DA's series 2: The Ghost of 1914 -- OR -- Does Matthew have a mean streak?
PART TWO >>>
[Here comes the first part of my newest DA script close-read project. It's long again, so I'll have to chop it up it into several posts (8-10). I'm about to finish off 2.06 and hope to finish off my argument with the CS close-read by the end of the month. Script transcriptions are as always provided by lika_mikala at Script Line: http://scriptline.livejournal.com/?skip=10&tag=downton%20abbey]
«Because they live in my memory as fresh as the day they were spoken»
Downton Abbey's Second Series: The Ghost of 1914
OR
Does Matthew have a mean streak?
I don't like the idea of there being lines or scenes in Downton Abbey that we have to disregard because they would conflict with what we perceive to be the overall meaning of an episode or the whole series. I don't like convoluted explanations to make sense of a character's behaviour. I like clean structure, and the more phenomena can be explained by a single assumption, the more I am inclined to believe that this assumption is correct and intended by the writer.
Throughout series 2 I have had trouble finding coherence in the behaviour of Matthew Crawley and be content with the resolution Fellowes has given his character in the Christmas Special. Matthew was labeled a «man of the moral high ground» in episode 1.07, and it was therefore weird to reconcile his actions with our image of a thorougly good (or bland), honourable and considerate man. Mary's object of desire. The real catch. The apple of Lord Grantham's eye. Captain Crawley. Our hero at the front. There have been a lot of attempts to explain away Matthew's blindness to Mary's love throughout series 2 as denial, confusion, shell-shock, but at the same time I have been unable to pinpoint any scenes which could provide evidence that his identity has been threatened by Mary or by the war, in a way which would explain the need for these drastic psychological defense mechanisms. After all, he broke with Mary in 1.07 feeling perfectly in the right, and he declared that he wasn't a puppet and that he was going to take charge of his own life again. Alternatively, there have been complaints that there must be something wrong with Fellowes' writing when it comes to the development of Matthew's character.
These are the sticky points from series 2 that baffled me the most:
- Why does Matthew say inconsiderate things to and about Mary throughout series 2 (like she doesn't deserve to be happy, she's killed Lavinia, rubbing it in that he's with Lavinia in 2.02, not acknowledging how she was there for him in 2.07, telling her that she has to marry Carlisle or he would refuse to see her again) without the Christmas Special putting out some sort of apology from Matthew to Mary?
- He does not want to marry her at the beginning of the Christmas Special, he wants to marry her in the end, when does it change?
- Why does he always doubt that she still loves him throughout series 2 when he was the one who ditched her in 1.07? Why does he use his uncertainty about her feelings as an excuse to do and say things that will make her cry in her bedroom?
- Why does he suggest that she should remain a spinster and live with him at Downton? He wouldn't even deny Lavinia the right to a sex life in 2.05, so why this cruel wish for Mary?
- Why does he bring up Carlisle constantly since 2.06? Why does he give Carlisle the killer look at Lavinia's funeral when he's just said that he and Mary will go separate ways?
- Why is he so close again with Mary at the start of the CS after pledging his troth to Lavinia's memory?
- Why is he half-smiling after the Pamuk confession, when he says she mustn't marry Carlisle and that she's a storm-braver and that he couldn't despise her? Why does he look so positively elated when she's just told him that she's had an affair with another man?
- Why does he punch Carlisle? What was it in Carlisle's words that triggered him into a fight?
- Why does Mary suggest that they've been on the edge of a proposal so many times?
- Why does the phrasing of the proposal mirror 1.07?
- What's the deal with this promise-liar thing? Hasn't the war tought you never to make promises? Lying under oath, Daisy «More lies», «Liar!». And why is Matthew suddenly into lying («You must promise to lie faithfully when they ask you how I did») when he's a lawyer and he was upset with Mary in 1.07: «Are you a good liar?»
- Why do episodes 2.02 through 2.08 leave me with the impression of a Matthew-Carlisle pissing contest that has never really got under way? Why should Carlisle always be so wound up about Mary's feelings for Matthew when it's practically a walk-over for him, until the very last scene of 2.08, because Matthew never casts himself as a rival? Why does Matthew always react to Carlisle's presence by saying something nasty to Mary instead?
In recent discussions, most of these sticky points are discredited as bad writing on Fellowes' part. Mary O'Donnell's fascinating episode review on her Vicariously blog is a case in point: «The fact that he was written not as “forgiving” Mary for a transgression with Pamuk which had absolutely nothing to do with him but instead as recognising that it’s irrelevant in the grand scheme of things proves that Julian Fellowes has always known how to write Matthew in a way which I could find palatable and chose not to for reasons I will never fathom.» I may have thought the same when I first saw the series, but now I am inclined to disagree. I believe that Fellowes is a terrific writer and that every line he has given to Matthew he has given him on purpose. He chose to write him like that for a reason. We have simply overlooked the possibility:
What if Matthew simply has a mean streak? If he's SUPPOSED to have mean streak? Wouldn't that give his character an edge? Mary has a mean streak, we know that. We love her still. She hurt Matthew, on purpose, throughout series 1. But Captain Matthew? Inconsiderate maybe, but cruel? Would he want to hurt Mary? Would he want to use other people to hurt Mary? Because she hurt his pride years ago? «I thought you didn't like her for throwing me over?», Matthew remarks to his mother when they leave the Downton graveyard in early January 1920, six whole years after the event in question. «That's a different conversation,» Isobel retorts. Is it, really? Is it? Or has it been the same conversation for Matthew really, all the way through Series 2? All the way through the war? The Ghost of 1914? The Ghost of Rejection Past?
What if Matthew's entire Lavinia engagement in series 2 was a scam to hurt Mary, a scam that got out of control? I think there is clear evidence in the script that this is the case, and it would explain all sorts of sticky points. What if his original plan was to give Lavinia the boot as soon as the war was over (hence the Daisy-William subplot) in case something better turned up? What if he only claimed that he wanted Mary to find someone else to mock her, to make her jealous, to rub it in that he was making himself unavailable? Because, let's be honest - while he may have wished the best for Mary in episode 1.07 - he did not want to see her with another man. He did not want her in a relationship that did not involve him. He didn't dwell on the thought, or picture it. And he didn't have to either, until he returned to Downton with Lavinia in tow and Mary got attached to Carlisle soon after. Suddenly an engagement war was on at the home front. Matthew had started it out of spite, Mary retaliated as an act of pragmatism and desperation, without either of them owing up to that this was what they were doing. Before long, things spiralled out of control: Matthew couldn't get rid of Lavinia and Mary couldn't get rid of Carlisle.
And what if Matthew's descent into self-loathing and pessimism from 2.05 onward is the direct result of Mary telling him that he's paralysed, referring him to Lavinia, and getting on the next train to London to get engaged to walking multi-millionaire Carlisle? On the very same day when he is making himself available to the woman he loves by sending Lavinia packing! How could he interpret Mary's behaviour as anything but a deliberate gesture to prove that she is giving up on him not once but TWICE, as soon as she learns that his prospects have changed?
No wonder Matthew retracts his 2.04 would-be-proposal to Mary in 2.05: «I couldn't marry any woman» (looking at her). No wonder he says something like «go on, marry Carlisle if your life and your kids without me are so important to you» in 2.06. No wonder he takes Lavinia back and rewards her willingness to follow him into his new changed life - because he does it out of spite. No wonder he insults Mary at the dinner table in 2.07 by wanting to bury the memories of the darkest period of his life - when he returned from the war, holding onto her stuffed dog for dear life, one episode after they were singing together «If you were the only girl in the world, and I were the only boy», when he comes back in dire need of her - and she gets on the next train to London to prove that she has broken with him now that he is crippled. No wonder he doesn't care if Mary still loves him in 2.07 now that he can walk again. Because he has a bloody point to make. It doesn't matter whether or not he still loves her, he doesn't love her enough for his love to overcome the bitterness he feels, so he can't marry her. I don't mind Matthew's cruelty during series 2 if this is his reason.
That this may be indeed be how Matthew is thinking doesn't become obvious until the Christmas Special, where three key scenes completely reframe what must have happened in Matthew's mind all the way through the series. To take these key scenes last to first:
- Carlisle's pre-punch comment. Matthew never loved Lavinia. We were never sure, he never said so, Dan Stevens claimed Matthew had moved on... Now we have Fellowes' confirmation. Matthew never loved Lavinia - not even when she came to see him at the hospital and he called her darling. Not even when he said «and I love you so much for saying it». He didn't. He lied. To her he could lie. And the reason Matthew sent Lavinia away was not because he loved her so much but because he didn't love her, and because he knew right away that she would be a bad nurse when he saw her coming in dressed in her 2.02 crying outfit, handkerchief in hand (There is an awful lot to explore when it comes to the symbolic aspect of costume recycling in Downton Abbey). Matthew didn't love Lavinia and he wanted to come clean. He didn't want to be responsible for stealing away her life by carrying on this ridiculous engagement war when he didn't love her anyway. He had enough respect for her as a person at this stage to feel that he owed her that much. No matter what Mary should decide, he was finally willing to stop lying.
- Matthew's reaction to Mary's Pamuk confession. At the start of the Pamuk scene he looks stunned and desperately sad. Then he tries to reason. Did you love him? Mary talks about lust, a need for excitement, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, peppering him with his own prejudices - while Matthew still looks about himself lost, like a hurt puppy, trying to understand. Suddenly, however, his facial expression changes, from sadness and disappointment to some joyful excitement that he tries hard to suppress. All we see is an inexplicable smirk that he can't get off his face when he turns around to tell her, with greatest self-confidence: «You must not marry him!» What happened? What did she just say that might have brought about that change? She said «But the fact remains that I am made different by it.» She has been made different! That's when the penny drops. That's why she hesitated in 1914. That's why she marries Carlisle. It was always about her difference being a problem, never his. She was protecting his ego from having to deal with her being different. When he has constantly been left with the impression that it was his changed prospects which were the issue. Like in 1.07 -- and in 2.05, when Matthew's spinal damage doesn't -- according to Clarkson -- mean the «the end of his life». «Just the start of a different life», as Mary is quick to add.
- Matthew's «No need for gestures» comment. Because that's what he has been thinking about when he made that «no need for gestures» comment in the Christmas Special. He was not thinking about their 1914 break-up after all, because it was not Mary who broke up with him then. He is talking about another break-up altogether, initiated by Mary, which only takes on the shape of a brush-off towards the end of the Christmas Special, once we learn that Matthew loved her all along and that he was hung up about the question of being different: He is talking about the fact that Mary got engaged to Carlisle the same day she learned about his paralysis - because he was made different by it - a repeat of 1914. The gesture Matthew refers to in the Christmas Special, "to prove that you have broken with me, surely" - that gesture is her behaviour in 2.05. Everything Matthew will say and do to Mary throughout the rest of series 2 is related to this decision. Every cruel remark. Every rejection. Every instance of self-loathing. Because Mary has thrown him over twice.
PART TWO >>>