The Circular World of Non-Development:Evelyn Waugh’s Rendering of Bildungsroman in Decline and Fall

摘要

Evelyn Waugh’s first published novel Decline and Fall presents a satire on theinterwar British society by producing an atmosphere of futility and the absence of valuethen overhanging society. This effect results not only from satirical descriptions ofsocial phenomena but also from a subversive treatment of the narrative form ofBildungsroman novels. Waugh’s novel makes a parody of Bildungsroman novels inboth structural and thematic ways. The novel denies the progressive linearity of thatnarrative form by giving itself the structure of meaningless circularity. The mockingtreatment of other elements of Bildungsroman, especially of gentlemanship and publicschool, also produces the same satirical effect. Through performing a parody ofBildungsroman novels, Decline and Fall asserts that the narrative form which wasdominant in the Victorian era was no longer acceptable after the First World War.