"Mary Barton"

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses how Elizabeth Gaskell reflects the difficulty of urban life for the working class of England in the 1830s through her book, "Mary Barton." It also examines how she reflects these hardships through her characters in the novel.

From the Paper:

"While the characters of the novel depict the harsh reality related to the working class in Britain, Gaskell also describes the reality of poverty very vividly with the physical environment. One example of this can be seen when we read about the Davenport's home, where the "window-panes, many of them, were broken and stuffed with rags, which was reason enough for the dusky light that pervaded the place even at midday" (Chapter 6). In addition, the narrator tells us that the smell in their cellar "foetid" (Chapter 6) and within the dark place they saw, "three or four little children rolling on the damp, nay wet brick floor, through which the stagnant, filthy moisture of the street oozed up; the fire-place was empty and black; the wife sat on her husband's lair, and cried in the dark loneliness" (Chapter 6). This is a horrifying account of how people lived."

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• Analytical Essay # 65272 : "Prostitution in Nineteenth-Century Literature"

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