Edith is the New Jane Eyre

The similarities between Lady Edith Crawley and Jane Eyre are quite remarkable as the plot of Downton goes forward.  Aside from the fact that Edith isn't a nanny (but she did get a job which is similar to Jane in the fact that many women didn't work), here are a few examples of where they line up.

1) Considered to be plain (but really isn't)

2) Has to be the sensible one

3) Not a social butterfly

4) Bit of a brooder

5) Feels the need to take on life's challenges by herself without outside help

6) Resident of England who likes the great outdoors

7) Falls in love with men much older than herself

8) Falls in love with a man who has a mentally unstable wife

9) Sleeps through fires that engulf her room (shares that with Thornton, not Jane Eyre)

Spoiler alert: After Jane nearly kills herself fleeing across the moors when she learns her fiancee is still married to a previous woman, her fiancee's estate burns down (thanks to his unhinged spouse), his wife dies in an accident, she becomes independently rich, she finds family that loves her, and she marries her Thornton.

"Reader, I married him" is the famous line written by Charlotte Bronte.  Perhaps poor Edith can catch a break.

Edith's Gothic Romance

Lady Edith and her publisher.

 

 

As with all story plots, certain elements creep up again and again.  Edith finds her publisher has a personal history, one connected with Charlotte Bronte's famous plot line.

 

Jane Eyre is a gothic romance, filled with enigmas, old houses, and fires in the middle of the night.  Without ruining the spoilers, the best way to summarize its story is to note that a penniless governess comes to Thornfield Hall and uncovers its secrets, both of the house and the man who runs the estate.  Just like any Bronte sister story, it is perfect to watch on a damp foggy night, curled up with a cup of tea and a blanket inside.  In 2011, a film-length version was released with Michael Fassbender, Mia Wasikowska and Dame Judy Dench.  In 2006, the BBC released a version with Ruth Wilson and Toby Stephens, which will take most of your evening but leaves out few details (plus Georgie Henley of the Chronicles of Narnia series makes a perfect mini Jane).  Of course, if you want to read the original novel, it can be found on any classics shelf at Barnes and Noble.



Lady Edith still Unmarried

Lady Edith Crawley performed by Laura Carmichael

Dear Lady Edith, no modern audience has sympathy for her plight.  After all, the wedding of the year in 2011 was Catherine Middelton to Prince William, both around the age of 30, the average age for marrying in our modern times.  Your twenties are seen as time to establish a career, your thirties for establishing a family.  Not so for young ladies brought up during Victorian times.

The reality is, of the three Crawley sisters, only Sybil, trying to marry at age twenty-one, has the system down pat.  As an audience, we don't feel sorry or worried for Mary, the eldest.  It isn't will she eventually end up married, but rather will she marry the right one?  Julian Fellowes must be having fun keeping the audience waiting on that one.

But Edith, the only men in her life that she takes a shine to end up disappearing completely from her life before the end of the episode.  In modern times, that is heartbreaking for her, but we believe that a woman can fend for herself.  Even though women, such as the likes as the authoress Jane Austen, had been asserting themselves for some time as independent, the reality is that most women turned out to be Mary Bennets from Pride and Prejudice.

As a young lady of fortune, Edith would have been raised knowing that her sole purpose in life was to get married, raise a family, and keep an orderly house.  Think of it as knowing since age five you were told you were going to be a teacher, and there was no other option.  The reality is, both are very noble jobs.  However, imagine you, just like every little girl you grew up with playing house, reach your mid-twenties, and no beau come to call.  So everyone tells you to hold on a little longer, that something will turn up.  Soon you reach your thirties, and no one is going to tell you to take any offer that comes along, they simply have given up on you.  You haven't been able to make the one thing in your life your were raised to do happen.  This dream that you had and others had for you will never come true.  And while your siblings are off on their own adventures, setting up their own families and running their own homes like good little children, you are at home, the place you have always been, looking after the parents who you have now disappointed.  It isn't all a lark as Mary thinks it is by looking at her Aunt Rosamund.  It is living a life of disappointment every day for the rest of your life.  Any wonder Edith wants to learn how to drive away?