding there are some problems in Marseilles with a couple of girls Margot send to
South-America as entertainment girls. Because Margot is very busy with the wedding she
sends Paul to solve (whatever that is) the problem. All goes well and on the morning of his
wedding Paul returns in London. But when he, his best man and Peter have a drink just
before they go to the church, an inspector of Scotland Yard comes in and arrests Paul for
mingling in Margot's dark business. And so Paul ends up in jail; he is committed to seven
years' penal servitude for traffic in prostitution.
In the period he is in jail, Paul meets Prendergest, Philbrick - the butler of Llanabba Castle
- and Grimes again. Prendergest is murdered after a while by a physically ill prisoner,
Grimes escapes from the prison no one ever escaped. Paul himself is rescued by
Maltravers, the man Margot married in the meanwhile. Because he would save her
reputation and it would give Paul a change to get out of prison; he is the Home Secretary
and can get things like that done. They fake a needed removal of Paul's appendix, so Paul
can die (only on paper, of course) during the operation. After that he spends a while at
the villa of Margot at Corfu and when some time has passed he gets back to Oxford,
where he starts with the theology study again. So at the end, things turned out quite all
right for Paul Pennyfeather.
Characters
The main character of this novel is Paul Pennyfeather, a young man somewhere in his
twenties who at first seems to have a talent for bad fortune. He is a quiet, kind man, who
wants to act the right way and always thinks twice before acting. He is honest and
intelligent.

An example of his good character is his dilemma about answering the question about his
leaving university:
'I understand, too, that you left your University rather suddenly. Now - why was that?'
This was the question that Paul had been dreading, and, true to his training, he resolved
upon honesty. `I was send down, sir, for indecent behaviour'.
Another example is his doubt after the guy who is responsible for Paul's suspension,
offers him money for sort of damages:
`If I Take that money', he said to himself, `I shall never know whether I have acted rightly or
not. It would always be on my mind. If I refuse, I shall be sure of having done right. I shall look
upon my self-denial with exquisite self-approval. By refusing I can convince myself that, in spite
of the unbelievable things that have been happening to me during the last ten days, I am still
the same Paul Pennyfeather I have respected so long. It is a test-case of the durability of my
ideals.
Other characters who are more or less important to the story are Doctor Fagin, Captain
Grimes, Mister Prendergest, Mister Philbrick and Margot Beste-Chytwynde. There are
more characters, but I don't find them important enough to the main theme of the story
to explicate here.
Doctor Fagin is the principal of Llanabba Castle and a little bit weird. There is not really
much to tell about him. He is very Upperclass-minded and for this reason he dislikes
Captain Grimes in a way and he loves the boys who come from the `better families'. Still,
he seems to me a friendly man, who, like Paul, wants to do the right thing. He doesn't
care about diploma's et cetera, he just want the teachers in his school to have `vision':
`I understand you have no previous experience?'
`No, sir, I am afraid not.'
`Well, of course, that is in many ways an advantage. One too easily acquires the professional
tone and loses vision. But of course we must be practical. I am offering a salary of one
hundred and twenty pounds, but only to a man with experience. I have a letter here from a
young man who holds a diploma in forestry. He want an extra ten pounds a year on the
strength of it, but it is vision I need, mister Pennyfeather, not diplomas.'

Captain Grimes is also a weird kind of man. He always `gets in the soup', but always he
finds a way or a helping hand to get out of it again. He can be quite cynical, but is always
in for a laugh and a drink with his friends. He and Paul become soon after Paul's arrival
good friends. Grimes is engaged with one of the two daughters of Doctor Fagin and after
his marriage he becomes depressive by the way Fagin is treating him [Note the fact that

Fagin prefers the Upperclass, of which Grimes is no part]. He simulates a suicides, but
some weeks later he turns out to be still alive, asking Margot for a job in South-America.
He ends up in jail a while later, but finds a way to escape. After that he disappears.
Mister Prendergest is clergyman who got doubts and is really depressed about that. He
left the church and now teaches at Llanabba Castle, but isn't able to handle the boys.
They make fun of him because of his wig and his way of acting. Not long after Paul left
with Margot he finds out that there exists something called `the modern churchman', this
offers him the change to work for the church without feeling guilty about his former
doubts. That is how he became chaplain in the same prison Paul was locked up after his
trial. But as a chaplain he neither can manage, he seems quite unhappy to me. Then one
day he is murdered by one of the prisoners.
Mister Philbrick is the butler of Llanabba Castle and it is quite difficult to tell the right
story about this man, because he tells everybody an other story about his live. He is not
very trustworthy. Still though, I find him kind of sympathetic. He, too, ends up in jail where
he gets himself the best job there is, reception cleaner, and he manages quite well.

Morgot Beste-Chytwynde is at first the most distinguished woman of Upperclass

England. She is very modern in her ideas and she is a well seen woman in High Society.
And she acts like it, rules are not made for her, she lives conform her own ways. But
after Paul is imprisoned and she turns out to be a slave trader, her good name is in
danger and she has to choose a saver road by marrying Maltravers, the Home Secretary.
She really loved Paul, though and after her marriage she uses it to help Paul out of
prison, this, to me, shows her affection to the younger man she should have married
when things had turned out like they had to.
Time
The story plays in the twenties of the 20th century. Between Paul's suspension and his
return to Scone College about a year passes.
Structure
The story is told chronological. There is a great continuity, without flashbacks or great
gaps in the time passing. The end is closed, of course there is a lot that still can be told,
like what happened to Captain Grimes, but the story of Paul Pennyfeather has an
obvious end in his return to Scone College.
Location/Situation

The first part of the story is situated in a Upperclass-minded environment (Llanabba

Castle), where the difference between the social classes in the English society becomes
clear. After Paul's departure to Margot's manor it is chiefly the High Society that is in
sight, after Paul's imprisonment we get to see life in prison.
Although we get to see chiefly the Upperclass, the difference between the social classes
is a main theme in this book.
Geographically the story is situated partly in Wales and partly in and around London.
Theme and Genre
The theme of this book is, I guess, the ephemerality of the Upperclass, even a woman
like Margot isn't able to preserve her good reputation. With this novel Waugh gives a
comical account of an innocent plunged into the sham, brittle world of high society.
The genre is in my opinion a comical novel, in my opinion it has no deeper message,
although the author maybe likes to point out the laughable character of a class society.
Language
The Language Evelyn Waugh uses isn't very difficult. This book is easy to read, although
sometimes it is hard to really `get into the story'. Still, `Decline and fall' is really not
hard to read, it's a fun, easy written book.
Perspective
The story is told by an omniscient narrator.
Place in the history of literature
I guess Waugh fits in with the modernism that is growing as a literary trend in the
twenties of the 20th century, although he mixes it in my opinion with some surrealism,
he makes the reality `bigger' to create a funnier picture of the English society of his
time.
Some aspects of the story make it realistic for the time it is placed in (For example the
`League of Nations Union', which is spoken about several times) and also the critical

tone of the story at the address of class society makes it in my opinion suitable for the
twenties.
The intention of the writer
I guess, like I said before, that this novel has no deeper message, although the author
maybe likes to point out the laughable character of a class society. In my opinion it
seems to be written to amuse the public and maybe a little to provoke the patrons of
social classes, and especially the Upperclass.

Decline and Fall Evelyn Waugh

Part 1

This is the one in which Paul Pennyfeather gets de-bagged by the toffs in his
Oxford college and is sent down so far down, in fact, that he ends up in a
two-bit school in the middle of nowhere teaching stuff he knows nothing
about. Its farce, not tragedy, so instead of rage against the obscene
injustice it becomes part of Waughs running joke about the crassness of the
aristocracy and the toadying that goes on all around them. Everybody who
is given any power or authority is too lazy and self-serving to do anything
with it. If theres a moral core in the novel Ill come back to that its
focused on Waughs mockery of the way nobody seems to give a shit.
Plot? Not a lot, more a series of preposterous episodes. Obviously the

school, somewhere near Llandudno so Waugh can make jokes about the
appalling Welsh, is a waste of space. It must have plenty of teachers but we
only ever meet two others: Grimes, lurching from job to job as he constantly
gets himself in the soup, only saved by a kind of idiot optimism and his old
Harrovian status; and Prendergast, former vicar rendered useless by
Doubts. Theyre both comic turns Grimes with his juvenile determination
to have a good time, Prendergast with his wig and the impression he gives
that he really was born yesterday. Theres the head, only keeping the place
going because his daughters are a lot more competent than he is, and the
butler, another comic turn.
What happens? Not a lot in the education line: after one lesson Waugh gets
bored with that and focuses on the ridiculous stuff. Theres the boys routine
over-familiarity with all the staff. Theres the heads gloom, occasionally

enlivened by a crackpot idea for raising the schools profile. And theres
Philbrick, the butler with a past which he describes to Paul in all its
Dickensian splendour. Hes my favourite, bold and in your face enough to
make anybody believe anything. It turns out hes told completely different
stories to the others and when the police do eventually track him down
its to arrest him for doing what weve seen: pretending hes someone he
isnt and living off it. And when the cops arrive hes already left.
The biggest set piece is the sports day. Its a farce, obviously, but lady

Circumference the appalling snob and Margot Beste-Chetwynde the society

fashion-plate dont notice. Prendergast gets drunk at the mere whiff of
alcohol at the local and shoots Lady Circs son in the foot with the (loaded)
starting-pistol. And Mrs B-Cs escort is a Black American who gives Waugh
all the opportunities he needs to send up Black Americans. How we
laughed.
Anyway, Paul is making his way and actually seems to be gaining something

from the experience which is a lot more entertaining than his thin
existence at Oxford. This isnt the sort of novel to have the young,
inexperienced teacher tortured by the boys: he, and they, come up with a
satisfactory modus vivendi almost from the start. He even seems to have
discovered lurve although he doesnt recognise it even when he trips over
it: Grimes has to spell it out for him in an absurd Q&A session. But
Grimes doesnt do so well and, to extricate himself from the soup again, he
marries one of the heads daughters. Disaster. The last trace we see of him is
a pile of clothes on the beach and an apparent suicide note in which he
seems to accept that retribution has finally caught up with him.
So, Jimmy Carr-style black comedy or moral treatise? Neither, obviously,

but you can see why I ask. Waugh is a cruel author, not suffering fools
gladly and everybodys a fool. Or ridiculous, to a greater or lesser extent.
Or self-serving, juvenile. But is he using the antics of these clowns to say
something about life and how it should be lived? Doesnt he, somewhere,
care about Paul and the lessons hes having to learn, or Prendergast and the
terrible region of hell hes living in now hes lost sight of God? And what
about Grimes, who finally seems to have run out of road?
Ask me later.
14 November
Part 2

We know (dont we?) that none of this is to be taken seriously and this
section confirms were not in any kind of world wed recognise as real.
Waughs had enough of satirising the public school system and moves us to
Margot Beste-Chetwyndes stately pile. Except its not a stately pile any
more: she had it knocked down and replaced with a Modernist statement. If
anything, Paul is even more of an innocent abroad: Margot has invited him
to be her sons tutor for the Easter holidays, and within about a week shes
got him to propose, and shes had him give a demonstration of his
credentials in the bed department. Everythings fine, since you ask: in this
world it seems a woman with nearly two decades of sexual experience can
be satisfied by a cloistered virgin like Paul.
Waugh lets us believe it: throughout these chapters things simply happen to

Paul all of them at Margots instigation and, like him, were a bit
bemused by the way stuff happens. Margot feels like demolishing her
house, a uniquely untouched Tudor national treasure? Fine. She wants to
replace it with a satire on Modernism designed by an autistic egomaniac?
No problem. So when Paul becomes her next fad, now that shes bored with
the Black American, were as happy to accept it as he is.
Throughout this section, as things become darker and darker, Waugh

resolutely describes them in terms that make sense to the innocent Paul.
The white slaves Margot is exporting weve guessed by now, even if Paul
hasnt get stuck at Marseilles. She sends Paul to sort it out with a bit of
bribery and corruption and, because were ahead of him in understanding
whats really going on, were not as surprised as he is when hes arrested
shortly after his arrival back in England, on the morning before his
wedding.
He should have been warned by the way Margots rich-woman vagueness
disappears when she interviews the girls for the venues that make her
money in South America. But why would he? Like Prendy, he seems to have
been born yesterday when it comes to understanding the ways of the world
but unlike Prendy, he never asks himself difficult questions. He blithely
lets it all happen and, just as the wheel is about to give a great lurch
downwards, he drinks to Fortune, a much-maligned lady. Silly boy: he
doesnt realise hes in a novel by an author who only pretends not to care.
As for Margot. I dont think she planned to have Paul so comprehensively
shafted the lavish wedding preparations are real enough, after all but,

well, shes one of the Fitzgerald rich: she leaves a trail of destruction behind
her as she does one thing after another on a whim. Suddenly the
destruction of the house makes complete sense: thats what the super-rich
are like.
One other thing. In the two-page chapter Interlude in Belgravia Waugh

whips off his authorial mask for a couple of minutes and talks to us about
Paul man-to-man. Yes, he knows that Paul is just a shadow that has flitted
about this narrative but for an evening he lets him be the real person we all
think we are, materialized into the solid figure of an intelligent middle
class man. Of course, the mask is back up again almost immediately: this
chapter comes before all the preposterous action at the series of intersecting
volumes masquerading as Margots house, and were back with the shadow.
But as I said a minute ago, Waugh is only pretending not to care.
17 November

Part 3 to the end

Waugh gives us another venue: prison. As ever, Paul takes it utterly in his
stride. Waugh puts him through the absurdities of both the strict regime of
Standard Regulations as when hes bopped on the head with his own
shoes when saying sorry, because he was speaking out of turn and of the
equal and opposite absurdities of the new governors liberal policies. This is
typical Waugh: as soon as we think we know where he stands against the
pointless rigours of bread and water he satirises the new regime and the
governor, with his degree in sociology, from a university in (spit) the
midlands.
As I mentioned, Paul is fine with it. He loves solitary confinement and asks
for another four weeks of it after the statutory four he gets when he arrives.
But thats not allowed, and the new gov forces unwanted company on him
culminating with a murderous psychopath. Their forced strolls around the
prison yard are pure absurdist farce, as the guard responds to any silences
with barked orders to talk. And so on. The psychos finest moment comes
when the gov allows him carpenters tools to bring out his creativity: he cuts
off the padres head the padre being poor old Prendergast, who has
discovered that atheism is no barrier to a career in the modern church. It
seems arbitrary until you remember that he did shoot a boy in the foot,
which over many chapters has gone through the stages of gangrene,
amputation and, eventually, death. So it goes.

Waugh isnt going to make Paul suffer much, obviously, and he sets up a

typically absurd escape plan for him. (Its not the same as Grimess escape
plan. Hes turned up in a thinly-disguised Dartmoor, where Paul gets
moved to, and Waugh lets the guards tie themselves in knots in the fog as
he leaps on one of their horses.) Margot hasnt forgotten him, and he soon
stops being surprised by arrivals of caviar and high-class novels. But well,
shes been seeing rather a lot of the very toff who de-bagged Paul all those
months before and shes had a proposal from the other idiot who looks set
to become the new Home Secretary. If she marries him hell probably find a
way to get Paul out. It all works like clockwork as Waugh shows how none
of the normal rules apply in Toff-land. Lucky old them and lucky old Paul.
The wheel and theres a neat reference to a fairground wheel that sends

everybody spinning off unless theyre canny enough to be at the centre

has come full circle. Its easy for Waugh to get Paul back at university, back
doing what he wants: despite his apparent lack of any workable moral code
(he wonders about Margots guilt and, well, simply accepts that she couldnt
possibly be sent to jail) hes studying to become a priest. Hes all right but
in the last chapter we meet someone who isnt. I havent mentioned
Margots son Peter, the one Paul was pretending to teach. Hes always been
the most grown-up character in the novel, dispensing advice and cocktails
whenever necessary. But by the time hes old enough to go to Oxford
himself hes an alcoholic wreck, a member of the same mindless set that did
all the damage in the first chapter. Another wheel has come full circle and
and what? Has Paul learnt a lesson? Has Peter? Margot? Have we? Or, in
the spinning Waugh universe, are we wasting our time if we look for
anything so bourgeois as meaning?

In Decline and Fall (1928) comic nonsense and fantasy bring to light the insanity which prevails
in post-war society. The plot is presented with a maximum of economy and a studied will to
shock. The hero, a product of the public-school and academic systems, is an innocent marked as
a victim of the corrupt world into which he is unwillingly thrust. Paul Penny feather lets things
happen to him; he would never have made a hero, the only interest about him arises from the
unusual series of events of which his shadow was witness. (p. 123) Returning from a meeting of
the League of Nations Union, he is debagged by members of the Bollinger Club, who are
having their annual dinner and greatly enjoy being riotous and destructive, and as a consequence

he is sent down for indecent behaviour. He becomes a schoolmaster at Llanabba Castle, where
Dr. Fagan, a cynical but not too exacting headmaster, assures him that he has been in the
scholastic profession long enough to know that nobody enters it unless he has some very good
reason which he is anxious to conceal.3 Paul falls in love with Margot Best-Chetwynde, the
mother of one of his pupils, a millionairess who runs a chain of brothels euphemistically called
The Latin-American Entertainment Co. Ltd. She introduces him into Mayfair society and
involves him in the white-slave trade without his knowledge. He is arrested on the morning of
their marriage and sentenced to seven years imprisonment. He spends a few months in prison
and is rescued by Margot, who arranges to have him sent to a nursing home headed by Dr. Fagan,
M.D. After a mock-operation he is alleged to be dead and allowed to disappear from the social
scene. He returns to Oxford and resumes his studies in theology.
3Pauls incursions into various spheres of English society are so many encounters with the
irresponsibility, amoralism, corruption or sheer madness discernible in many aspects of English
life. Whether at Oxford, in an employment agency in London, in a public school in Wales, in a
country house, a prison, or a nursing home, people act with the same carelessness and
unawareness of the real implications of their actions. Pauls experience with the Bollingers is
only a rehearsal for his experience in the world: he is ill-treated under the eyes of the Junior
Dean, who does not intervene because Paul is not important enough. Actually, the representatives
of authority implicitly encourage the destructiveness of the Bollingers because of the highly
prized port that is only brought up from the cellars when the college fines reach fifty pounds.
Similarly, Paul is unjustly condemned and sent to prison, while Margot Metroland escapes
punishment. Pauls innocence and naivete contrast with, and emphasize, the outrageous
behaviour of the other characters. On the other hand, his passivity and lack of insight into human
character not only reveal the inadequacy of his education but also his incapacity to discriminate
between good and evil. In a way, Waugh is more contemptuous of the people who, like Paul,
stick to the rules without understanding them than of the rogues who deliberately defy society or
disturb its order and get away with it.
4Though none of Waughs early characters is capable of a responsible, mature, or simply
humane, attitude, some appear to have in his eyes a kind of saving grace which is not unrelated
to the superb aplomb with which they take their pleasure in complete defiance of all moral
judgment. Margot Metroland belongs to this category: beautiful, attractive, and rich, she makes
the most of what life has to offer without troubling in the least about right or wrong. Very
skilfully, Waugh provokes at once indignation and tolerance for the people of her kind. Yet she is
an impostor like Grimes, Philbrick and Dr. Fagan. These characters success in life is
proportionate to their impudence; no representative of traditional institutions, whether in justice,
education, or religion, performs his task with integrity and a sense of responsibility. Grimes, an
unscrupulous rogue, is always in the soup; yet he is never let down because he is an expublic-school man. Philbrick is a swindler and a criminal who ends up as opulent as he has
always pretended to be. Fagan, a cynical impostor on a grand scale, will do anything provided it

is remunerative. He is twice an agent in Pauls change of personality, once when Paul becomes a
schoolmaster at Llanabba Castle and a second time when he presides over Pauls mock-death.
For both he and Paul this event is the beginning of a new phase in life, i.e., of another round of
swindling for the one, of another period of dull and unrealistic initiation into life for the other.
5After his departure from Oxford Paul meets the same characters playing the same parts in
different spheres of society: Llanabba Castle, Mayfair, Egdon Prison. Wherever he goes,
inefficiency, madness and dishonesty prevail. Prendergast, the unhappy and unauthoritative
schoolmaster, who left the Church because he had doubts, is seen at Egdon as the prison
chaplain. His doubts are a source of disorder even in prison, where his incapacity to impose
discipline lands him into trouble with prisoners as it did with pupils. By a cruel irony, his head is
sawn off by a visionary maniac, a man who has appointed himself the sword of Israel: the lion
of the Lords Elect. Philbrick imparts the news to Paul in chapel:
O God, our help in ages past, sang Paul.
Wheres Prendergast to-day?
What, aint you eard? es been done in.
And our eternal home.
Damned lucky it was Prendergast,
Might ave been you or me!
The warder says and I agree
It serves the Governor right.
Amen (pp. 183-4)
6The gruesome humour of the song leaves no doubt as to the way in which this piece of savagery
should be interpreted. Prendergasts weakness marks him as a victim. He had left the Church
then gone back to it after discovering that there is a species of person called Modern
Churchman who draws the full salary of a beneficed clergyman and need not commit himself to
any religious belief. (p. 141) Sir Lucas-Dockery, the governor of the prison, is a caricature of
the modern reformist who applies literally and without understanding them the new methods of
psycho-analysis. He is more concerned with the success of his method than with the welfare of
the prisoners under his care and will blindly go to any length to prove his optimistic conviction
that almost any crime is due to the repressed desire for aesthetic expression. (p. 177) He gives
carpenter tools to the mystic criminal who kills Prendergast. The episode is turned into an
inhuman farce which derides the lunacy, not of the inmates, but of those who are chosen to
ensure the working of institutions. Clearly, it is a mad world which trusts a Fagan to educate its
children, a Lucas-Dockery to see to it that criminals are fit to return to society, and a Prendergast
to officiate as a representative of the Church. Yet each episode is treated with apparent levity and
a non-committal fake-seriousness which demystify society as well as the people who take
themselves seriously or distort the ideals they pretend to be serving. Society is a sham, which
Waugh exposes with insolent gusto, bringing to light the disorder created by well-meaning

incompetent fools. Scoundrels are not more harmful because they at least know what they are up
to.
7The heartless and barbarous world of Decline and Fall is pictured with a disconcerting but
calculated detachment which makes it all the more shocking. For instance, little Lord Tangents
death is imparted without comment in four sentences:
Tangent was sitting on the grass crying because he had been wounded in the foot by Mr.
Prendergasts bullet, (p. 71)
Tangents foot has swollen up and turned black, said Best-Chetwynde with relish, (p. 94)
Everybody was there except little Lord Tangent, whose foot was being amputated at a local
nursing-home. (p. 105)
Its maddenin Tangent having died just at this time, [Lady Circumference] said. People may
think that thats my reason for refusin. (p. 149)
8These statements are a merciless comment on the negligence, the foolishness and the lack of
compassion of those involved. Tangents death and Prendergasts unheroic martyrdom are
extreme consequences of a general unconcern. The Junior Dean who witnesses Pauls
debagging does not protest when he is sent down. Neither Margot nor Peter can be bothered
about Pauls unjust condemnation. Potts, Pauls best friend, is the main witness for the
prosecution at his trial and is even commended by the court for his unshakeable attitude. Paul
takes this general callousness for granted. Apart from his youthful infatuation for Margot, he
himself seems hardly capable of genuine feeling. He is not unattractive as a character because he
is a victim who never retaliates, a convenient scapegoat. In the end he accepts Silenus definition
of life as a game for a few privileged people:
You pay five francs and go into a room with tiers of seats all round, and in the centre the floor is
made of a great disc of polished wood that revolves quickly. At first you sit down and watch the
others. They are all trying to sit in the wheel, and they keep getting flung off, and that makes
them laugh, and you laugh too. Its great fun. But the whole point about the wheel is that you
neednt get on it at all, if you dont want to. People get hold of ideas about life, and that makes
them think theyve got to join in the game, even if they dont enjoy it. It doesnt suit everyone.
Now youre a person who was clearly meant to stay in the seats and sit still and if you get bored
watch the others. Somehow you got on to the wheel, and you got thrown off again at once with a
hard bump. Its all right for Margot, who can cling on, and for me, at the centre, but youre static.
Instead of this absurd division into sexes they ought to class people as static and dynamic.
Theres a real distinction there, though I cant tell you how it comes. I think were probably two
quite different species spiritually. (pp. 208-9)
9Paul is also static in a different sense, for his experience in the world leaves him almost
unchanged. He acquires a sense of humour, which is perhaps an indication that he understands a

little better what goes on around him, but he behaves much as he did during his first stay at
Oxford. He joins again the League of Nations Union and acquires a new friend called Stubbs,
with whom he develops the same kind of relationship as with Potts. The only lesson Paul has
learned as a future clergyman is to avoid Prendergasts mistake. Order in the Church must be
preserved at all costs, which suggests that social order should also be enforced if necessary:
There was a Bishop of Bithynia, Paul learned, who had denied the divinity of Christ, the
immortality of the soul, the existence of good, the legality of marriage, and the validity of the
Sacrament of Extreme Unction. How right they had been to condemn him! (p. 212)
10Paul even condones intolerance for the sake of the established order:
So the ascetic Ebionites used to turn towards Jerusalem when they prayed. Paul made a note of
it. Quite right to suppress them. (p. 216)
11Pauls failure to achieve maturity is typical of Waughs pre-war heroes and no doubt implies
that maturity and real understanding of traditional institutions are non-existent in contemporary
society. The academic world is not more reliable than fashionable London. Lady
Circumferences moral code is a mere set of conventions and prejudices: though a representative
of the landed aristocracy, she is not more aware of the values traditionally connected with her
class than the newly-made peer Maltravers, who was born in a slum. Left to themselves the
young drift into debauchery. Society is only a gathering of unattached individuals easily
adaptable to any situation because nothing really matters. The reckless and shameless pursuit of
excitement has become the only recognizable law, but it doesnt lead to happiness; apart from
Philbrick and Fagan all the characters are disenchanted, even Grimes, the life force. Margot
regains respectability by marrying Maltravers, and takes Alastair Trumpington as a lover to shake
off the boredom of her new married life. Her son, Peter, Waughs first Bright Young Thing, is
disappointed in Paul and in his mother, who shows him the way to irresponsibility.
12In scene after scene madness, greed, irresponsibility and selfishness are displayed as normal
behaviour in Church, in prison, at school, or among London fashionables. There is no room for
reason or humaneness in this savage world. The opening scene at Scone is fairly typical of what
happens in Waughs novels: the social lite destroy the symbols of culture and civilization,
breaking a grand piano, smashing China, throwing a Matisse in a water-jug or destroying the
manuscript of a poem. The novel ends, as it began, on the evening of the Bollingers annual
dinner; they play their game of destruction with the same gusto as their predecessors. Yet,
obviously, Waugh feels more sympathy for them than for the social outsiders who occasionally
cross their path and whom he slightly despises for their tediousness, their lack of style and of
charm. He combines satire of an unprincipled social lite with a hardly concealed admiration for
them, which adds to the ambiguity created in his early novels by the absence of implicit
standards.