ABSTRACT
The world of Upstairs, Downstairs is that of two distinct classes—the wealthy and the poor, the masters and their servants in the James Bellamy household in Edwardian England. The fundamental theme in the series, the difference between the wealthy and the poor, is reflected in almost every episode. The superiority of the wealthy does not extend to the realm of morality. In the series, the upper class gives the masses security; that is, after all, what is most important to the working classes and to the people downstairs. In Upstairs, Downstairs the controlling matter is the resolution of the dialectic, which is central to the series. Characters find themselves in all kinds of situations, people fall in and out of love, there are personal tragedies and social cataclysms, but pervading everything are the two-class oppositions, forming a background against which figures play out their lives.
