Downton
Abbey is a
British period drama TV series that began in 2001. The TV series depicts the lives
of the aristocratic Grantham family and their servants in the post-Edwardian
era. The events such as the World War I in history have an effect on their lives
and on the British social hierarchy. Downton
Abbey has received critical acclaim from television critics and it also has
become one of the most widely watched television shows in the world by its third
season. Downton Abbey’s popularity is
not only because of the delicate costumes or the famous actors, but also it is clearly a very liberal show, using the early 20th
century backdrop to push for progressive ideas, which most of audience accepted
by the 21th modern society. The progressive ideas in Downton Abbey represent the development of feminism and the
different social class of that period that exist even today.
Even though
Downton Abbey set the story in 1920, not every woman can mark her place in the
world through their identities no matter their social class being high or low.
However, the audience would like to see something different and changed that
women are taken out of the equation for feminism in the following episodes. The
creator showed the development of the feminism, which connects the same feeling
for the modern female audience. In Downtown
Abbey, the gender concept is represented very clear by males and females
through their attire and social behaviors. Males usually played hunting games,
smoking meetings for business or drinking in the bar, but females were not allowed
to participate in these. The female stereotypes in the Downton Abbey presented
that the women got married and had children and were domestic and always followed
men’s order. They have no rights to choose their future. Women’s lives are
arranged by the society at that period.
However, Sybil Crawley, the third
daughter of the aristocratic Robert Grantham, is my favorite character in the
TV series, which representes a strong female symbol to attract the audience. In
the previous two seasons, Sybil is the center of the show and represents the
symbol of the feminism. The girl saw the kindness in everybody and pushed for
greater kindness in the world. She helped her family maid, Gwen, to be a secretary
as a typist even though around people thought that Gwen had a daydream. Sybil
encouraged her that “it’s terrific that people make their own lives, especially
for women” (episode 03, season I). Sybil had strong opinions for her own, and she was willing to fight
for her right to express them. She owned
her revolutionary ideas and took part in political activism. She worked as a
nurse in World War I even if she is from a noble family. She is not like her
older sister, Mary, who is waited for an arranged wedding, but falls in love
with the chauffeur, Branson. She broke the old opinions and hierarchy. She goes
against her stubborn father for her social rights as a woman. The audience was
touched when her father Robert, understood his daughter and accepted that she
could get married with Branson who is from low class because finally her father
admitted Sybil’s feminist behavior and her right. Unexpectedly, Sybil was dead
in the third season, which made the audience feel uncomfortable because the
reason of Sybil’s death is that her father (man) didn’t listen to her mother’s
(woman) opinion. However, she dies as the pawn in the middle of a wider message, one that
rocks Cora and Robert’s relationship, one will be used to add complications and
development to Branson’s story and one that will
affect Mary and Edith’s attitude to life (feministfiction.com) . Both of her sisters are also perfect
examples of young “strong female characters.” Mary is a fighter and finally
married Mathew who is her true love. Edith also learned to drive and go outside
to work as a female for a newspaper company at that time. Those characters
represented the progressive idea to the audience that the women will have more
and more rights to control their own life and this also will be the tendency of
the society today.
Social hierarchy
is a very typical topic in Downton Abbey,
which the creator presents the class difference authenticity at that time in
order to impact the audience today because unequal society is an everlasting
topic that exists no matter in 20th century or today. However, Downton Abbey offers for the modern viewer
the progressive idea either that class differences still existed but gradually will
become ambiguous for two reasons.
Firstly, the great historical event made the
hierarchy is ambiguous. Branson, as I mentioned in previous paragraph, Sybil’s
husband, the Irish socialist revolutionary chauffer who is from low class, when
he first showed his love to Sybil, he prophetically told her that after the
war, nothing would return to as it was. And he is right. The World
War I marked a change in the way of life for the British aristocracy, a change
that would be cemented half a generation later by the return to war. The
wars seemed to remind people that they were more similar than different ( bitchmagazine.com). When
the wars need males to fight, all of the young males should go no matter upper
or lower class. Thus, there is a reason that this fascination with class
continues, and there is a reason that Downton Abbey is popular now, at
this historical moment. The audiences know that the lives of the characters
will be turned upside down, that the class divisions that separate them will
slowly become less important. And the audiences also want to believe that
for ours today.
Secondly, the show makes the
class difference become ambiguous since the moral of the different classes. When
each class uses more emotions to treat others, the difference of the class will
be blurring. The show has much to offer for a class analysis: Matthew Crawley, Mary’s
cousins who is a lawyer from Manchester middle-class. At the beginning he got
lots of prejudices from the upper class. After Matthew became the successor, he
landed on his feet and did so without having his head turned. Unlike most
aristos, he knew how to work, having worked as a lawyer before his anointment,
and, once anointed, he continued to take his fellow human beings as they were
human, and not suddenly as members of an upper or lower class. He deeply loves Mary
and respects her and her families, which is the most important reason to blur
the difference of the social class between Mary and him. The other contrast between
the lives of the Grantham family and the lives of the servants is profound to be sure (bitchmagazine.com) , but
there is also a nuance to the show that is missing in other television
representations of class because the Grantham’s noble family is more humanistic
to treat their servants. They send the female cooker Patmore to the hospital
and cure her eyes. They also help a timid manservant Mosely to find confident
to be a good manservant. On the country, the servants are also loyal to their
master. So at the most of time, the audience usually are touched by the plot of
the stories and focus on the stories, which happens between the servants and
masters rather than the difference of their social class.
In conclusion, Downton Abbey becomes popular, which is
not accidental. The progressive ideas feminism and class difference are still
hot topic in our modern today. The TV show doesn’t clear the class division but
emphasizes on the moral humanity. As the story showed in the drama, but it also
demonstrates the class difference still existed today, but if the people treat
each class sincerely, the difference od the social class will be ambiguous.
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