WORKING-CLASS MASCULINITIES IN MARY BARTON

Abstract

IN CONSIDERING THE SUBJECT of masculinity in Mary Barton (1848), it is perhaps well to remember that Elizabeth Gaskell conceived the novel as being about a man. “‘John Barton’ was the original title of the book,” she wrote to Mrs. W. R. Greg early in 1849. “Round the character of John Barton all the others formed themselves; he was my hero, the person with whom all my sympathies went . . .” (Letters 42: 74). Gaskell’s letter of 5 January 1849 to Miss Lamont reaffirms this: “‘John Barton’ was the original name, as being the central figure to my mind . . . in writing he was [?] my ‘hero’; and it was a London thought coming through the publisher that it must be called Mary B” (Letters 39: 70). While the “London” title of Mary Barton focuses on the romance elements of the plot (and, by extension, on the female gender role), Gaskell’s original title of John Barton focused on working-class protest (and, by extension, on the male gender role). Indeed, there is much to suggest that the novel is as much concerned with masculinity as it is with industrialization and class strife.