At this stage, the shortcomings of the traditional inheritance system of British aristocratic family properties have been fully exposed. This inheritance system emphasizes the ancestry and inheritance of property from generation to generation. Therefore, Robert devoted his life to Downton Abbey, but the heirs of the manor could not be It is determined by the will and intellectual judgment of the self. The injustice here also includes that R's wife Cora's dowry is extremely rich, but the traditional inheritance system means that this money can only flow into the hands of unpredictable "outsiders" unless their eldest daughter Mary marries the estate's heir This leads to "immoral" "loveless" forced marriages, and more importantly, since R and C have no children, there are only three daughters, Mary, Edith, and Sybil, but women are stipulated not to have inheritance estate rights. As a result, this inheritance system, which has become the law of succession, will instead lead to a higher chance of the estate being squandered. Simply, the legal heir is R's nephew Matthew.
Matthew and his mother, who is obsessed with social reform, belong to the British middle class. They oppose the passive, conservative and arty faults of the aristocratic class. What about these faults? For example, Robert, as a conservative, always believed that British socialism and liberalism were the same at that time, and agreed that each person has different values for each person, which defaulted to the logic that civilians are born civilians and can never be turned over. His mother, Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham, paranoidly believed that reforms were violent or bloody revolutions, and basically ignored and avoided the products of modern civilization. However, in a such
In the family, we found that the most interesting youngest daughter, Sybil, was a feminist who loved politics. At that time, the feminist movement and the third-class revolution were in-laws, so Sybil had a socialist inclination, and not only loved elections, And actively help a maid of his own to find a secretary job, and enthusiastically support the socialist tendencies of an Irish driver, so that the two are suspected of sparking love. But Sybil herself is not an anti-aristocratic person. She has knowledge and innovation, so she is more similar to the middle class, but also enjoys the social activities unique to aristocratic families. Therefore, taking Sybil as the clearest deed image, we can see that there was a certain internal intersubjectivity between the British aristocracy and the middle class in the early 20th century, and they recognized and absorbed each other's values to varying degrees. , this tendency was clearly exposed at least in the 16th and 17th centuries - as the heirs of land estates, most of the British earls had liberal tendencies and liked business contacts. Then, after witnessing Matthew's ability and quality, Robert admired him very much, and actively encouraged him to marry Mary, and Mrs. Violet, who was also the most interesting, although she was always angry with Matthew's mother, Isobel, was a conservative noble in nature. The conflict between class and the progressive middle class, but in terms of medical treatment and even value identification, the latter has gradually been accepted, and later actively encouraged the most inner entanglement in the whole play, which can symbolize the complexity of the transition between the two classes. The eldest miss, Mary, accepted Matthew's proposal and pointed out sharply that a person with strong moral values such as Matthew, who refuses to be poor with him, will never be able to get rich with him in the future. In the same way, we will find that Matthew and his mother Isobel, to a large extent, have gradually gotten rid of many prejudices against the aristocratic class. Moreover, financial support is very important in order to achieve revolutionary progress. As a medical worker, Isobel may feel this most deeply in the era of the rise of modern medicine. As for Matthew's situation, it was more abusive, and he fell in love with Mary. Mary is a woman full of stories and drama. She enjoys the honor and pleasure brought by her family, but she is deeply tired of this kind of life. Similarly, the appearance of jealousy with her sister Edith is to compare the beauty or the comparison. Charming, but the essence is that E is a woman who has been completely familialized, and Mary really despises this kind of life value. M was duplicitous. On the one hand, he used his family glory to shiver Matthew and resisted forced marriage, but on the other hand, he was swayed by his own arrogance. Quite, at first very much against the fact of being inherited the estate is attracted by Cousin Matthew. M had a romantic relationship with a rich and handsome Turkish man overnight. As a result, the latter may be excited and die violently in his chest. It seems that everything is going well and his sexuality is liberated. In fact, his life is involuntarily, extremely passive and helpless. However, to sum up the above, what can be clearly seen is that the British aristocracy and middle class actually have a certain common value ontology, which is related to morality, intellectual background, emotional outlook, etc., which leads to their mutual The foundation of integration and communication between them lies.
Let's take a look at the third class, and basically show the servants who support the daily life of the manor in Downton Abbey. Most of the servants in the manor can be roughly classified into the category of goodness. They can understand the aristocratic class, the middle class, and have their own independent values to varying degrees. For example, Carson, Elsie and Mr. Bates, the supreme example of morality, they are loyal rather than foolish, and the traditional British values infiltrate their spiritual bones. Although they have wanted to have their own family several times, they still choose to serve the manor and sincerely To understand and not blindly reject the human values of nobles such as Robert and Mary - when the fat cook suffers from eye disease, doesn't Mr. R also help her with treatment instead of expelling her? Isn't the essence of Miss Mary upholding the value of true love? As for the other extreme servants, although they were helped by Sybil and actively sought the labor or spiritual value of the individual beyond the class, they also basically sought their own value and refused to interfere with the values of the aristocracy or the middle class, because we found that , in the common value pedigree, the class conflict of entities can be reconciled or even merged and extended. However, just as the conservative experience of Mrs. Violet and Mr. Robert is not entirely ineffective, on the contrary it is sometimes extremely important, such as the first valet Thomas and Cora's valet Obrien are scheming, cheap, and immoral. , Because of being the "oppressed" class full of resentment, but because of this, they are truly impoverished people who are enslaved by dogs. In fact, they did account for a large proportion of the later socialists and proletarians. . Such people are probably the servants of the mob movement. Their blindness lies in the fact that, once the momentum rises, they will basically destroy all the values of the aristocratic, middle and poor classes themselves, whether good or bad, they are only influenced by private interests or The driving force of equity is indeed. So we see that Thomas's agency counted, and Obrien actually caused the mistress to have an abortion because of a rumored misunderstanding - the so-called villain will not affect or steal the soul or spirit of your manor, but it may actually damage the manor's Certain physical parts, causing physical and mental harm.
The above is the overall feeling after watching the first season, which is like a complicated third-order network of British society in the early 20th century. It does reveal some judgments about the Liberal Party, the Conservative Party, and the socialist movement. It is quite fair and good, and it is really worth exploring, as the so-called details are plentiful.
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