From the title of this week’s BP winner, one would think that the film’s focus is on the lead female character, Mrs. Miniver, “an average English middle-class” housewife during the early days of World War II; and this is indeed the case. However, there is another “Mrs. Miniver” in the film, Mr. Ballard’s prize-winning red rose, which he names “the Mrs. Miniver” in honor of “the nicest lady in town.” Mr. Ballard, who works both as station master for the local train and bell-ringer for the town church, belongs to the “peasantry” as do the Minivers technically (though they clearly are very upper middle class, employing servants and able to make luxury purchases in the face of encroaching war). On the other side of the social fence are the representatives of the nobility, the ruling class: the Beldons, for whom the town is named. Lady Beldon wins the town flower show every year with her white roses; nevertheless, the optimistic Mr. Ballard believes his “Mrs. Miniver” is more than a contender and challenges Lady Beldon by entering his roses in the competition.

While this frivolous-seeming floral rivalry (containing not-so-subtle overtones regarding issues of disparities in social classes) might appear out of place in a film of Allied propaganda, it really is not; for flowers, roses in particular, serve a metaphorical role in Mrs. Miniver. During a discussion between the two bell ringers regarding if the flower show will go on as planned due to “conditions” in Britain after the German invasion of Poland, the other bell ringer informs Mr. Ballard that war is probably inevitable, continuing, “And if war comes, it’s good-bye roses.” Mr. Ballard replies, “Don’t talk silly. Huh! You might as well say ‘Good-bye England.’ There’ll always be roses.” In a sense, then, roses represent England—flourishing, lovely, innocent. Regardless of the coming violence of war, despite the impending deaths of millions, the earth will still produce roses. And England will endure.

Mr. Ballard proudly presents his “Mrs. Miniver” rose to Mrs. Miniver.

To me, this is reminiscent again of Churchill’s attitude toward his country and the war, as well as the point he wanted to convey to the rest of the world: The British were in the right. Their cause was just. Those watching the fracturing of the Old World should take note of the issues over which the war was being fought, observe which side was advocating goodness, and join their strength with those fighting for morality. The British have no guilt or doubts about being on the wrong side of the conflict—just as flowers cannot be guilty. The point, then, is innocence–as well as tenacity. The Mrs. Miniver rose reflects the attitude of her for whom it was named. Though beautiful and feminine, nothing can deflate the morale of Mrs. Miniver or prevent her from doing everything in her power to defend her family and her country. She, like England and roses, will survive this war.

The ideas of British innocence, determination to prevail, and the rightness of their cause is shown again in Mrs. Miniver during a night-time bombing during which Mrs. Miniver reads aloud from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. Sheltering in their bunker with their two youngest children, first Mrs. and then Mr. Miniver linger over some of the words of the final two paragraphs of the beloved novella, which are worth quoting in full here:

So [Alice] sat on, with closed eyes, and half believed herself in Wonderland, though she knew she had but to open them again, and all would change to dull reality—the grass would be only rustling in the wind, and the pool rippling to the waving of the reeds—the rattling teacups would change to tinkling sheep-bells, and the Queen’s shrill cries to the voice of the shepherd-boy—and the sneeze of the baby, the shriek of the Gryphon, and all the other queer noises, would change (she knew) to the confused clamour of the busy farm-yard—while the lowing of the cattle in the distance would take the place of the Mock Turtle’s heavy sobs.

Lastly, she pictured to herself how this same little sister of hers would, in the after-time, be herself a grown woman; and how she would keep, through all her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her childhood; and how she would gather about her other little children, and make their eyes bright and eager with many a strange tale, perhaps even with the dream of Wonderland of long ago; and how she would feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer days.

Mr. and Mrs. Miniver both recall that Alice in Wonderland was the first book they ever read—hearkening back in their own memories (as well as in Alice’s at the close of the book) to an idyllic time, fanciful though it may have been. Once more, the rosy-hued, peaceful past steals into the chaos of the present, mingling with the whistling, crashing bombs that rock the Minivers’ bunker and destroy part of their perfectly lovely English home. One cannot help but be moved with pity and compassion while the couple hold their children close in the midst of the destruction of their Wonderland. Wonderland was only a dream. Reality is a nightmare. Will innocence survive? In Mrs. Miniver, it is screaming for help.

The Minivers in their bunker post-Wonderland.

For Me Then…

I like (most) war movies a whole lot. I find them inspiring and deeply moving. I think one reason for this is that I worry that there is very nearly a complete lack of willingness in our own time to stand up for moral causes today. If the catastrophe of World War II occurred in our time and culture, to us, what would our response be if called upon to come to the aid of a broken Europe? What would our young men do if summoned to meet an enemy who without warning attacked a fleet of warships at rest on a sunny Sunday morning in December? What would the women, the majority left behind at home, do to fill the roles of the absent men? Could we give up our Xboxes, our cell phones, our Netflix, our instant-gratification lives to fight for a just cause? Are we as a culture even capable any more of such an answer to evil? Could our generation live up to that of the time of WWII?

Born in 1940 at the start of the war, journalist and news anchor Tom Brokaw grew up among the people whom he would label “the greatest generation any society has produced.” He describes the World War II generation in the following way in his bestseller (a must-read) The Greatest Generation:

Looking back, I can recall that the grown-ups all seemed to have a sense of purpose that was evident even to someone as young as four, five, or six. Whatever else was happening in our family or neighborhood, there was something greater connecting all of us, in large ways and small…The young Americans of this time constituted a generation birth-marked for greatness, a generation of Americans that would take its place in American history with the generations that had converted the North American wilderness into the United States and infused the new nation with self-determination embodied first in the Declaration of Independence and then in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights…It may be historically premature to judge the greatness of a whole generation, but indisputably, there are common traits that cannot be denied. It is a generation that, by and large, made no demands of homage from those who followed and prospered economically, politically, and culturally because of its sacrifices. It is a generation of towering achievement and modest demeanor, a legacy of their former years when they were participants in and witness to sacrifices of the highest order,…the ravages of the greatest war the world has seen.

Mrs. Miniver asks its viewers to stand up for the cause of right. Tom Brokaw’s greatest generation answered that call. How can we also respond to such a plea today?