Love some Melodrama?

Found at Enchanted Serenity of Period Films

On Saturday Night I went to my friend's house and we watched North and South  a BBC miniseries based of Elizabeth Gaskell's love story. It is not about the Civil War as I orginally thought when my friend suggested we watch it. My friend told me it was mix of Jane Austen and Charles Dickens. I was intrigued to watch this because this friend does not like anything romantic so I was not going to pass up a chance to watch an historical romantic film with her but I knew nothing about it, and I don't really know Elizabeth Gaskell's writing but after watching this movie I am intrigued. Now if only it was winter break the next time I have free for fun reading. 

So the plot is a lot like like Pride and Prejudice...

Bessie Higgins
Found at Austenitis

Margaret Hale moves from her simple country village in the south part of England. A town she has romantic ideals about and cherishes in her heart to Milton a mill town (in the North, and completely different than the South) where she meets John Thorton. They immediately disagree and she's him really harsh, which I agree with. I mean the first time we meet him he punches a man for smoking in a factory. But John Thorton has a hard past. He has been working hard to get his family to the position it is in most of his life. Also smoking could cause the whole factory to burn down and its 100s of employees to die in the fire. So I guess reflecting on it, he harsh for a reason but it was little unsettling. Margaret has a hard time adjusting to this new life, she says even months after living there she makes wrong turns every where she goes. The people of Milton are proud and don't take charity even when starving. But she does make friends with Bessie Higgins, who you might know as Cassandra Austen from Becoming Jane. She is the daughter of Mr. Higgins who is trying to organize all the mill workers to unionize and strike. Of course the bosses (Thorton included don't want this and will use their power to stop it). Through out this time you see Thorton's budding feelings for Margaret, because she speaks her mind and stands up for what she thinks is right, ah women with independent thought are always attractive. The strike does happen but Thorton can't risk losing business just because he has no employees so he hires Irish men to come over and work. That only arises violence and in the sweep of things Margaret tries to calm the crowd and gets hit in the head with a rock.

Margaret defending Mr. Thorton
Found at Felice's Log

People, including Mrs. Thorton (Thorton's mother) sees Margaret defending Thorton as a public deceleration of her love for him. So the next day he goes over and proposes... and like in Pride and Prejudice he is turned down. But it is so melodramatic it is just great to get swept up in. 

Then like in the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice you see Mr. Thorton walk away replaying the past incident, upset at what has just happened. The next hour is very much the Charles Dickens side of the story seeing the aftermath of the strike and the violence and sadly a few good characters die and Margaret is thrown into controversy. Her long lost brother returns home to be with her ailing mother and when he tries to sneak out of Milton people see her embrace him and not knowing she has a brother think she is scandalous. They also think she was involved in a murder, yeah its kind of complicated but I don't want to give away any spoilers. But when Margaret's name is brought up in controversy Thorton does what he can to protect her name from being spoiled. Also through some twist of the, Margaret ends up with a great deal of fortune and owning the mill Thorton has leased through her godfather Mr. Bell (yeah another complication) but like any good love story the couple ends up together happily.

Beside the melodramatic movie and the blend of a Jane Austen love story and the plight of the working man. I liked how accurate the movie was. In my history classes I have read stories about the mill factories being dangerous places to work. But this kind of brought it more to life. When ever there is footage of the mill factory we see cotton flying around. You see the danger of the working conditions that these mill workers have. And even Bessie through out the movie as a constant cough and complains it is a cold but really it is cotton particles clogging her lungs. These scenes are greatly shot. 

I also have to give a shout out for the great costume design. Rather they are the poor workers, to the high class Thortons and the in the middle the Hales every outfit captures the attitude of the character. 

Found at Felice's Log

To see more on this mini series check out these sites...
North and South
Felicie's Log
Period Drama.com
Enchanted Serenity of Period Films

From the Desk of A Wanna-be Historian

Hello Readers,

I am writing from my desk after just finishing scholarly articles for my Historical Methods class. A class that is laid out by the syllabus that "will explore various different models and methods for researching, analyzing and presenting history in both academic and popular forms (including films, journalism, internet sites, and museum exhibits)." Like most history classes we begin the class by discussing what history is. As it can be confusing... the word history is used in two ways 1) the events of the past (a very simple definition) and 2) the writing and interpretations of the past. It can also be confusing because as Carl Becker "Everyman His Own Historian" wrote that every thing we do is in the past. So what makes the past? What makes it history? Becker breaks the simple definition of "History is the memory of things said and done." Memory is a fickle thing to pass history on. As we all know one event could happen in our lives and can be perceived in many different ways. Also events can be forgotten unless written down right down, and it is said victors write the history. In our first class we read quotes that my professor collected quotes and one was by Winston Churchill "History will be kind to me for I intend to write it." So even if things are written down right in the moment of happening they can still be written down wrong because let's face it we are all bias. 


But we can not just let history be facts "left to themselves, the facts do not speak; left themselves they do not exist, no really; since for all practical purposes there is no fact until some one affirms it" (Becker). He later writes "the history that lies inert in unread books does no work in the world. The history that does work in the world, the history that influence the course of history is living history, that pattern of remembered events, whether true or false that enlarges and enriches the collective specious of, present of Mr. Everyman." There are certain things in the world and in our lives that can not be forgotten. Alexis de Tocqueville (a French political thinker and historian) best known for writing Democracy in America  first published in 1835 and then another volume in 1840 (a source used by many historians to get in the mindsets of early 19th century Americans) writes about the American Individualism. He criticizes Americans that our individualism makes "every man forget his ancestors" he writes that American's seek out newness and he says that each generation is a new people. This is why we can not purely allow on memory as a source of history. This view of Tocqueville is written in David W. Blight's article "'For Something beyond the Battlefield': Fredrick Douglass and the Struggle for the Memory of the Civil War." In Fredrick Douglass' lifetime he faced the problem that people were forgetting the Civil War and the reasons behind the war so the last part of his life was spent keeping alive the Civil War. For me a twenty-first century girl it seems hard to realize that people would forget something like the Civil War especially because when ever I go to the American History section of a book store rows and rows of books are dedicated to the Civil War. But maybe Fredrich Nietzsche is right in his suggestion happiness often requires a degree of forgetting the past (Blight). And after tragic events we have to move on, we are every day faced with an ever-changing present and that requires us to forget, maybe "to forget" is not the right word but "to shuffle away" things in order to move one. Douglass and Tocqueville both seem to agree that "As a people, Americans had always tend to reject the past and embraces newness." 


Is that true? I know most of us always want the newest gadgets, the newest thing in technology but have we have embraced the newness so much that we forget the past. For some things it is true. My post below (click here) is a collage of pictures from when I was younger...I posted them on my Facebook and my mom told me what was going on in them. I know for children we forget things before the age of five, it seems normal so I guess that is part of my forgotten past. But more historically I think it is true, we (every day people) can't remember every detail of the past that's why we have historians. But even still history is full of gaps. And I know as a wanna-be historian when studying history we look at history through our own lenses and that sadly blocks history from being told as well. Plus I know when I told people I was majoring in American History, and now going for my master's in History I know people look at me oddly because they think of history as a bunch of dates, dead people and every separate from them.So I think people have pushed the past behind them because it seems boring and not worth their time but I like the thought of history being a story of how we got to be where we are today and it leaves me with a sense of wonderment or mystery. Author Sam Wineburg in his article "Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts" quotes historian Richard White "Any good history begins in strangeness. The past should not be comfortable. The past should not be a familiar echo of the present, for if it is familiar why revisit it? The past should be so strange that you wonder how you and people you know and love could come from such a time." I agree with this we should view the history as a strangeness and maybe we won't ever fully understand it but I as a wanna-be historian I look forward to being a sort of detective.   

Clio the Muse of History

A Glimpse Back in Time

My Grandma, who passed away in early June, did scrap booking before scrap booking was popular. When we pulled out the photo albums to go through there was a ping pong table, a card table and a random little table full of photos. I grabbed a lot for myself. These are a few of my favorites.

Rainy Days

 

Found at Rambling of a Housewife

The last few days it has been raining here in Boston. Usually I like the rain I think of London or Paris and it nice and peaceful. I sometimes find I am at most creative when it is raining outside... I don't really know why. I used to have a job in a quiet museum gift shop and when it rained there was hardly any crowds and I could get a lot of writing done in the rain. I even like the way the air smells when a storm is about to come.

I think dramatic moments in stories should happen in the rain like when Marianne meets Willoby.

Found at Jane Austen Today

Or when Hugh Grant and Andie MacDowell finally get together at the end of Four Weddings and a Funeral.

Found at Guardian.co.uk

And the most important of Cinematic history in Singing in the Rain after Gene Kelly kisses Debbie Reyolnds he dances around in the rain storm with out a care in the world.

Found at Daily Postal.com

There are probably 1,000s more where rain is used in movies. But see rain is inspiring. It is also seems fresh, like a wash away of what has happened and new starts.

But today I did not feel fresh or inspired I felt blah. It was hard motivating myself to get out of bed and to go through my morning routine. I just wanted to stay under the covers and do nothing. Granted this is a good way to spend rainy days too... but I had to get out of bed and go to work. And by the time I got to work I felt soaked through... not fun.

So rain even though I love you I am asking you to go away so I can enjoy some dry times. Thank you.

On a more positive note I am suppose to be getting Internet at home today so I can work on posting more of The Sisters of Pine Haven.