As my sister and I sit down to watch Wives and Daughters from BBC. I realize how different people acted then and now. But what is most interesting is the fact that it really isn’t all that different either. One of the unique things about this remarkable film, that is based on the book of the same name by Elizabeth Gaskell, is its astonishing ability to accurately portray human life. The characters have depth and you can feel the emotion with them. I found myself laughing with them and crying with them. When a character dies you feel the loss. When a sarcastic joke is made you laugh at it as if you know what it is all about. When a character is caught up in a tangled mess you feel as if you are tangled up right along with them. At times the British accents and 18th century language can be slightly hard to understand for an American in the 20th century. Life has changed so much in the last 200 years. Great discoveries have been made in Science. Computers have changed just about every aspect of the way we do things, we drive our cars to work and take the elevator. Sometimes people refer to that time as a simpler time; although it’s not really all that simple at all. In some ways the way we live now is more simple.
It is good; however, that we have advanced in some things, but what have we lost? We have lost our manners as a whole, we take for granted many things now, yet even then people where rude, and took things for granted. I think I will conclude by stating that over the last 200 years much has changed and much has stayed the same.