The exploration of different social classes in the novels of Elizabeth Gaskell

Abstract

The aim of this dissertation is to provide a study of the different social classes which are depicted in the novels of Elizabeth Gaskell. I will analyse four of Elizabeth Gaskell's major novels, Mary Barton, Cranford, North and South and Wives and Daughters, which portray different members of society interacting in several different strata's of society. I shall not just be analysing the society and the social mores and norms being described in the novels, but I shall also be looking at the way her characters react to the restrictions and impositions of the time. In all of the novels being analysed, whether she is writing about the rich or the poor, the genteel or the unrefined, the mill owners or the working classes, Elizabeth Gaskell recreates the world she is describing in a vivid and convincing manner and takes her readers on an emotional journey with her characters who tackle a plethora of issues such as love, lust, prejudice, power, wealth and poverty and of, of course, class. All of her characters, regardless of their backgrounds or social position must face all kinds of demons before they finally reach a moral resolution. I shall begin this dissertation by writing a brief introduction about Elizabeth Gaskell as a woman who managed to be not just a wife and mother, but also a writer of important novels which are now part of the canon of Victorian literature. Whether she was writing about life in industrial Manchester as she did in Mary Barton and North and South or about life in the provinces as she did in Cranford and Wives and Daughters, Elizabeth Gaskell always managed to bring to life and to evoke the setting she is describing by peopling it with strong and compelling three dimensional characters.