MovieChat Forums > Brideshead Revisited (1982) Discussion > General Strike?

General Strike?

posted 11 years ago by Hypatia42
12 replies | jump to latest

I'm watching the series right now and I have not read the book. I'm hoping someone can clarify something for me. In episode seven Charles returns from Paris to help out during the strike. He is seen delivering milk and his and other trucks are attacked by protesters.

Now I admit I had to Google this bit, but the General Strike occurred when union workers stopped working for 9 days in support of coal miners whose salary had already been cut almost in half and hours were reduced went on strike. The miners were literally locked out of their jobs (the gates to the mines and factories literally locked), so they went on strike. In response to the inner-city strikers, the government asked for upper-class and middle-class gentlemen to volunteer and fill the vacant jobs.

What I don't understand is what Charles was doing there. He is portrayed as poorer and more plebeian (or perhaps more down to Earth) than Sebastian throughout the series. Why exactly has he returned to England and why does he have an opinion on the strike? It seems an illogical interlude. Does he have political or class opinions in the book that are absent from the series? If so, what are they and from what do they stem?

[–] MidniteRambler 11 years ago

Charles is not plebeian by any measure. He is rich without being hugely wealthy like the Flytes. In the book his father - who doesn't work and appears to live off his capital - gives him an allowance of £550 per annum, or eleven pounds a week. This was a monumental sum of money. At the time this was about five times the rate of pay of a working man in the north of England, say, who would earn £2 or £3 per week to keep his whole house and family. They live in a sumptuous house in Bayswater and have servants. He is not poor.

He has an opinion on the strike because there was revolution in the air across Europe - both right wing and left wing. Mussolini was already in power in Italy and Hitler had already attempted one coup d'etat in Germany; not to mention the Russian Revolution at the end of the first word war. Such a revolution threatened the entire way of life of people like Charles as much as Sebastian. He was a natural Tory/conservative and very decidedly upper class.

[–] Hypatia42 11 years ago

Is your last paragraph based on something in the book, or are you using your own knowledge of the historical period? (I'm not criticizing, just curious.)

[–] MidniteRambler 11 years ago

"..the history so often repeated of late... from all parts of Europe... a composite picture of 'Revolution'..."

That's a direct quote from the book. Waugh was writing less than twenty years after the General Strike of '26 and the people of forties Britain were his target audience. Anyone reading Brideshead in the late forties would know what had been going on in the aftermath of the First World War as well as we know about Clinton and Lewinsky or 9/11 or the First Gulf War. In fact, the fear of revolution in Europe in the twenties, given the consequences in Russia, for instance, was a far bigger story than Clinton, 9/11 and the Gulf War combined in this era.

So the answer to the question in your post is 'both'.

I think it is worth bearing in mind that Charles's upper class and conservative opinions and attitudes are supposed to be seen as being as ingrained and as axiomatic as those of the landed aristocracy. They should be taken as being as read as the political sympathies of a miner or shipyard worker of the day. If you want to understand those you should get the first series of When the Boat Comes In, a drama set in the north-east of England at precisely the same time as Brideshead but amongst the working classes. It is quite as good as Brideshead.

[–] murdoch1111 11 years ago

@ MidniteRambler on Tue Dec 11 2012 00:52:21

Excellent comments. Thanks.

[–] murdoch1111 11 years ago

@ MidniteRambler on Thu Nov 15 2012 14:09:59

Everything you say is correct. Thank you for making the comment.

[–] dizexpat 11 years ago

Did you see the house where Charles' father lives? It is not the house of a poor person.

I think they could be described as Upper Middle-Class, as opposed to rich.

Hair today. Goon tomorrow.

[–] murdoch1111 11 years ago

@dizexpat on Mon Dec 10 2012 20:16:54

You're absolutely correct in what you say, as you usually are. Thank you for your excellent comment.

[–] Troll_Dahl 11 years ago

The Ryders are upper-middleclass. They live in a very nice house and have servants. They may look down to earth compared to the Flytes, but they evidently aren't poor. I can't recall what Edward Ryder's profession may have been.

We know that Charles came back to England to help with the necessary labor during the strike and I get the impression, from his voiceover narration, that a reactionary spirt of patriotism convinced him it was the right thing at the time. It's funny, though, to consider the situation as an American viewer today. I can't picture a strike ever being dealt with in that way today, at least not where I come from. If the government here called for wealthier people to volunteer to take on labor jobs, there would probably be accusations of communism. It seems to suggest a degree of collectivism ("all in it together") that's foreign to capitalist economies today.

'Irregardless' is not a word

[–] AllieMDA 8 years ago

The Ryders are upper-middleclass. They live in a very nice house and have servants. They may look down to earth compared to the Flytes, but they evidently aren't poor. I can't recall what Edward Ryder's profession may have been.

The reason you can't recall Edward Ryder's profession is because he did not have a profession. The reason he did not have a profession is because he did not need to. As Charles remarks in the book, his father "just lives alone in London...and footles about collecting things."
The Ryders were not landed gentry, as the Flytes, but they were certainly members of the gentry.

BTW this is all a metaphor for the story. The landed gentry were on their way to obsolescence, to make way for a new and vastly different economy, all going on, while Lord Marchmain, a member of that social class, hangs on to and then slowly loses his life.

[–] Troll_Dahl 8 years ago

Thanks for the note… yes, that makes sense. Not sure why I imagined Edward Ryder might have been some sort of a professional.

Om Shanti

[–] AllieMDA 8 years ago

Not sure why I imagined Edward Ryder might have been some sort of a professional.

Well, he IS old and curmudgeonly; watching this now, 2015, it is easy to take the character as a retired whatever than a person who has been like that for his entire life :)

His background is intentionally murky. Though they already were already married and had a child, he stayed in England while his wife went off and died in the war? WWI, that is. And when Mr. Ryder speaks of his sister who came along to attend to his young son Charles, he announces almost gleefully that he "drove her out in the end"? As someone - I think Sebastian - says, "How very odd."

He's also hysterical! The part is marvelous. Olivier turned it down in favor of Lord Brideshead, and is known to have regretted that choice afterwards. Well, however it came about, John Gielgud is brilliant as the murky and mysterious Ryder-the-Elder.

Another interesting angle is that even this man, who seems to dislike everyone - or at least finds them all quite dull - does not escape the charm of Sebastian.

[–] Troll_Dahl 8 years ago

Interesting… here in the US, we'd tend to think of someone of Ryder's class being a business magnate or perhaps in the financial "industry"--something white-collar. I'd momentarily forgotten that noveau-riche doesn't really enter the Brideshead picture.

Om Shanti