Quote:
Originally Posted by Bookworm_Girl
That word perplexed me too. Since it is also used in the chapter title, then I think you have to deduce its meaning from the context of the message of that chapter. I found this suggestion from a google search. Seems plausible to me.
http://www.trollope-apollo.com/?p=2776 |
Thanks, I wasn't quite sure either, but as I cannot bear spoilers, after a while I stopped checking the thread - but now I've finished it, too.
I did enjoy the book, but did not fall in love, perhaps because I found it hard to really empathise with the characters - I agree that the more interesting characters are the three "negative" females, Mrs. Master, Lady Augustus and Arabella - and to these I'd also add the Duchess (though we don't see much of her). The other characters were too flat for me, but altogether worked very well to convey the horror of the English class system. At the time the book was written only part of the Reform bills (reforming the electoral system and the right to vote) had been passed, and I bet that Trollope contemporaries might have picked up more nuances from the then contemporary debate.
Bear in mind that hereditary peers (sitting in the House of Lords) were only abolished by the Tony Blair government in 1999, leaving less than 100 sitting. Up to that point, if you were born in the right family, you would have your seat in the House of Lords. One of my colleagues was a Viscount (still is), and every now and I found a document beginning "Dear Lords" in the printer
Another colleague was "simply" an appointed one (parties can nominate people to the House of Lords). The reform has not been completed yet, and I do wonder what Senator Gotobed would make of the current situation!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hamlet53
Or maybe happy isn't the word, say instead appropriate in Trollpe's view. In the romance department everyone is matched up with a partner from their correct social class. All the peasants are shown to have been worthy of being at the bottom of the social and economic order. Scrobby is sentenced to a year of hard labor in prison for the crime of poisoning a fox, and thought to have gotten off lightly. Apparently the only way that a fox may be killed is through pursuit by landed gentry on horseback trampling over whose ever property they care to.  Goarly abandons Dillsborough in disgrace. Reginald Morton is assimilated to the proper lifestyle of an English squire, giving up all previous useful endeavors for a life of fox hunting and other amusements that a man in his position should occupy his time with, once he inherits the Bragton estate. That at least is one interpretation. |
I lean towards this explanation: in the end it looks like each and every one of the characters we met deserved his/her position in life or the dramatic improvement.
Quote:
Originally Posted by desertblues
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Yes indeed, at the time there was a huge fuss on the abolition, with hunters assembling in front of the Houses of Parliament - fox hunting still carries on, in theory without foxes, but in practice various environmental groups argue that real foxes still meet a bad end.
Quote:
Originally Posted by issybird
Despite a gap of about sixty years, almost they could have been Jane Austen heroines. Except for the trains! When you think of what a major event the picnic to Box Hill was for Emma, and compare it to Mary Masters’s train trip with Reginald—the world is opening up for the women, even if slowly. And Arabella’s day trip to confront Rufford demonstrated an agency impossible for an Austen girl. Tragic and humiliating, but powerful for all that.
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had not thought of that, thanks!