Lord Sebastian Flyte

Lord Sebastian Flyte is a fictional character from the Evelyn Waugh novel Brideshead Revisited.

Character

Sebastian is the younger son and second eldest child of the Marquess of Marchmain and a member of the aristocratic Flyte family, which is portrayed as symbolic of the decline of the English nobility in the 1920s and 1930s.

Lord Sebastian Flyte's first appearance in the novel is dated June 1923, when he takes his friend Charles Ryder on a picnic to visit his family home, Brideshead, and his childhood nanny. The novel then returns to their first meeting in March 1923. Charles is an undergraduate at an unnamed college of the University of Oxford, often thought to be Hertford college. Sebastian, a student at Christ Church, Oxford, vomits through a window of Charles's ground-floor rooms. The next day, he sends flowers to apologise and invites Charles to lunch with him. The two young men become close friends, and Sebastian introduces Charles to his hedonistic college friends. Despite Sebastian's initial reluctance, Charles eventually meets the rest of the family; his self-exiled father, Lord Marchmain (a former Anglican who converted to Roman Catholicism for his marriage), his mother, Lady Marchmain, his two sisters, Lady Julia and Lady Cordelia, and elder brother, "Bridey," the Earl of Brideshead.

Despite efforts by Sebastian's manipulative mother to contain his alcoholism, he soon drifts away from his family and descends into a dissolute and drunken life abroad. When it becomes apparent that Lady Marchmain is extremely ill, Charles is contacted once again by the Flyte family and asked to find his old friend and bring him home. Charles discovers Sebastian in Fez, Morocco, though he is now an irrecoverable alcoholic, and Charles is forced to return to England alone.

Cara, Lord Marchmain's mistress, specifically describes the nature of Charles and Sebastian's relationship. In Chapter 4 of the novel she comments on "...these romantic friendships of the English and the Germans [in late adolescence] ... It is better to have that kind of love for another boy than a girl."

It is strongly suggested in the 1981 television series and openly presented in the 2008 film that Sebastian is homosexual. The actual nature of his relationship with Charles is debated. Many people state or observe that Charles and Sebastian love each other but the men themselves say very little about their relationship to others, and nothing to each other - though it could be argued there is no need to say anything.

It is implied that Charles' interest in Julia is drawn from his interest in Sebastian (or vice versa). In a conversation with Julia, Charles states that he married because of "missing Sebastian" and frequently describes Julia as looking like Sebastian. When she enquires about his love for Sebastian, he says, "Oh, yes. He was the forerunner." This prompts Julia to wonder whether she might be "just another forerunner" in Charles' search for love.

Although Sebastian's final fate is not portrayed in Brideshead Revisited, a conversation between Cordelia (Sebastian's younger sister) and Charles informs the reader that Sebastian frequently attempted to become a monk (typically while drunk), and will probably end up dying of alcoholism one night, in front of the monastery.

Sebastian's influence on Charles seems to be considerable - in fact, Charles' original flashback is to an earlier conversation with Sebastian, and Et In Arcadia Ego (the first part of Brideshead Revisted) consists almost entirely of his relationship with Sebastian. In the later parts of the book, especially as Charles becomes more interested in Julia, Sebastian's influence lessens; however, he is still mentioned in the latter part of the book.

Sebastian, religiously, describes himself as a "half-heathen", although he does identify himself as Catholic to Charles, who frequently asks him why he is Catholic. He states he believes in Catholism because it's "a lovely idea," revealing more of Sebastian's childlike and aesthetic tendencies.

Inspiration for character

It has been suggested that Waugh based the character of Lord Sebastian Flyte on Hugh Patrick Lygon and Alastair Graham, two of Waugh's close friends from his own Oxford days. Sebastian's relationship with his teddy bear Aloysius is modeled on John Betjeman, a contemporary of Waugh's and future Poet Laureate, who famously brought his teddy bear, Archibald Ormsby-Gore, to Oxford with him.

Film portrayals

• Anthony Andrews portrayed Flyte in the 1981 Granada Television production of Brideshead Revisited.
• Ben Whishaw portrayed the character in the 2008 film version of Brideshead Revisited.