Turning Elizabeth Gaskell on her axis : a study of the similarities between her industrial and rural town novels

Abstract

This dissertation looks at the full-length novels of the nineteenth century author Elizabeth Gaskell. Gaskell wrote about a wide variety of subjects. Consequently, throughout the years criticism on Gaskell has almost always been divided into two categories. One branch of criticism, mostly Marxist criticism, focuses exclusively on her social problem novels; Mary Barton, Ruth and North and South. Other branches of criticism have focused on the novels primarily set in the rural towns of nineteenth century England; Cranford, Sylvia’s Lovers and Wives and Daughters. This criticism has mainly focused on the differences between the two types of novels and has consequently led to the complete separation of these categories in literary criticism, as well as the myth of the two Gaskells. As a result, her novels are rarely studied and critiqued as a single body of work.

However, though there are very obvious differences between Gaskell’s social problem novels and her rural town novels, there are also many similarities between these two kinds of novels. Through a close engagement with the six novels mentioned above, this dissertation will explore the subtle similarities that underlie all of her novels. These similarities include the themes they tackle as well as the clashes and changes in contemporary Victorian society that they portray. These consist of clashes such as the clash between genders, the rural and the urban, realism and romance and the clash between classes, amongst others. This dissertation will also tackle the surprising focus of the domestic in both novels and the revolutionary focus on women in the novels. Also, this study should show that the underlying aim of all of her novels to speak the truth and show how the society around Gaskell was changing. Therefore, this study will demonstrate that one can engage with Gaskell’s novels as a single body of work instead of dividing them into two completely diametrically opposed categories.