Brideshead Revisited follows, from the 1920s to the early 1940s, the life and romances of the protagonist Charles Ryder, most especially his friendship with the Flytes, a family of wealthy English Catholics who live in a palatial mansion called Brideshead Castle. Ryder has relationships with two of the Flytes: Sebastian and Julia. The novel begins during the final years of the Second World War. Charles Ryder and his battalion are sent to a country estate called Brideshead, which prompts his recollections of the rest of the story. The novel explores themes including Catholicism and nostalgia for the age of English aristocracy.