” … to give way to them is to conform to rules set down by the evil-minded … Ross to Jinny upon her saying she will quit because social talk has accused her of sexual infidelity to Jim with Ross (Graham’s Demelza, Bk 1, Ch 14)
“Who is given a second chance?” (Verity to Blamey, Wheeler script, 1975)
“Poverty doesn’t offend me, nor does aspiration. But you are mistaken of you think greed and exploitation are the marks of a gentleman” (Ross to George, Horsfield Script, 2015)
Verity (Norma Streader) assuring Blamey she will now elope with him as they both have been tested for years (Wheeler script, 1975 Poldark 7)
Demelza (Eleanor Tomlinson) defending herself for having helped Verity to choose her own life (well-acted but fudged words in Horsfield’s script, 2015 Poldark 7)
Dear friends and readers,
This week our preface must go beyond the usual dual caveats: the blog assumes the reader has seen the whole of the 1975 mini-series and knows the first 4 Poldark books pretty well (Ross Poldark, Demelza, Jeremy Poldark, Warleggan) and at least read all 12; I think highly of the books and write as a film and 18th century scholar out of an interest in comparative film adaptation (intertextuality is the fashionable term) and depictions of the 18th century in historical fiction and film.
At the close of the BBC Episode 7, Aiden Turner as Ross deeply hurt and puzzled by how Demelza has behaved to him (Horsfield’s script and reading)
Many US readers this week may have viewed the “finale” of the PBS Poldark series. They will have seen a smushed-up version of the last two episodes of the Horsfield series which cover the second half of Demelza. This time not only were 7 minutes cut from each episode which considering the brevity of most of the scenes and dialogue in this new Poldark until the 4th and 6th and this 7th episode (they are longer, which helps account for the superiority of these episodes), means a good deal; but the necessary re-arrangement this causes (the way movies make coherent is careful juxtapositions of scenes) is greater as they had to marginalize the first climax. This was done by (for example) cutting bits (I imagine the rhythms) of the painful close of Horsfield’s Episode 7 where (as in Graham’s book) Ross tells Demelza in hard unforgiving tones if she is going to be unhappy because the Poldark family is now estranged due to her interference on behalf of Verity, then she is going to be unhappy for a long time. Already foreshortened, the Mark-Keren-Enys story was reduced and scenes from Verity and Blamey’s continuing relationship by letters and joyous union.
Such as it is, it is in my view a testament to the strength of second half of Graham’s Demelza and Horsfield’s fidelity to those aspects of Demelza tracing an increase of disparate thoughts and feeling between Ross and Demelza, that the first hour of the finale remained compelling. For those who saw this version and want to read an intelligent detailed reaction to it, I recommend Anibundel’s No Infidelity Goes Unpunished. See also my comments explaining some queries she had in her blog (on diseases, the customary rights to scavenge, &c)
That Anibundel interpreted the material this way comes from her reliance on the 2015 Poldark which obscures a more complicated thoughtful questioning of the mores of the 20th century through the presentation of a version of the 18th: Graham suggests to his reader that there is a higher fidelity than obedience to law (in the book seen to be product of upper class interests), and (this is where his choice of the 1780s and 90s pro-revolution, radical and romantic period comes in) group customs and demands which are often perverse and counterproductive: Verity is allegorically named: she speaks and sees complicated truths from the time we meet her, which paradoxically weakens her against those who would use, control, and dominate her, but does not make her any the less deeply right. Verity has the right to choose her own life, the right not to be exploited to the point of non-fulfillment of her own if it hurts no one else. As did Ross in marrying Demelza who, like Verity, threw off an oppressive restricting family. And their decisions will not and do not hurt anyone else: the only hurt Verity inflicts is on Francis’s male ego. Ross’s decision is felt to undermine the ontological status of the upper class but as the characters in reality think of their own narrow interest, finally (in the book) the real hurt inflicted is on Elizabeth who had herself made the first of two bad husband choices. Ross tells her at one point that she dislikes anyone to say the honest truth: she does because she fears the risk following this entails.
This idea of truth to an authentic existence underlies Shelley’s and Byron’s poetry, much of the thought of the philosophes and political radicals like Thomas Paine: what? if slavery has been the law for centuries, that does not make it right. Truth to what’s in your heart is simpler and voiced by Blake. A conflict between group demands and the heart’s deeper impulses may be found in Cowper, Austen (as long as the heart is educated to be ethical), especially strongly in Crabbe (whose poetry Austen loved). If you find yourself punished by the powerful you hurt when you do this (as Ross does by George Warleggan), that is the price of the ticket you have chosen (as James Baldwin famously put it). You can of course choose wealth and position; that is George’s choice; there is a price to be paid there too.
I concede this idea is just about altogether lost in the soft way Verity’s escape is presented in Episode 7 of the 1975 film, and is overtly contradicted in Horsfield’s script, but will maintain it actuates the 1975 depiction (Episode 8) of the scavenger riots that evolves when (in the book) under the pressure of madness, depression, a desire to strike out against an unjust order, Julia’s death, motivates Wheeler’s Ross to awaken Jud to tell him to tell everyone there is a wreck and flotsam and jetsam for all on the beach, and then disappear. But that is for next week.
This blog is just on Episode and like last week’s begins with the book and then moves on to each film adaptation, with the aim of the comparison to show the different readings of the films. Honesty though compels me to say the 1975 film is better art, more thoughtful and consistent, worked out carefully at all points. I find the perspectives Horsfield invented (making Keren a slut, Enys a weak fool) and her adherence to group conformity as wisdom in life harder to take. She allows George Warleggan, a ruthless capitalist, liar, to utter conformist axioms we are supposed to think right.
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Graham’s Demelza:
Book 3, the matter covered in both Episodes 7 begins in July 1789. We have just experienced Demelza’s abrasive experiences at the ball; seen Enys and Keren’s love-making over his medical books at night, heard Nicholas and George Warleggan vow to destroy the Carnemore Copper Company because Sanson exposed and their business interests threatened.
Chapter 1: Verity’s escape: the child wants her to read to him; she slips away; comic scene of Jud in church contains real protest against the hypocrisies of these ceremonies. Chapter 2: Home to discover Verity’s note; Francis’s rage and blaming Ross, Elizabeth’s demurral (you have no proof, could have been Demelza); George Warleggan turns up to gift Geoffrey Charles, woo Elizabeth and successfully pressure and bribe Francis into telling.Warleggan comes to bribe him with a gift of 1200 pounds (forgiving one debt and cash for the other) Francis truly thinking that Ross had been gobetween again, betrayed Ross by telling Warleggan the names of the men in Ross’s new company. . It was Francis’s information that allowed this. Francis is frantic to keep believing this and then at the close Demelza coming over to tell it was she, precipates his rage — against himself too
Chapter 3 Andrew and Verity home together to joy at last. Chapter 4: Mark home early (how he is respected by young boy and fellows); goes to Enys’s house and realizes that a sexual liaison going on between Enys and Keren; comes back to house, Keren arrives; he confronts her and in an ensuing struggle, they fight by a window, she hangs out to escape him, and he strangles her. It could be an accident, but he wants to kill her, to blot her out because she has not loved him, and there is an allusion to Shakespeare’s Othello, with poignant imagery about her as vulnerable.
Chapter 5: Ross’s dreams of smelting, wakened by found body of Keren; Enys distraught; he loved Keren by this time, he feels guilt at his betrayal of his status in the community (that is what he used he feels); Ross to goes to the Daniels to offer Paul his boat for Mark’s getaway but no one must know (Vigus mentioned). He does not want to see Mark hanged; again the idea is the sentence is disproportionate. (Readers have felt this repeat murder of an unfaithful wife is misogynistic on Graham’s part.) Chapter 6: Nampara: Elizabeth to Ross telling him note that Verity is gone, implying Ross knows; Enys’s desperate visit to Demelza seeking solace, validation from Demelza; Ross brings in Mark and Paul.
Chapter 7: Near confrontation: Mark wants to kill Enys; a trap Mark says; not so Ross replies and helps Mark hide, the coming of McNeil; don’t underestimate McNeil Ross tells Demelza. He is an agent of the state, he is there to stop smugglers and execute the state’s justice. Chapter 8: a powerful scene of escape through tide: “Heavy windless rain set in as night fell. ” So Ross due to fidelity to a friend a second disobedience to law by helping Mark Daniel to escape the law when he murders his adulterous wife, Karen.
Chapter 9: McNeil and Ross’s dialogue with McNeil’s friendly warning: the law is a twisty thing and if you get caught, you will not get loose. McNeil though sympathetic to Ross; Ross goes to Sir John Trevaunce to sound him out on keeping Carnemore Copper going (he doesn’t give in), gets nowhere, Trevaunce inveighing against “that man Fox” (he is a Tory, unsympathetic to Ross).
Chapter 10: Demelza’s conscience leads her to go confess to Francis who throws her out; all Ross’s partners desert him as they get their letters calling in loans, they are not bankrupted but could be, and several forced to pay up owed loans, and it comes to Ross the only one not there who knew was Francis (name not mentioned). Chapter 11: Ross home and bitter with loss; Demelza confesses; he goes cold with rage at her betrayal; he does not want to hurt her (“you’ll get cold”); what has she done, she tries to sleep (scene of estrangement in bed) and he does not even try
Book 4: Christmas Eve 1789. Chapter 1: Verity’s letter to Demelza: her happiness and gratitude, now has the life to live she wanted to and could. Family and business, politics and gender are utterly intertwined in the world — seen in Forgotten Story and Cordelia (the mysteries are far more fantastic romance than the historical novels). Demelza did it.
A bleak Christmas ensues ….
For a more detailed exposition with themes worked out see Demelza, A Cornish world mirroring our own.
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The 1975, Episode 7: series of variations on the conflicts of sexual passion with family obligation, driving ambition and personal desires with morality. Scene arrangements juxtapose Keren’s infidelity to George Warleggan’s treachery and then to Francis’s betrayal of Ross. Verity stays to nurse Geoffrey Charles first (she does not in the book so 1975 film making her more exemplary). In 1975 film Francis betrays the Carnemore Copper Company before he learns of Verity’s flight so Demelza’s act made less consequential than book or 2015 film.
The paratexts: the alluring musical theme and the sun glinting on that mine tower, the starving striking men gathered; as in 2105 we see Ross on horseback riding; crashing waves and music.
POV is us, immersion in walking up the hill of a rocky town on a seacoast. Now inside, in a small house Verity is getting her things ready with Blamey; he shows bottle of liquor he keeps in a cupboard, it’s the legacy for the next tenants of this house. She’s not got her bags; she assures him she can slip off by herself from Trenwith. She wants to say goodbye especially to Geoffrey Charles whom she has bonded with. He worries somehow she’s not going to come back; why go back at all, their new house is ready. He “let’s go direct to Falmouth, the devil with your wardrobe.” She seems fearless and says she has no hesitations or doubts but rather regards herself as “the most fortunate woman. Who else is given a second chance as she has been?” He: “Please my dear be careful.”
Enys trying to explain to Ross and Jinny what happened
Ross telling grieving Jinny when she is ready to return to Nampara for salary and help, ignore rumors, he says
Switch to a neat hovel and a hand putting a sheet over face of dead Jim Carter. Ross sitting to the side of Jinny, says “it’s been months since we bought him out.” Why did he die? Enys says “the poor fellow lost will to live,” and Ross tells Ginny there’s a place for her at Nampara and not to let herself be guided by fear of crowd pressure.
Demelza warning Keren, moralizing, Keren says it’s easy for Demelza who lives in comfortable house with educated man
A scene of Demelza giving Keren presents. Keren tells Demelz a bit of her history; she joined company to get away from father who didn’t give her a minute’s peace since she became 10; sexual abuse is what’s implied. Demelza says now we both be wed to good men, and Keren laughs and insists on differences of lifestyle and man. “I’m alone shivering in that hovel” and Demelza lives a comfortable life with a respected man. Keren becomes critical of Mark and then when Demelza says there is gossip about her, Keren sarcastic “About me, oooh how exciting.” The parallel here is Keren’s lack of loyalty and appreciation of Mark with George Warleggan’s ruthless desire to undermine Francis Poldark and take from him Elizabeth and Geoffrey Charles — though undermining his pride in himself. Keren is pitied but the sense is she is wrong.
Enys leaves Geoffrey Charles in Verity’s hands
Elizabeth utterly self-absorbed, though frantically worried about child
Then Verity comes in to Trenwith and feels that is something wrong. Elizabeth emerges with an accusation: “where have you been? its Geoffrey” who has “the morbid sore throat” (diptheria) The doctor is now Enys (Choake dismissed for bette man) assumes Verity will do it all. Enys “the chld will need constant attention; he needs Verity” Enys dosen’t trust Elizabeth; illness is most contagious — we have foreshadowing of how Francis will get it. Blamey’s vigil the next day and Verity does not come. The camera on Verity caring for Geoffrey Charles; the note to Blamey. Blamey’s deep distress and anger, and he resorts to breaking things on the table.
Clive Francis as shamed Francis, grateful to Verity, Enys
Trenwith: Francis has genuine decency in him (as does Keren) and comes forth from Geoffrey Charles’s bedroom: “I feel so helpless,” and attempts to talk to Elizabeth for the first time in a long while, but George Warleggan intrudes. Elizabeth tells Warleggan stay, what they were saying was of no importance. Elizabeth insists Francis sees George alone. She is blind to what George is, and Francis is not.
Ralph Bates as Warleggan holding out 600 pounds, and Francis cannot resist
George gives Francis 600 pounds,” to which Francis says “I don’t want payment” George says this is to make up what Samson cheated Francis of.” Francis knows better, irritated by the man’s adeptness in social hypocrisies and piety. All George did was prompt Francis into betraying cousin, “an act he finds damnably hard to live with” and he goes out the door. Elizabeth says to Verity she will tend the child herself and Francs will help. Verity: “had you only said this yesterday.” Elizabeth all selfishness; unlike book Francis betrayed Ross well before Verity eloped.
Our knowledge of Francis’s treachery and his guilt then comes before the board meeting, the others not coming because found out and pressured by Warleggan. Credit to be stopped and mortgages called in unless they abandon the business at once. They insinuate it was Francis. Ross insists on proof “my cousin played Judas.”
At the mine, Mark hears unsavoury insinuations about Enys and Keren; Mark hears, go savage, breaks down the level and is buried by rocks. He is almost killed. A wound in his head. They tell Mark to go home.
Long scene between Enys and Keren as lovers: moving intimate scene
Camera on Enys house and then Keren in his bed; the two in bed. Camera switches to Mark in the empty house and sees empty bed. Night passes and now it’s morning and Enys is waking with an empty space beside his bed, Keren readying herself to leave. She says she must leave Mark and this place and soon and go back to Bristol. Enys does not love her; Enys says he felt that way was 6 months ago, now he cannot bear to lose her. He does love her but he cannot leave his patients and practice. He says he will find a way, trust me, we shall be together, now she doesn’t mind however long.
Powerful theatrical scene
She goes out and we see her from Marks’ vantage. Very powerful camera work as we watch her gayly strolling, then she feels a presence, it’s him. His shadow overcasts her and there is expressionistic TV The gestures are slow and symbolic as he strangles her. The camera show her splayed out among the rocks, her lovely clothes blowing up from wind.
Same morning: Ross and Demelza eating breakfast. He tells her Carnemore Copper Company is dead. She is naive enough really to have thought George meant to be a friend. Ross says it may have been Francis. Silence. MacNeil comes into the house with his soldiers. Donald Douglas plays an important new character who emerges in the last part of Demelza and is important in Jeremy Poldark. He stands for the state and he and Ross will come to direct odds in a number of larger issues: his troop detailed to stamp out smuggling and collect excise. He stands for law not morality; he is an agent of the state and later works for Warleggan. In the book and 1975 film he and Ross are men who recognize one another as equals and talk as if friends, two intelligent men.
Enys distraught on shore
Now he’s here to say Mistress Daniel is dead. The camera switches to Demelza, Ross looking at body. Enys rushes down from his nearyby tower, he is distraught. Now at Nampara: Demelza pouring wine, handing it to Dwight Enys. Dwight: “twas my fault.” I don’t think so” Ginny’s lack of any sympathy for this woman who was not loyal to the working man. Dwight feels shamed and wants to leave; Ross says you must not — there is a powerful pasage in the book expressing this moment. Ross: “How can you not continue to leave here; you think you can make your peace by leaving.” You cannot. You will not solve anything by leaving.”
Trenwith: Elizabeth feeding Geoffrey Charles; Francis says they must tell Verity that the child is better. She will be so happy. “Where is she?” he’s not seen her all morning. Elizabeth gives him the letter from Verity, Elizabeth reads, Francis intensely hurt, and the stream of talk becomes Verity in voice-over to her climbing hill to Blamey.
Free at last
She is with Blamey. A moving scene. So sometimes breaking away is right.
Francis incensed, and Demelza astonished to discover how she is despised, and that he did betray Ross
A painful scene where Demelza comes to Francis to tell him she helped Verity not Ross; he derides and snubs her: “I refuse to discuss the affairs of my sister with the likes of you.” Demelza: “I came to try and make friends” Demelza explains that she and Ross are ruined if Carnemore Company fails, and we see another motive for Francis’s having betrayed Ross: jealousy. Francis “Now that he is ruined perhaps he will understand what I have had to endure of later ….” We see his jealousy and envy of Ross’s position, character, it’s far more than Elizabeth that motivates him. Demelza sees he is the betrayer: “So it was you.”
Demelza for once fires up, defending what she did for Verity, why she went to Francis, but before Ross can react, Mark at window and is let in:
Ross now advising Mark
Nampara: she tells Ross what Francis said: “so what did you expect, hmmm” The 1975 film entirely skips Ross’s blaming Demelza, and presents Ross as sympathetic to Verity but would not have helped as his loyalty is to family first. Ginny serves a meal, and Mark there at the window. How they all feel for him. He hid in water of Wheal Grace; the plan to help him escape by Ross’s boat. Mark saw load of copper in Wheal Grace. MacNeil and men at door and they hide him from MacNeil. MacNeil sees the blood and wet by the window. Here as in the book we do have wife-murder in effect condoned. Othello is never condoned.
We conclude out on that wild seashore: Ross is leading Daniel down to a small boat by the Nampara cove, pushes the boat in and they see soldiers running up on beach. Ross does nto desert but helps Mark get afloat, then he runs. In final moment Ross is being shot at directly by MacNeil’s orders. Close ups back and forth of MacNeil’s and then Ross’s face. A final far shot of Mark rowing out to the Atlantic for his life and Ross fleeing to the house. Very powerful.
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See continuation in comments: 2015 Episode 7; concluding remarks on the three versions.
Ellen
Ellen And Jim Have A Blog, Two 
The 59 minute BBC Episode 7: It is strong but relies centrally on quick juxtaposed scenes, a strong use of music and movement. As the ones between Keren and Mark are so dismaying perhaps it was better to cut but without them Ross’s sympathy (as seen by Horsfield because it was an accident) and his helping Mark flee would make no sense. It makes Ross guilty twice of ignoring the law which is I suppose her point. He will be taught a “lesson.”
It opens very like the 1975, a mine, crashing waves, rocks, Ross careening across landscape. The first scene is of Blamey and Verity — only wordless and quick. Blamey arrives in landscape, puts a letter in rock, pulls one out, Demelza comes along, takes new letter and gives it to Verity who smiles.
Switch to Warleggan home, doorframe: we see George pressuring someone to stop providing services to Carnemore Copper Company or his loans will be called in. Move to tavern where Francis is warning Ross his company cannot succeed, but unlike previous scenes between them, more like opening of mini-series, Francis means well, wishes Ross could succeed.
In Keren and Mark’s cottage (not a hovel); she has not made him a good supper, she is belligerent and says she has been helping Enys with his work, he is hurt, she sneers.
Group of quick-moving juxtaposed scenes: Jud is insulting Ross very drunk, and Prudie angry at him, Demelza sits by saying little; switch to Verity looking out window at her brother, Elizabeth and child walking in garden, she prisoner; Ross passes by a wanton Keren (clearly out for sex), back to Nampara and Jud’s insults grow worse, Jinny’s child is Ross’s, Ross suddenly there and fires both.
Slower moment of Ross and Demelza at table where he concedes he feels sorry for Prudie who will now not have a salary. He reasonable now. Juxtaposed to Francis and Elizabeth finding the letter and Francis leaping to conclusion it’s Ross who did this; Elizabeth says he has no proof, and he will not listen. He wants to believe Ross did this — out of whack with earlier scene.
We then get a slightly longer scene where we see Enys doctoring men at the mine; Mark will not go over for help; Ross comes over to warn Enys hintingly and Enys just looks helpless. Quick switch to Verity and Blamey meeting and riding away; switch back to longer fight between Francis and Elizabeth.
Francis irrationally incensed at Elizabeth but she obtuse for insisting without trying to persuade him. Quick switch to Keren at Enys’s door, he opens and she pushes in. Back to Francis and Elizabeth. But now George shows up and Francis is just as fooled as Elizabeth by George’s apparent friendship; Horsfield’s George offer 1200 pounds (much more than 1975 George; in book Graham’s George forgives Francis loans of 600 and gives him 600 in hand). Switch to scene of Enys being seduced away from medical laboratory by Keren, wordless, and they go to bed.
Back and forth some more with final switch to George and Francis and while clearly conflicted, even anguished from his gesures in front of George, Francis now gives names of Carnemore copper company to George. We do have some insinuating words here. It’s interesting that Francis never unbends in front of the moralistic ever right Elizabeth but does so in front of the hypocritical smooth-talking George. It is true that in both book and 2015 version Francis betrays Ross after Verity flees on the grounds Ross caused that.
More quick montage back and forth: Mark comes home to empty cottage; we see Jud and Prudie wandering in wilderness with nowhere to go; Demelza and Ross receive letter from Francis which implies Ross knew and Ross immediately goes over to express sympathy. Switch to Mark accusing Keren and Keren beginning to beat him up. She is violent first, and he is defending himself and kills her by mistake. (This is such anti-feminism as to stun me — it misrepresents violence between men and women; it is overwhelmingly men who beat and kill women.) In a longer scene with words, Ross is astonished at accusation; even worse that he is not believed. Elizabeth believes, but Francis digs in heels and will not.
After telling the names directly after bribe and this scene of rejecting Ross, Francis seems utterly despicable. Horsfield must’ve hated Graham’s character. She does all she can to present him as someone we should scorn. Why does she not hate George Warleggan? Instead she has a sneaking sympathy for this ruthless amoral capitalist conformist.
More quick turns: Ross now seen approached by Paul Daniels and Zacky Martin to say Mark has killed Keren by accident; Horsfield’s Ross is first of three to talk immediately about law and distance himself, but when he realizes it was an accident he wants to prevent hanging. The coming of McNeil who is here made into a friend of Ross’s from America (as was Enys). He is looking for smugglers and Mark. Lots of juxtaposition again, all quick.
But we do have one long long touching scene of Verity and Blamey marrying, and then having dinner (mostly silent). These are beautifully acted and sweet moments:
This is put there for juxtaposition with final anguished scene of Ross and Demelza.
Now we see Demelza go to Trenwith to tell Francis, a longer powerful scene where at first he sneers and doesn’t believe but when he realizes that Ross did not know, he rages at Ross for marrying such an asinine woman as Demelza. In his eyes we see he understands what an act of betrayal he’s done. The series insists that all the Carnemore Copper people are now broke.
So Demelza home to tell Ross and for the longest scene Horsfield follows the book where Ross berates Demelza, alienated and turns from her at first because she lied to him, all this time (and she did, especially in this 2015 series she was made to lie superfluously), he refuses to comfort her and she is left desolate. The juxtaposition has the unfortunate effect of he idea is no good deed (Demelza’s) goes unpunished (probably not intended).
And so the episode ends as does Book 3 of Graham’s Demelza.
The strength and complexity of Graham’s second book comes out in these two conflicting adaptations. The comparison has brought out the power and precision of Wheeler’s script, the unintended inferences of Horsfield’s, though her Episode 7 has power too. I cannot understand why she does not allow her scenes to be longer and have less intertwining. If she dislikes a set of characters, then eliminate them. The 1975 film is spectacularly good — though it departs considerably from the book by entwining several episodes together in ways they are not in the book and softening Ross’s response to Demelza’s infidelity to the family and lying to him. The 2015 film has power, especially in its longer one-on-one scenes. The actors project what they have within them.
In Graham’s book and the 1975 Episode 7 Francis is not despicable: yes he gives in for the money but he knows — he knows — Warleggan is an utter hypocrite, and never likes or trusts him and for the moment does think Ross betrayed him. And when he realizes his mistake — that it was Demelza hates her and now hates himself – he feels terrible he has ruined Ross’s dreams, Ross who so long ago was his closest friend.
I’ve been listening to Oliver Hembrough read aloud Graham’s Ross Poldark and sometimes listening to a novel read aloud you gather things you had not heard (in the tones) in your own reading. So Hembrough has brought it home to me that it was the Paynters who put it about that Ross was dead. I never realized this before. Jud was selling off Ross’s horses and furniture, and Prudie didn’t care. Horsfield does not use this but this thread in the novel suggests the more genial depiction of Jud and Prudie in 1975 was white-washing and Horsfield’s depiction of the pair as nasty, idle, cold may be said to pick up on this..
From my historical comments and comments on the difference between PBS smushed-episode and the book on Anibundel:
I’ve watched Episode 7 separately of both the 1975 and 2015 series; yes much much more time given to Verity and Blamey and at least some time to Keren-Mark-Enys. We don’t even call the latter Dwight, that’s how much the character is sidelined and marginalized. He is not a Dr Lydgate (how he’s presented in the 2015 film doing experimental medicine on his own in the dark of the nights until interrupted — it’s from Middlemarch) and does have a longer affair with Keren. But he’s the opposite to Choake and in book and 1975 film he plays a strong role in the medical scenes.
Which gets me to the medical terms. The morbid sore throat was diptheria. Julia dies of diptheria and Francis almost does. It is a startling and significant change to have Elizabeth come nurse Demelza. That is not in the book or 1975 film at all. She’d never think to do that even if Demelza came to her. It’s dangerous for a start. And the relationship between them remains at a distance. Elizabeth tells Ross she still loves him. (Not that she’s at all like Keren and would never commit adultery or leave her husband.) It’s Prudie (a much better soul in book and 1975 film a surrogate sort of mother) and _Dr Enys_ who nurse Demelza and Julia with a little help from Ross. No bleeding. Dr Enys is of a new school and does not bleed nor cup people. Babies do badly when they get diptheria — whence the early invention of a vaccine once scientific medicine got underway in the 1920s to 30s.
Putrid is a word which referred to while phlegm and was understood to be a sign meaning this is contagious. So when “prison” or “hospital fever” (you get them in prison or the hospital) goes putrid, it is infectious. In Sense and Sensibility when Mrs Palmer’s baby has “putrid” fever that means it was infectious. Jim dies of gangrene but he was dying of “prison fever.” That’s typhus from terrible food and worse conditions; also includes lice. Upper class people washed and demanded lower class people find water somehow to avoid lice which was thought to bring on prison or hospital fever leading to putrid fever.
All serious diseases, and the terms used are historically accurate.
As to the scavenging riot – -that’s the term — it was understood that flotsam and jetsam upon a beach were okay to grab and take away for centuries. In the later 18th century the authorities start to try to clamp down and stop it as technological techniques had come in to make this stuff salvageable and sellable. Also smuggling became yet more rife (it’s a way to avoid a central tax, the excise) and the authorities worked hard from the 1790s to stop it as it was thought done by people who would start revolutions. The fear was another French revolution in Britain. The 1790s was like the 1950s in the US. There was a revolution in Ireland in 1798 and it was savagely repressed. Any way the custom of scavenging was clear and no jury will convict. Keep that in mind for next year. Graham is historically accurate.
What is not acceptable is riot. So to make it accurate: Ross does not lead the raid at all. He does tell Jud there’s flotsam and jetsam and Jud arouses the people. They need nothing else. They are near starvation and live in hovels. This is interesting: in the 1975 film the writers couldn’t bear to have Ross even start the raid. He tells Jud about it, but to let him know they need to stop it! He tries to stop the riot. Ellis is all good hero according to US and UK conservative values of the 1970s. You are saying that Horsfield takes it in the other direction and makes Ross a rioter. He was not in the book. Too depressed, too half-mad with grief and running about during the riot at first to no purpose. Then he thinks to invite the captain and some of the soldiers back to his house despite his frail wife — juts recovering from diptheria let us recall. That will help him in his trial too. Only George concocts yet more evidence and hires people to lie. Francis then switches allegiance for good — to Ross.
The later depiction of smuggling (Jeremy Poldark) which Ross does turn to as an accomplice (lends his beach) but not a doer is historically accurate too. It occurred all over the shores of England and was not stamped out until there was a bigger military and many many more police and “prevention men” (people hired to stop it, to find out information, to turn people in, spies on the people in effect).
Some of the people coming over here who criticize this blog are themselves not remembering from the book but only the 1975 film and reading. The earlier film differed from the book centrally by softening Ross’s anger at Demelza considerably, in fact sliding over it. In the 1975 film Ross quickly sympathizes with Demelza and is on Verity’s side — this is historically anachronistic; in the book he is very hard on Demelza for betraying _him_, for lying to him. How can he trust her after this? All cut from 1975 film — the film made all the viewers just love the romance of Ellis and Rees so the film-makers judged they had better eliminate that hard stuff from the book.
The book does not present the lives of the members of the Carnemore company ruined. That’s an addition from 1975 which seeks to blacken all anti-family and anti-capitalism maneuvers. Most of them get out early, several have other resources (how did they have any money in the first place to give Ross). They are pressured and threatened and get out and Ross’s company dies. So Demelza did not ruin anyone’s life — she did hurt her own and her baby died.
And Francis knows he is to blame, yes in both book and 1975 when Clive Francis says it is now very hard to live with himself. In the book Elizabeth does tell him he has no evidence, is not just — she lights into him for his incompetence in these areas of thinking and justice. 1975 she does not: Clive Francis was liked by the audience immensely and the film-makers began to soften what is in the book. In book and film Elizabeth is sorry for Demelza and also Francis (after a bit when he looks so miserable). He is livid at Demelza until near the end of Jeremy Poldark when he at last tells his real feelings and turns to look to Demelza for some kind of respect and friendship.
As usual, I recommend the books.
Someone objected my discussion of one of the themes of Graham’s Demelza is anachronistic..
My reply: I know I used modern or contemporary language to articulate the conflict is. I did this to make the idea accessible as one might in any essay. Another aspect of what I suggested is that through a particular era’s works we find repeats of the same angles on experience and themes. I cited far more people than Wollstonecraft. Crabbe for example. Emma Donoghue picks up on feminist themes from 18th & 19th century works in her historical novels
To me it’s the mark of a good historical novel if they pick up a conflict in the era they are setting their characters and stories in. It then becomes part of the usable past they are projecting and using to speak to modern readers. Such repeats connect us back too.
Ellen
[…] Poldark 7: Betrayal of the group; or A Higher Fidelity of the Heart, 3 versions […]
[…] Poldark 7: Betrayal of the group; or A Higher Fidelity of the Heart, 3 versions […]
I’m rewatching and have discovered a point of view across the new series I had not realized before: it is about projecting an identity, a group identity for the viewership through the characters. Seen from this angle, I didn’t do justice to those who are faithful to the group; they don’t obey out of superficial cant conformity, they endanger themselves, but they will not betray the group. This is Enys’s stance after he “falls” with Keren; it is Ross’s stance all along. It is arguably Elizabeth’s stance and ironically Verity’s who is also faithful to her heart and that of Blamey.