MovieChat Forums > Vanity Fair (1999) Discussion > question about one part.... help

question about one part.... help

posted 17 years ago by sonikbaby2000
2 replies | jump to latest

In episode 4 in the beginning. Becy and Rawdon are having a hard time making it. And she tells him to sell out of the army and move to the country. And he says ' how can we afford that?' and she says 'lots of people live with out any income a year'

Then the move into the really beautiful masion and the guy they rented it from is all bending over backwards for them buying new furniture... and she says something about how the landlord just really loves having important people in his house and wont care if they dont pay the rent. and they wont pay it for long enough that he will be stuck with them? or something to that effect?

I don't understand how this worked?

How did they manage that faniancial situation??

it doesnt make sense to me. Who was that landlord? and how did she find him? and how did she expect to get away without paying the rent???

[–] NewCliches 17 years ago

Raggles used to work for Miss Crawley, so I suppose he liked the idea of being a landlord to the Crawley family, where once he was a servant.

Becky hoped to worm her way into society and get some position for Rawdon e.g. Governor of Coventry Island. If she succeeded, they would be able to pay the back rent. If she failed, Raggles would get nothing.

Raggles' pride in having "great folk" as tenants caused him to let them get so far into debt that they had to succeed. He got into debt too, because he was receiving little income from the house. If they paid up, he would be able to pay his debts back.

If he kicked the Crawleys out, it would be obvious to his creditors that he would never be paid back, and would never be able to pay all his debts. Then each creditor would demand to be paid before all the others, and he would be driven into bankruptcy himself.

In the book it mentions that:

This was the way, then, Crawley got his house for nothing; for though Raggles had to pay taxes and rates, and the interest of the mortgage to the brother butler [whom he had borrowed money from]; and the insurance of his life; and the charges for his children at school; and the value of the meat and drink which his own family--and for a time that of Colonel Crawley too--consumed; and though the poor wretch was utterly ruined by the transaction, his children being flung on the streets, and himself driven into the Fleet Prison: yet somebody must pay even for gentlemen who live for nothing a year--and so it was this unlucky Raggles was made the representative of Colonel Crawley's defective capital.

[–] kprp 15 years ago

It's all about living on credit. Upper class people in those days had to keep up appearances (well, nothing new when compared to now, I guess!) and they took out loans and bought goods on credit.

An example of someone ruined by credit was Emma Bovary in Flaubet's Madame Bovary. She had wonderful furnishings and clothes, provided to her by the local loan shark. Eventually he came after his payment and she had nothing to give--I won't spoil the rest for you.