Quattrocento beauty (metaphor)
Charles during his narration very often refers to Julia as an example of Quattrocento beauty. Quattrocento is one of the periods of art and architecture development during the Renaissance in Italy. It was a middle period and characterized by approach to depictions beautiful enough to charm and enchant, but there were still some improvements to be made. So Julia was like one of those madonnas on pictures, beautiful and captivating.
A vampire (metaphor)
Anthony Blanche is a friend of Sebastian and Charles in the Oxford circles. He is a straight person, says what he thinks, and he is rather critical of the Flytefamily, and during one evening tells Charles a lot of things he did not know about his friend’s family. Mostly critical he was of Sebastian’s mother, saying that she “keeps a small gang of enslaved and emaciated prisoners for her exclusive enjoyment. She sucks their blood”. Metaphorically saying that she energetically deprives them of their powers by her judgments and a wish to control everyone and everything.
Seeds planted (metaphor)
During the time at Brideshead, Charles had a serious acquaintance, and this one was with wine. Charles himself considered that this acquaintance “sowed the seed of that rich harvest which was to by my stay in any barren years” meaning that this was one of the things that opened him a way to the completely adult world, where serious and important decisions were to be made.
Wine degustation (simile)
Charles gives an image of these degustations, and compares wine with ringing of a coin: “We warmed the glass slightly at a candle, filled it a third high, swjrled the wine round, nursed it in our hands, held it to the light, breathed it, sipped it, filled our mouths with it, and rolled it over the tongue, ringing it on the palate like a coin on a counter, tilted our heads back and let it trickle down the throat”
