FROM ELIZABETH GASKELL’S MARY BARTON TO HER NORTH AND SOUTH:PROGRESS OR DECLINE FOR WOMEN?

Abstract

ASSESSMENTS OF ELIZABETH GASKELL’S two novels of social purpose typically conclude that North and South, published in 1855, is a more mature work stylistically and ideologically than Mary Barton, published in 1848. North and South is said to integrate the narrative modes of romance and realism more effectively than Mary Barton (Felber 63, Horsman 284), and to provide a more complicated narrative structure (Schor, Scheherezade 122–23), a more complex depiction of social conflicts (Easson 59 and 93) and a more satisfactory resolution of them (Duthie 84, Kestner 170). North and South is also said to deal with “more complex intellectual issues” (Craik 31). And the novel’s heroine, Margaret Hale, has been seen as Gaskell’s most mature creation — a woman who grows in self-awareness as she adapts to an alien environment (Kestner 164–166) and, unlike Mary Barton, becomes an active mediator of class conflicts (Stoneman 120), the central consciousness that brings together “the lessons of social change and romance” (Schor, Scheherezade 127).¹ The reconciliation of these conflicts she inspires through her influence over both mill owner and worker has been praised as a more effective and credible narrative resolution to the social problems depicted in the novel than the reconciliation between mill owner and worker in Mary Barton (David 36).