As the second season of
Downton Abbey is being broadcast in the US and the hype shows no signs of slowing down, I've been reading and hearing a lot of comments on the authenticity of the class relations portrayed within the series. The main criticism appears to be that the series depicts the aristocrats, particularly the Crawleys, as essentially benevolent, wonderful people - basically as 'too nice'. Now I do think that Lord Grantham, for example - as I read in one particular review - is practically Paddington Bear, also known as the nicest guy ever born, but overall I do find the depiction of class relations in this show interesting and at least moderately well done.
The Crawleys are pleasant people, it is true. I wouldn't turn down a dinner invitation at Downton. However, they are always - apart from Sybil, who is the family's great equalizer - pleasant in a fashion true to their era and their class, and they almost never display an anachronistically democratic mindset. They're not politically correct in a 2010s kind of way, and at least some of them are outright snobs.
A good example of this, and of course the quintessential Downton aristocrat, is the Dowager Countess. Violet Crawley is not always a nice woman, but that nastiness is usually directed toward people she considers to be in her league or slightly below it - her daughter-in-law, for example, or Isobel, or Sir Richard. It is not directed toward the servants as a rule - but that's only the case because it doesn't have to be. Someone like Violet is perfectly capable of displaying kindness and care toward those far below her on the social ladder: she looks after William since she knows he is his father's only child and even listens to Daisy's problems on one occasion. Similarly, the Earl offers Bates a job when no-one else will, Cora is very fond of O'Brien, Mary tells Anna her worries and has a very close relationship with Mr Carson, and so on.
But at the same time, the idea of common soldiers recuperating alongside officers is appalling to Violet, as it is presumably to most of the family; they are capable of kindness toward the working class because they know themselves to be their social superiors, and they treat their servants kindly because these are 'their' people. Their kindness is based in a deeply rooted paternalism, which they translate into a right to get involved in the servants' lives. Yes, it comes across as 'niceness' - but it's rooted in a classism that's very typical of the time.
This also explains why the true enemy of this upper class is not the working class, but the middle class. I think that is accurately and very intelligently pointed out throughout the series - Violet and Mary (two characters I believe to be extremely alike) both trust and rely on their servants, but they frown on characters such as Isobel - who fancies herself a social reformer - or Sir Richard Carlyle - who, though he's a loathsome man in some ways, is also someone who's made his own way in the world in a way none of the Downton Crawleys have. They even frown on Cora on occasion, and even Mary will refer to her own mother as 'an American' to emphasize the way in which Cora's money has been VERY welcome to the family, but Cora herself only kinda-sorta fits in. These are the people who are a danger to the lifestyle of the aristocracy, not their servants who - if anything - are often as conservative, class-conscious and concerned about propriety as the upper class itself is.
That is why Mary couldn't be an attorney's wife in Manchester. Sure, it was Lady Rosamund who voiced the idea first, but I think the doubts were always there. Of the three Crawley sisters, Mary is most resistant to social change, no matter how much she goes around with Sir Richard. It's clearly visible when the Great War strikes. Sybil, the youngest and by far the most progressive, decides to become a nurse, and when the War comes to Downton, Edith, too, finds a place for herself in the war effort. She learns to drive, which was pretty new for an aristocratic woman to do at the time, and when the recovering officers start arriving, she helps look after them, too, if not as a nurse. Mary, as the eldest and the truest to her class, is not without pity, but would make a pretty terrible nurse (even good, sweet Lavinia points out that Mary wouldn't have been able to look after Matthew as well as she would have, and she's right) and doesn't really care enough about the soldiers to devote heaps of her time to them. She has a good heart, but it's just not all that much on her radar; she takes part in the concert, but treats it as something of a nuisance initially.
This identification of Mary with the upper class sets her apart at least to some extent from her younger sisters who are naturally somewhat more interested in this new century and this new post-war world. This is very obvious in the case of Sybil, with her interest in politics and - of course - in the radical Irish chauffeur, but also in the case of Edith, which is a little surprising considering how Edith was the typical middle child all throughout the first series. After the War, when Sybil says she doesn't want to go back to the way things were before, Edith says she doesn't want to, either. That creates the potential for a totally different dynamic between the three sisters - different from the earlier one where Mary and Edith are rivals and Sybil is the indulged baby. In a sense, Sybil and Edith both have the potential to be a part of this new world; Mary, and this is perhaps the most accurate and the most representative of the aristocracy at this time, has more trouble with that idea. She's very much part of a class that won't exist anymore as such a few decades later.
Maybe I should write on Edith next. I love Edith. She's a fascinating character.
