Cordelia Flyte: Why She Is Actually Quite Important

(Original image not mine.)

I watched the 2008 Brideshead Revisited movie with a couple of friends right before I left Newman for the summer. (Or rather, I watched it with one friend, and then another friend wandered in towards the end and was thoroughly confused for a solid half hour. XD) 

The friend that I watched the whole thing with has read the book, so we were doing a bit of a compare and contrast after we finished (over pizza--would highly recommend), and I believe it was him who said that the movie didn't do Sebastian justice. I agreed, and then added that I didn't think Cordelia was done justice to, either.

He replied that he didn't think that Cordelia was that important in the book--mostly just comic relief. After a moment of shock, during which I was at a loss for words, I immediately began groping for reasons to articulate and explain what I implicitly felt--that Cordelia is much more than just comic relief, and is actually integral to the book. (I was thinking about Megan's post where she talks about Cordelia, among other characters, but I couldn't remember exactly what she had said.)

The reason that came to my grasp most readily was that Cordelia is a foil for Lady Marchmain. They're both devout Catholics throughout the whole book; but Cordelia is a devout Catholic without making the people around her miserable. She shows that it's possible. 

I think that there are definitely many other reasons why Cordelia is integral to the book, but the main reason that I want to explore in this post is Cordelia as a foil and a counter-example specifically for Lady Marchmain, but also for other characters in the book. 

(I will say, as an apology before I plunge in, that I wish I could have reread Brideshead before writing this post, to have it all a bit more fresh in my brain, but having read it earlier this year and having watched the movie, deficient as it may be in Cordelia-ness, will Just Have To Do.)

One note: there will probably be minor spoilers for Brideshead in this post. You've been warned.

The first thing that comes to mind when I'm thinking about Cordelia and Lady Marchmain is the Chesterton quote "it is easy to be heavy; hard to be light". Lady Marchmain is heavy; Cordelia is light. And that leads me to think about Chesterton's quote about angels: "angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly", and about the devil: "Satan fell by force of gravity."

To sum it up, as the great GK says, "Solemnity flows out of men naturally; but laughter is a leap."
Lady Marchmain has never lost her natural solemnity, and in fact, seeks to cultivate it, as befitting a lady, and a Catholic. In her opinion, at least. But for Cordelia, laughter is a natural part of life, a leap which she takes on a daily basis. That doesn't mean that she can't be serious when she needs to be. But she doesn't take serious things too seriously--something Chesterton would approve of. Rather, she does what needs to be done, and sees the humor in it, when there is humor. One thinks that Lady Marchmain would disapprove of Cordelia's "six black Cordelias", and most assuredly would never say a novena for a pig. But Cordelia is supporting the missions, and maybe the pig needed the novena. Cordelia knows these things are serious--else she would never have said a novena for a pig. If it wasn't important and meaningful, why would she do it?--but she doesn't think that they are solemn. One can almost see the twinkle in the corner of her eye while she purposely scandalizes Charles about her "six black Cordelias". 

Back to Lady Marchmain's heaviness, vs. Cordelia's lightness. Lady Marchmain seems to think that it's part of her duty as mother to ensure that her children never sin. To control them into virtue. This desire for control of them is one of the things at the root of Sebastian's descent into alcoholism. Lady Marchmain can't be "light"--she must "heavy"handedly control Sebastian's circumstances, rather than allow him to make his own decisions and grow his own virtue. She sits heavily on all of her childrens' shoulders, and they feel it, and they flee. Her husband flees. Her children flee. And that makes her sad, but she doesn't know how to do anything else. She doesn't know how to love them without wanting them to change first. 

But Cordelia--Cordelia, as her name suggests ("Cor" is the Latin word for "heart") is content to merely love her family. She doesn't need them to be perfect; she doesn't try to keep them from sinning. She doesn't need to control them. She doesn't twit Julia on her sins like Bridey does; she doesn't worry about Sebastian's drinking. Instead, she takes her family as she finds them, and is able to simply love them as they are, without making them feel like she wants them to change before she loves them. Her siblings don't flee from her. They will see her when they won't see anyone else, and they care about her in a way they can never care about their mother.

Lady Marchmain allows her knowledge of what other people should be doing to get in the way of doing what she should be doing, which is loving them. Cordelia does not. She 'keeps her eyes on her own work' in the spiritual life (something that I am personally still working on) and that allows her to truly love people. 

Back to Lady Marchmain not allowing her children to grow in virtue on their own...she knows how they should be, which is virtuous individuals, but rather than teaching them to love God, and then letting them find their own way to virtue, she imposes her own morality on her children. Now, usually when Christians hear people complaining about other Christians "imposing their morality" on people, hackles go up. It's not imposing morality, we say, when we remind people of the natural law, which they must follow by virtue of being human. This is true. 

But, in a sense, Lady Marchmain is imposing her morality on her children in a way that is different from reminding them that they must follow the natural law. She's keeping them stuck in a morality of obligation, rather than letting them move on to a morality of excellence. 

Morality of obligation, as I have heard it explained (and please excuse me if my explanation isn't very good!) is the morality of childhood. It's the black and white morality that says we have to do the good thing Because God Said So. It's the morality of Kant. That, in a nutshell, is the kind of morality that I see in Lady Marchmain, and the kind that she's trying to enforce on her children. By trying to keep them in a morality of obligation, in trying to obligate them to do what she thinks they should do (so, it's a morality of obligation not only to God but also to her), she's not letting them grow up, and not letting them grow into their own relationship with God, either. 

However, the kind of morality that she should have, and the kind that I see in Cordelia, is a different sort. It is the Morality of Excellence--a morality that recognizes that God has made us a certain way, and given us the natural law so that we can know in what way we will be most happy. In other words, we follow His laws not because we have to, but because it is what will make us most fully ourselves, and that will in turn make us happy. God is cast not as the distant and arbitrary lawgiver, but as the Creator and Nurturer, He Who wishes to bring His creation to its perfect fulfillment. Morality of Excellence is a virtue ethic--it is morality more in an Aristotelian vein. And it's hard for children to grasp. In fact, it is important that children learn a morality of obligation while they are children, because they don't have the tools to understand the morality of excellence. But it is equally important for adults to grow into a morality of excellence, and to extend grace to others who are doing so as well--not "putting on their shoulders burdens too heavy to carry", as Lady Marchmain does, but encouraging them in virtue, as tiny as their movements forward in virtue may be. Which is, I think, more of what Cordelia does. 

Part of the difference between Lady Marchmain's morality of obligation and Cordelia's morality of excellence is the way that they seem to think about sin and grace and virtue. (Obviously I am reading into this a lot, because we don't really see how they think, but I think one can glean a lot about a person's worldview by their actions.)

This goes back to Lady Marchmain trying to control her children and keep them from sinning, too. She seems to think that the spiritual life consists of Not Sinning. Of doing the right things, and not doing the wrong things. Of white-knuckling through, and being longsuffering, and being the family martyr. 

But--and this is crucial--this doesn't make her happy. Nor does it make her truly virtuous. White-knuckling one's way through the spiritual life is enough to make anyone unhappy, and that's because the spiritual life is not meant to be a list of dos and don'ts that one checks off (although our pastor does joke about people thinking they can achieve salvation 'sola checkmarkia', because the 'spiritual checklist' mentality is a trap that people fall into a lot--myself included, although praise God, I think I'm moving out of that). 

But Cordelia--Cordelia doesn't white-knuckle. She doesn't need to. Instead of turning her spiritual life into a checklist of "don't sin, and pray the rosary as a family every day" like her mother does (a gross oversimplification, but bear with me), she rejoices in grace. She can see Sebastian working as the doorkeeper at a North African monastery and not think "oh gosh, he's so fallen, he's sinned so much, we need to Reform Him", as his mother probably would, but instead think "what a grace, that God has sent Sebastian a place where he can be close to Him and grow in virtue as much as he can". (The scene where Cordelia recounts seeing Sebastian is one of my favorites in the whole book, actually.) 

Cordelia loves God, and knows that God loves her, and that is enough for her to wish to grow in virtue, without needing to white-knuckle, and that also allows her to rejoice in His grace, for herself and for others, without feeling the need to try to force His hand, as her mother does. Of course, she's not perfect, but she is much more 'interiorly free', to borrow a phrase from Fr. Jacques Philippe, because she doesn't see any need to white-knuckle.

I think this point touches on almost all of the things I've already talked about. One of the key differences between Lady Marchmain and Cordelia is whether they place value on outward appearances or on inward realities. 

The quote that immediately springs to mind is "Man judges by appearances, but the LORD sees the heart"--which of course, in Latin, is 'Cor'. The LORD sees Cordelia. Not that He doesn't see Lady Marchmain, too--I just think that the Latin pun is fun. Because of course, Cordelia is the one who is actually concerned about the inward development of virtue, through her rejoicing in grace, and her morality of excellence. Lady Marchmain is very invested in putting on a good appearance, as part of her white-knuckling. She must have a Perfect House, a Perfect Family, Perfect Children who make Perfect Marriages. She's obsessed with the way that her family appears to the world, that they present the picture of a Perfect Virtuous Catholic Family, and when one of her children deviates, she attempts to control them back into line. But Cordelia doesn't really care about perfect outward appearances--else, why would she have been trying to scandalize Charles? Or played all of those pranks on Rex? What she does care about is the actual development of virtue in herself and others--see again my comments on how she recounts her visit to Sebastian. 

Hopefully, by this point I've convinced you that Cordelia is important to the book, in that she is a foil for her mother, and she shows the reader that it's possible to be a good Catholic without making the people around one miserable--mostly because Cordelia has embraced an adult Catholic understanding of morality and love, where Lady Marchmain seems to have clung to a childish one, and so driven away most of the people in her life. That's the point that I wanted to make with this post (and writing it has made me want to read the book again, to get all the good Cordelia content).

But while writing, I also thought of a way in which Cordelia is an important foil for many of the other characters. So, moving on from Lady Marchmain and her shortcomings...think about the name of the house. Brideshead. According to Bing, I am really off-base about this, but for me 'brideshead' makes me think of virginity. (Probably because I'm conflating it with 'maidenhead'. Anyways.) That made me think about how Cordelia is the only main character in the book to be living a celibate lifestyle. And I don't think that's an accident. 

Think about it. Some characters are living both a noncelibate and unchaste lifestyle, but even of the characters who are living a chaste lifestyle, they're not celibate.
-Bridey gets married.
-Julia is married and then has an affair
-Charles also gets married and then has an affair
-Sebastian is a bit murkier, but there are hints in the book that he's not on the straight and narrow, even though he never gets married, that we know of. (And in the movie there's the whole kiss thing, but that's a different story, and, I think, a bit too much of a liberty.)
-Lady Marchmain is married.
-Lord Marchmain is married but living with a mistress in Venice.

Whereas Cordelia is off doing work for the Red Cross and living the single life (I forget if she's consecrated in any way or not--but I don't think so.) (See, this is why I should reread the book, but I really don't have time.)

And I think that her happy single presence in a book where all of the characters try to find happiness in either marriage or affairs (or both) is a powerful witness to the fact that marriage isn't everything. (And if it comes down to it, neither are affairs. XD) In fact, one can definitely get married for the wrong reasons--trying to find happiness in their spouse, expecting their spouse to fulfill them, and so on, to name only two--and that can draw one farther away from God, and farther away from happiness. 

In a book where most of the characters are either married or having affairs and generally (not always but generally) miserable in either situation, the fact that Cordelia is single and quite happy in her vocation should be enough to give the reader a little bit of pause. To make them stop and think that perhaps it is more important for God to fulfill a person than that they have another person who they think will fulfill them. And in that way, I think that she is a crucial foil for the other characters, and ultimately the only true representative of Brideshead itself, in a way. (I'm not entirely sure what I think about that last statement, still, but I do think it's interesting.) 

(Thinking about it...I think that Cordelia is actually also the only character in the book who I would say should or could get married, because she would do it not because she needed someone else to fulfill her, or meet an emotional/spiritual/mental/physical need. She is free enough through her relationship with God that she doesn't need other people to meet those needs--so she would get married in order to have a lifelong friend and helpmate. Which, I think, is the best (and perhaps only unselfish) reason to get married. I've been giving this a fair bit of thought lately, for some reason--not because I'm considering getting married any time soon, but just because it's been popping up a lot.)

So...Cordelia. A foil to Lady Marchmain, the only truly virtuous Catholic in the book, in my opinion (although Lady Marchmain presents an appearance of virtue, Cordelia is the real deal), and an example of celibacy in an otherwise noncelibate (and largely unchaste) book. 

So now that I've written far more than I ever expected to be able to write on this topic...what do you think? Are there more ways that Cordelia is a foil in Brideshead? Why else is she important? What do you think of my thoughts on her and celibacy/the single life?