Improve your English with Downton Abbey Characters. Episode 3

This is one of the central episodes of the whole Downton story. The impact of the events on the characters’ lives is tremendous. Not only does it affect what happens later, but it also brings about an important internal change in some of the people, especially Mary. In fact, this is the first in the series of events that eventually made her a very different person from the one we saw in the beginning.

1. Answer the questions:

1. What is Gwen’s secret? What are her hopes for the future and why is she so insecure about it?

2. How has Cora’s attitude to Matthew changed?

3. What is the real reason of Edith’s showing Matthew the churches? How successful is she?

4. In what ways does Kemal Pamuk surprise the family, especially Mary?

5. What is the limb corrector supposed to do?

6. What does Kemal mean by saying to Thomas “I’ll have to report you”? What is likely to happen to Thomas as a result of ‘reporting”?

7. What new things do we learn abour Mary from the bedroom scene with Pamuk? What does she mean by saying “I’m not such a rebel as people think”?

8. Why do you think it is Cora who Anna decides to wake up and ask for help, and not anyone else?

9. How does Napier feel about Mary? Do you think he suspects anything?

10. How has Mary changed after the tragedy?

11. In what way does getting rid of the ‘limb corrector’ change Bates?

12. There are three servants now who know parts of Pamuk story. Who are they? How serious is the danger of the secret being found out?

2. The episode is fairly dramatic, but there is a lot of humour in it. What do these people mean by saying:

Edith: ‘She (Mary) likes to be at the kill’.

The Duchess: ‘No Englishman would dream of dying in someone else’s house’.

Robert didn’t mean this line to be funny, but it is, in the context of the story:

‘We must have a care for feminine sensibilities: they are finer and more fragile than our own’.

What is funny about it, and what does it tell us about Robert?

3. Sybil says “I think it’s terrific when people make their own lives. Especially women.” What does it say:

1) about her attitude to women’s rights?

2) about her attitude to her own life?

4. More discussion questions:

1) Mary’ s words “We are not in control of anything at all’ refer to people in general, but also to the upper classes, who until then had probably believed they could control everything. The forthcoming episodes will show how true this is. What other things do you think the Crawleys and the other aristocrats might soon lose control of? Remember, it’s 1913.

2) How much do you agree with Mrs Hughes when she says “We all carry scars: inside or outside”?