****PLEASE NOTE: This entry DOES have spoilers for the entire series of“Downton Abbey,” so if you plan to watch it/haven't finished it and don’t wish to know the plot twists, character deaths, and other such drama, I suggest you not read this.****
Downton Abbey depicts the life of a manor in the English countryside in the early 20th century, where the upper class family and the lower class staff live and work together. Mrs. Dalloway, “The Hours,” and Downton Abbey all contain similar themes and are reminiscent of one another, and not simply because all three depict British life in the country around the same time. The three explore themes such as gender roles, characterization, love, and death, focusing on the lead female characters of each book/movie/show, Clarissa Dalloway, Clarissa Vaughan, and Mary Crawley.
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| Matthew and Mary Crawley on their wedding day |
Mary Crawley is the eldest daughter in Downton Abbey, and arguably the main character of the show. At one point in the show, Mary has decided to marry Richard Carlisle, a journalist who made his fortune from yellow journalism. But Mary is still in love with Matthew Crawley, a distant cousin of hers who is set to inherit Downton Abbey, who is also engaged to the so-called love of his life, Lavinia. Lavinia ends up dying, and Mary calls off her engagement with Richard Carlisle, so Mary and Matthew can marry.
I see the character of Mrs. Dalloway as an older Mary Crawley who took her life in a different direction – the woman who married Richard Carlisle instead of Matthew, like how Mrs. Dalloway married Richard Dalloway instead of Peter Walsh. This sentiment echoes one of the underlying themes of the book – regret over actions not taken. Both Mrs. Dalloway and Peter Walsh wonder over the course of the book if the decisions they made were the right ones, and if they ended up where they ought to be.
In “The Hours,” Meryl Streep’s Clarissa correlates with Mary Crawley as well. Clarissa Vaughan has chosen to be with Sally. In relation to Downton Abbey, I see this path as one Mary could have taken if the daring, dashing Turkish Ambassador, Kemal Pamuk, hadn’t died of a heart attack in bed with Mary. Pamuk offered Mary a life of adventure, a departure from the life that she was forced into living. Sally offered the same sense of adventure in Mrs. Dalloway and in “The Hours.” For both pairs, scandal would have arisen.
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| Mary (and her child, George) in her mourning attire |
Mary’s life offers an insight into what could have happened if either Clarissa Dalloway or Vaughan had married a different person.
And what happens? Matthew dies in a car accident less than a day after his and Mary’s first child is born.
Pain happens. Hurt happens. Tragedy happens. And something like this could have been precisely the thing to happen to Clarissa Dalloway or Clarissa Vaughan if they had chosen a different path.
Regrets in life happen. They’re inevitable. People regret what they did and what they didn’t do, because they recognize the possibility of what could have been. People always question the paths they didn’t take, rather than recognizing that the path they are on now might be exactly where they’re needed the most. If Clarissa Dalloway, Clarissa Vaughan, and Mary Crawley had chosen different paths, they still would have regretted some aspect of their lives.
The point is that life didn’t happen that way. There is no use dwelling on the past if there is no possible way it can be changed. I’m such a strong believer in everything happening for a reason, whether we can see the reason at the moment or not. It’s sort of living life to its fullest, and not ignoring the blessing that come your way, be they blessings in disguise or obvious miracles. Downton Abbey, Mrs. Dalloway, and most especially The Hours preach the lesson that life is fleeting. Hold onto what life gives you, cherish every minute, and never let it go.
Because giving up is what you’ll regret the most.
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ReplyDeleteIt's a televsion series. Get your facts right before you stock up on sarcasm.
DeleteJoel, your tone for the second half of your comment is completely condescending and mocking. There's a line between disagreeing then posing a counterargument and blatantly laughing at a response. You've crossed that line. It's not funny, it's rude.
I changed it so it is now awesome! Thanks for the help editing.
ReplyDelete“Pamuk offered Mary a life of adventure, a departure from the life that she was forced into living” I think adventure or the outdoors or nature instead of imprisonment is what the patients like Woolf needed instead of the bed treatment/rest cure. I also think Woolf says the same thing by including so much nature throughout her book and why in The Hours like all the females wore flowers, there were flowers on literally every desk and table, benches were painted green, water figuratively saves the woman who is about to try to commit suicide, there are bird audio noises even when people are indoors, etc. I also think the water coming from under the bed in the movie is a statement against the ineffectiveness against the rest-cure thing because the bed is a symbol of the rest/bed-cure treatment and the water is nature or the outdoors, which is what the patients need. I think that this coming together with nature as opposed to confinement or division is a statement against WW1, which divided people.
Is it weird that I thought of Avril Lavigne's song "Skater boy" while reading this blog post?
ReplyDeleteI am also a believer of whatever happens, happens and it happens because of a reason, but regret does tend to happen and we will always wonder "what could I have done?" Tragedy happens in all forms no matter what, but happiness can come from it too. For me, I see Clarissa from Mrs. Dalloway regretting her marriage to Richard because that's how she was brought up. To make the right decisions, to be a part of the upper class, and all that jazz. She didn't do it out of pure happiness. Sally seemed to make her extremely happy while Peter Walsh seems like a secret love she has always had. He makes her rethink and that to me is a sign saying she isn't fully happy. So yes, in this case for Mrs. Dalloway, she is unhappy, but she could have been happy if she followed her heart. Since this book is fiction, I say things could have turned out differently. I guess the reason behind Clarissa's actions was because of her will to stay in her status and do like everyone else in society does, conform and keep stability. You make awesome examples though. You know your stuff and have your own perspective, but to expand your perspective, regret always happens. I bet you MAY have felt it sometime in your life. So tragedy doesn't follow anywhere. I believe that happiness can be found. I hope I interpreted and read this blog right because this is what I got from it. Haha. :)
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your comparison of the Hours/Mrs. Dalloway to Downton Abbey. Although I do not watch the show myself, my parents do watch it and from what I hear of it, it is just great. I think you are certainly right in the both Clarissas are regretful over decisions made in their lives and that they would still be regretful even if they made a different life choice. I guess it is just in our nature to doubt ourselves. We can never be sure if we are making the right choice and so we go over the decision, the circumstances of the decision, the results, etc. in our minds, over and over and over again. Man can never be satisfied with anything, he is never content. But anywho, great blog.
ReplyDeleteI LOVE Downton Abbey!! I haven't seen all of it, so I had to skip a few things,buuttt I love the comparison to Mary! I think there are clear similarities between the two characters. Mary always wants to do what is right- aka. what is expected of her as a higher class woman, and to stick to tradition. I feel that Mrs. Dalloway did the same, she wanted to be socially correct. And I believe a lot of us do and it takes a ton of confidence and courage to go against what society tells us we should do, behave, and act. Good comparison, and from what I read good analysis as well
ReplyDeleteI didn't know anything about Downtown Abbey before reading this post so I would say that you have done a very good job providing the reader with the necessary context to understand the comparison that you are making. It is interesting that you chose to focus on the themes of regret and retrospective thinking because when I watched the film and read the book, I was focusing on other things, even though now thinking about it, looking back on the past is so central to these texts. It's interesting because I think that the way that Mrs. Dalloway is written, in the stream of conscious way, relates to this reflection of the past. Great job on this post!
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