Little Lord Fauntleroy

Dorincourt Estate symbolizes one thing for Fauntleroy and another for Lord Dorincourt. The scene in which the two ride in a carriage to Court Lodge illustrates this divide. As they travel through the estate, Cedric’s “heart was filled with pleasure and happiness in the beauty that was on every side” (152). For him, the estate represents an opportunity to begin a new life of renewed happiness after the death of his father and the sorrow it brought. The estate also represents opportunity more broadly as well. It represents the future—a beautiful life ahead of him—and the prospect of using this newfound wealth, here symbolized by the land, to help others.

In contrast, for Dorincourt, the estate symbolizes a life wasted on himself. It represents the past, not possibility. It reminds him of how he’s alienated everyone around him—his family, his tenants—and he knows, as Fauntleroy doesn’t, that:

In all those homes, humble or well-to-do, there was probably not one person, however much he envied the wealth and stately name and power, and however willing he would have been to possess them, who would for an instant have thought of calling the noble owner ‘good’ (153).

Whereas in the estate Fauntleroy sees land rich with possibility, overflowing with a beauty and happiness to be shared, Dorincourt sees only poisoned soil symbolizing his selfishness and misery.