Downton Abby

[laughing lioness]

We are watching season II (WWI). Do you think people at the time realized the world would be so changed after the war as the characters keep saying? And it seems like they are jumping the gun a bit. WAS the world fundamentally changed after WWI, but before WWII? How?

[Rebecca VA]

Actually, the very same thing was said at the end of "Rilla of Ingleside" (the last Anne of Green Gables book). I don't have the book available to quote from, but on the last page or two Rilla was pondering how different -- faster-paced, with women working -- life was going to be from the way it was before the war.

[Rebecca VA]

Here's another book that talks about the way life was before the war: "A Prologue to Love," by Taylor Caldwell. The author (who had a tendency to pontificate) went on and on for several pages about how innocent people, especially Americans, were before World War I. They were like children who were easily amused with every new, innovative thing that came along. They didn't see the danger approaching, though it was very visible to more sober-minded people who were looking at economics and world politics.

 

After WWI and the Spanish Flu, people were sadder but not necessarily wiser. They were like rebellious adolescents during the 1920s. Currents of danger were still moving throughout the world, but most people refused to see them.

 

So the Downton crowd was in the "rebellious adolescent" stage during Season 3. They'd lost their "life is beautiful" phase during the War and were in a kind of restless mode. It absolutely fits what is going on in the show right now.

[Bluegoat]

Yes, things were very different. Especially in Europe there was a lack of men which affected the creation of new families and was an issue for finding workers. A huge issuechange was that social barriers and the roots people had in places and communities were largely wiped away. Social classes became much more permeable, but on the other hand people couldn't depend on social institutions that had cared for them in the old system either.

 

Part of that was people moving out of rural areas and into cities, and there is the much more widespread availability of consumer products, and people trying to accumulate consumer products.

 

The map of Europe was redrawn, and many of the situations that affect or have created our political issues today were just new - the division the middle East, the redrawing of the map of Europe, the league of nations, various communist revolutions...

[delaney]

I feel like they were just in denial in season 2. The "tradition" they are clinging to is because they are afraid of change. Carson epitomizes that for me. He just CAN NOT let go of "the way it used to be". So far in season 3 several characters have mentioned things changing and I feel like some of them are wising up.