'Doctor Thorne' and why virtue rewarded is so boring to watch
In Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest," Miss Prism tells Cecily, the young woman for whom she serves as a companion, that in the three-volume novel "The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means." I thought of this line frequently while watching Julian Fellowes' miniseries adaptation of "Doctor Thorne," one of the novels in Anthony Trollope's Chronicles of Barsetshire series, which is streaming on Amazon. (As always, I must remind you that Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
Fellowes, in what I fear are a series of rather ponderous commentaries that frame the episodes, suggests that he wants to restore Trollope to the position Fellowes believes Trollope deserves. But "Doctor Thorne" is, sadly, rather less engaging than Fellowes' smash hit "Downton Abbey." And it's a perfect example of why fiction driven solely by the reward of virtue and the punishment of vice can often feel so dull.
"Doctor Thorne" revolves around Mary Thorne (Stefanie Martini), a virtuous young woman who is grieved to be informed by her uncle, Doctor Thomas Thorne (Tom Hollander), that she is illegitimate. Mary's lack of title or property had always been a barrier to her relationship with Frank Gresham (Harry Richardson), the eldest son of a titled family that has got itself perilously into debt to the rather puckish Sir Roger Scatcherd (Ian McShane) - if nothing else, Trollope is great at names - who has risen from ignominy to great wealth. But the details of her birth seem to render their romance impossible, until Sir Roger learns of her existence, and without her knowledge, changes his will to leave his fortune to Mary in case his son Louis (Edward Franklin) dies. (Spoiler: Louis, a dissolute drunk, dies.)
The plot mechanisms here work to some very satisfying ends, not least the moment when Doctor Thorne informs Frank's awful, snobbish mother that she has talked her son out of marrying the woman who now holds the power to call in the family's debt or to forgive it. But "Doctor Thorne" has a central flaw that prevents it from being thoroughly enjoyable: Neither Mary nor Frank has any personal characteristics beyond their basic virtuousness.
One of the reasons Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" remains a beloved work of fiction, and the source of a sturdy structure on which other artists can build their own stories, is that Austen had the good sense to recognize that her purely virtuous characters ought to be secondary.
The fates of Jane Bennet and Mr. Bingley's are important in that they motivate Lizzy Bennet and Mr. Darcy's behavior. But beyond their kindness and tractability, Jane and Bingley are not actually fascinating people. Lizzy and Mr. Darcy are far more psychologically complex characters: They're decent, as distinct from perfectly good, and capable of improvement, but equally capable of snobbery and damaging assumptions. As a result, Lizzy and Darcy's journey toward marital happiness involves not simply the working of external events, but changes in their own personalities. Virtue rewarded may be a satisfying and morally useful plotline, if a rather predictable one, but the events that produce the reward are inevitably more interesting that the people upon whom it is conferred.
Fellowes knew this instinctively in "Downton Abbey," a series that was wise enough to give its main characters plenty of intriguing character flaws. Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) had a strong tendency toward meanness, while Lady Edith (Laura Carmichael) overcomes her persistent jealousy and bad habit of sniping at her sister. Lady Sybil's (Jessica Brown Findlay) goodness pulled her in the direction of rebellion. And even poor Anna Bates (Joanne Froggatt), whose "Downton Abbey" arc hews most closely to Virtue Eventually Rewarded, is willing to play the occasional prank or broach a difficult conversation. Anna is good, but she's not completely buffed into blandness by that goodness.
"Doctor Thorne" isn't devoid of characters who don't fit neatly into the story's moral schema. Sir Roger succumbs to drink, in keeping with the story's cautions about the dangers of alcohol, but until his demise (which is, to be fair, necessary for the story), he's a puckish, irascible presence. And Frank's mother hopes he might marry Miss Dunstable (Alison Brie), an American heiress whose fortune renders her origins unobjectionable, and who the Greshams hope might rescue from their debt.
Miss Dunstable, sadly, is sidelined through much of "Doctor Throne." But, as she declares at one point "I'm an American, Doctor Thorne. We know no boundaries!" And her tart comments on the nature of British matchmaking is a necessary reminder that even if Frank and Mary end up happy, the system that rejoices at their union is fundamentally distorted; as Miss Dunstable puts it at one point, "I would rather be courted as a woman than a bank account."
In "The Importance of Being Earnest," Miss Prism's remarks about fiction were intended more as a comment on the world than on literature, though Wilde's characters reach their happy endings by a variety of semi-raffish means. But Fellowes's "Doctor Thorne" is a reminder that we ought to be grateful that fiction itself has thrown off those strictures in the century in a half since Trollope published the story. There's nothing wrong with the good ending happily. But it's rather more interesting to see them become better along the way.