''Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life'' was the
first novel
A debut novel is the first novel a novelist publishes. Debut novels are often the author's first opportunity to make an impact on the publishing industry, and thus the success or failure of a debut novel can affect the ability of the author to p ...
by English author
Elizabeth Gaskell
Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (''née'' Stevenson; 29 September 1810 – 12 November 1865), often referred to as Mrs Gaskell, was an English novelist, biographer, and short story writer. Her novels offer detailed studies of Victorian era, Victoria ...
, first published in 1848. The story is set in the English city of
Manchester
Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...
between 1839 and 1842, and deals with the difficulties faced by the
Victorian working class.
Plot summary
The novel begins in Manchester, where we are introduced to the Bartons and the Wilsons, two working-class families. John Barton is a questioner of the distribution of wealth and the relations between rich and poor. Soon his wife dies—he blames it on her grief over the disappearance of her sister Esther. Having already lost his son Tom at a young age, Barton is left to raise his daughter, Mary, alone and now falls into depression and begins to involve himself in the
Chartist,
trade-union
A trade union (British English) or labor union (American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, such as attaining better wages ...
movement.
Chapter 1 takes place in the countryside where
Greenheys is now.
Mary takes up work at a dressmaker's (her father had objected to her working in a factory) and becomes subject to the affections of hard-working Jem Wilson and Harry Carson, son of a wealthy
mill
Mill may refer to:
Science and technology
* Factory
* Mill (grinding)
* Milling (machining)
* Millwork
* Paper mill
* Steel mill, a factory for the manufacture of steel
* Sugarcane mill
* Textile mill
* List of types of mill
* Mill, the arithmetic ...
owner. She fondly hopes, by marrying Carson, to secure a comfortable life for herself and her father, but immediately after refusing Jem's offer of marriage she realizes that she truly loves ''him''. She, therefore, decides to evade Carson, planning to show her feelings to Jem in the course of time. Jem believes her decision to be final, though this does not change his feelings for her.
Meanwhile, Esther, a "street-walker," returns to warn John Barton that he must save Mary from becoming like her. He simply pushes her away, however, and she's sent to jail for a month on the charge of vagrancy. Upon her release, she talks to Jem with the same purpose. He promises that he will protect Mary and confronts Carson, eventually entering into a fight with him, which is witnessed by a policeman passing by.
Not long afterward, Carson is shot dead, and Jem is arrested for the crime, his gun having been found at the scene. Esther decides to investigate the matter further and discovers that the wadding for the gun was a piece of paper on which is written Mary's name.
She visits her niece to warn her to save the one she loves, and after she leaves Mary realizes that the murderer is not Jem but her father. She is now faced with having to save her lover without giving away her father. With the help of Job Legh (the intelligent grandfather of her blind friend Margaret), Mary travels to
Liverpool
Liverpool is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, north-west of London. With a population ...
to find the only person who could provide an
alibi
An alibi (, from the Latin, '' alibī'', meaning "somewhere else") is a statement by a person under suspicion in a crime that they were in a different place when the offence was committed. During a police investigation, all suspects are usually a ...
for Jem – Will Wilson, Jem's cousin and a sailor, who was with him on the night of the murder. Unfortunately, Will's ship is already departing, so that, after Mary chases after the ship in a small boat, the only thing Will can do is promise to return in the
pilot ship
A pilot boat is a type of boat used to transport maritime pilots between land and the inbound or outbound ships that they are piloting. Pilot boats were once sailing boats that had to be fast because the first pilot to reach the incoming ship ...
and testify the next day.
During the trial, Jem learns of Mary's great love for him. Will arrives in court to testify, and Jem is found "not guilty". Mary has fallen ill during the trial and is nursed by Mr. Sturgis, an old sailor, and his wife. When she finally returns to Manchester she has to face her father, who is crushed by his remorse. He summons John Carson, Harry's father, to confess to him that he is the murderer. Carson is still set on justice, but after turning to the Bible he forgives Barton, who dies soon afterward in Carson's arms. Not long after this Esther comes back to Mary's home, where she, too, soon dies.
Jem decides to leave England, where, his reputation damaged, it would be difficult for him to find a new job. The novel ends with the wedded Mary and Jem, their little child, and Mrs. Wilson living happily in Canada. The news comes that Margaret has regained her sight and that she and Will, soon to be married, will visit.
Characters
* Mary Barton – The eponymous character, a very beautiful girl.
* Mrs. Mary Barton – Mary's mother, who dies early on.
* John Barton – Mary's father, a
millworker, an active member in trade unions.
* George Wilson – John Barton's best friend, a worker at John Carson's mill.
* Jane Wilson – George Wilson's wife, short-tempered.
* Jem Wilson – Son of George and Jane, an engineer and inventor who has loved Mary from his childhood.
* John Carson – Wealthy owner of a mill in Manchester.
* Harry Carson – Son of John Carson, attracted to Mary.
* Alice Wilson – George Wilson's sister, a pious old
washerwoman
A washerwoman or laundress is a woman who takes in laundry. Both terms are now old-fashioned; equivalent work nowadays is done by a laundry worker in large commercial premises, or a laundrette (laundromat) attendant, who helps with handling w ...
, herbalist, sick-nurse.
* Margaret Jennings – Neighbour of Alice, blind, a sometime singer, a friend to Mary.
* Job Legh – Margaret's grandfather, a self-taught
naturalist
Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...
.
* Ben Sturgis – An old sailor, who looks after Mary during her stay in Liverpool.
* Will Wilson – Alice's nephew (Jem's cousin), whom she raised after the death of his parents. A sailor, he falls in love with Margaret.
* Esther (gives her name as Mrs. Fergusson of 145, Nicholas Street, Angel's Meadow) – Sister of Mrs. Mary Barton, she is a
fallen woman
"Fallen woman" is an archaic term which was used to describe a woman who has "lost her innocence", and fallen from the grace of God. In 19th-century Britain especially, the meaning came to be closely associated with the loss or surrender of a ...
her function to pose an awful 'what if' concerning young Mary's fate.
Background and composition
In beginning to write novels, it was Gaskell's hope that they would provide some solace from the pain of the loss of her son Willie. The idea, according to her early biographer
Ellis Chadwick, was first suggested by her husband
William Gaskell to "soothe her sorrow".
[Foster, Shirley. "Introduction." ''Mary Barton.'' By Elizabeth Gaskell. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2006. Vii. ] In an 1849 letter to her friend Mrs. Greg, Gaskell said that she, "took refuge in the invention to exclude the memory of painful scenes which would force themselves upon my remembrance."
However, it is clear from her preface that the suffering she saw around her was the motivational factor for the content of the novel: "I had always felt a deep sympathy with the care-worn men, who looked as if doomed to struggle through their lives in strange alternations between work and want
..The more I reflected on this unhappy state of things between those so bound to each other by common interests, as the employers and the employed must ever be, the more anxious I became to give some utterance to the agony which from time to time convulsed this dumb person."
[Gaskell, Elizabeth. "Preface." ''Mary Barton.'' London: Chapman and Hall, 1850. v–vii.]
Gaskell's desire to accurately represent the poverty of industrial Manchester is evident in a record of a visit she made to the home of a local labourer. On comforting the family, Hompes records, the "head of the family took hold of her arm and grasping it tightly, said, with tears in his eyes: 'Aye, ma'am, but have ye ever seen a child clemmed to death?'"
This question is almost precisely repeated in the mouth of John Barton: "Han they ever have seen a child o' their'n die for want o' food?" in chapter 4.
As well as relying on her own experience, Gaskell is thought to have used
s on which to base the setting of the story, including Kay's ''The moral and physical condition of the working classes involved in the cotton manufacture in Manchester'' (1832) and Peter Gaskell's ''The manufacturing population of England'' (1833). Other details to which Gaskell paid particular attention to ensure the realism of the novel include the
topography
Topography is the study of the forms and features of land surfaces. The topography of an area may refer to the landforms and features themselves, or a description or depiction in maps.
Topography is a field of geoscience and planetary sci ...
of both Manchester and Liverpool (including the rural environment detailed in the first chapter, and references to road names and prominent buildings), the superstitions and customs of the local people and the
dialect
A dialect is a Variety (linguistics), variety of language spoken by a particular group of people. This may include dominant and standard language, standardized varieties as well as Vernacular language, vernacular, unwritten, or non-standardize ...
. In the earliest editions, William Gaskell added the footnotes explaining some of the words specific to the
Lancashire
Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated ''Lancs'') is a ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Cumbria to the north, North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Greater Manchester and Merseyside to the south, and the Irish Sea to ...
dialect, and after the fifth edition (1854), two lectures of his on the subject were added as appendices.
It is widely thought that the murder of Harry Carson in the novel was inspired by the
assassination of Thomas Ashton, a Manchester mill-owner, in 1831.
''Mary Barton'' was first published as two volumes in October 1848.
[Sanders has the date as 14th, Seccombe as 18th, but Hopkins says the ''Athenaeum's'' reference to "Wednesday next" (i.e. 15th) accords more closely with Chapman's letter to Gaskell at the time. See ] Gaskell was paid
£100 for the novel.
[Seccombe, Thomas. "Introduction." ''Mary Barton.'' By Elizabeth Gaskell. New York: Cosimo Classics, 2008. xii. ] The publisher Edward Chapman had had the manuscript since the middle of 1847. He had several recorded influences on the novel, the most prominent of which is probably the change in title: the novel was originally entitled ''John Barton''. Gaskell said that he was, "the central figure to my mind...he was my 'hero'." He also encouraged Gaskell to include chapters 36 and 37, the dialectical
glosses added by William Gaskell, a
preface
__NOTOC__
A preface () or proem () is an introduction to a book or other literature, literary work written by the work's author. An introductory essay written by a different person is a ''foreword'' and precedes an author's preface. The preface o ...
and the chapter
epigraphs.
The second edition, with Gaskell's corrections, particularly on typographical mistakes when writing the Lancashire dialect, appeared on 3 January 1849. The third edition soon followed, in February. A fourth, without Gaskell's involvement, appeared in October 1850. The fifth edition, from 1854, was the first single volume edition and included William Gaskell's lectures on the dialect.
Mary Barton uses the word "wench" a total of 42 times.
Analysis
Genre
One element of the novel that has been a subject of heavy criticism is the apparent shift in genres between the political focus of the early chapters to the domestic in the later ones.
Raymond Williams
Raymond Henry Williams (31 August 1921 – 26 January 1988) was a Welsh socialist writer, academic, novelist and critic influential within the New Left and in wider culture. His writings on politics, culture, the media and literature contribu ...
particularly saw this as a failure by the author: the early chapters, he said, are the "most moving response in the literature to the industrial suffering of the 1840s", but in the later, the novel becomes a "familiar and orthodox...Victorian novel of sentiment".
[Cooney, Brian. "Violence, Terror, and the Transformation of Genre in ''Mary Barton''." ''Victorian Transformations: Genre, Nationalism, and Desire in Nineteenth-century Literature''. Ed. Bianca Tredennick. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2011. 29–44.] Williams suggested that this shift may have been at the influence of her publishers, an idea supported by the title change, which changes the main focus of the reader from the political upheaval John is trying to promote to Mary's emotional journey.
However, Kamilla Elliot disagrees with Williams about the weakness of the domestic genre, saying, "It is the romance plot, not the political plot, that contains the more radical political critique in the novel."
Style
It is a subject of some debate whether the first person narrator in ''Mary Barton'' is synonymous with Gaskell. On the one hand, the consistent use of tone through the original preface and the novel, and authorial insets like the first paragraph of chapter 5 suggest the Gaskell is directly narrating the story. Contrarily, critics like Lansbury suggest the narrator is too unsympathetic in all Gaskell's Manchester novels to be her own voice:
Nothing could be more unwise than to regard the authorial 'I' of the novels as the voice of Elizabeth Gaskell, particularly in the Manchester novels. The narrator has a tendency to engage in false pleading and specious argument, while the workers demonstrate honesty and commonsense.[Gravil, Richard. ''Elizabeth Gaskell: Mary Barton''. Penrith: Humanities-Ebooks, 2007.]
Hopkins goes so far as to claim that the detail to verisimilitude in the novel made it the first "respectable"
social novel
Social organisms, including human(s), live collectively in interacting populations. This interaction is considered social whether they are aware of it or not, and whether the exchange is voluntary or not.
Etymology
The word "social" derives fro ...
, in contrast with the lack of believability in, for example,
Disraeli
Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield (21 December 1804 – 19 April 1881) was a British statesman, Conservative politician and writer who twice served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He played a central role in the creat ...
's ''
Sybil'' or
Tonna's ''Helen Fleetwood''.
Prominent in the novel is Gaskell's attempt to reinforce the realism of her representation through the inclusion of "working-class discourses", not only through the use of closely imitated colloquialisms and dialect, but also through "passages from Chartist poems, working class ballads, proverbs, maxims, and nursery rhymes, as John Barton's radical discourse, Ben Davenport's deathbed curses, and Job Legh's language of Christian submission."
Themes
Kathleen Mary Tillotson wrote that ''Mary Barton'' is "built on the assumptions of ''Chartism'' and
''Past and Present''", two works of social criticism by
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle (4 December 17955 February 1881) was a Scottish essayist, historian, and philosopher. Known as the "Sage writing, sage of Chelsea, London, Chelsea", his writings strongly influenced the intellectual and artistic culture of the V ...
.
The first half of the novel focuses mainly on the comparison between the rich and poor. In a series of set pieces across the opening chapters, we are shown the lifestyles of the Bartons, Wilsons (most prominently in the chapter "A Manchester Tea-Party") and Davenport's respective households compared to the contrasting affluence of the Carson establishment (in the chapter "Poverty and Death"). A key symbol shown in this chapter is the use of five shillings; this amount being the price John Barton receives for pawning most of his possessions, but also the loose change in Harry Carson's pocket.
Gaskell details the importance of the mother in a family; as is seen from the visible decline in John Barton's physical and moral well-being after his wife's death. This view is also symbolized by Job Legh's inability to care for Margaret as a baby in the chapter "Barton's London Experience". The theme of motherhood is connected to declining masculinity: Surridge points out that the roles of nurturing fall towards the men as bread-winning falls away. Both Wilson and Barton are pictured holding the infants in the place of the nanny that can't be afforded as the novel begins, but eventually, both end up relying on the income of their children, Jem and Mary respectively.
The second half of the book deals mainly with the murder plot. Here it can be seen that
redemption is also a key aspect of the novel; not least because of the eventual outcome of the relationship between Messrs Carson and Barton, but also in Gaskell's presentation of Esther, the typical "fallen woman". The selfless nature she gives the character, on several occasions having her confess her faults with brutal honesty, is an attempt to make the reader sympathize with the character of a prostitute, unusual for the time.
Indeed, throughout the novel Gaskell appears to refer to her characters as being out of her control, acting as not so much a narrator but a guide for the observing reader. Another aspect of the passivity of the characters is, as some suggest, that they represent the impotence of the class to defend or even represent, themselves politically. Cooney draws attention to this in the scene in which the factory is on fire – a scene the reader anticipates to be domestic fails in its domestic role (one might imagine Jem's heroism to prompt Mary to discover her true feelings) actually sees the crowd passively at the mercy of ill-equipped firemen and unconcerned masters.
Several times Gaskell attempts to mask her strong beliefs in the novel by disclaiming her knowledge of such matters as economics and politics, but the powerful language she gives to her characters, especially John Barton in the opening chapter, is a clear indication of the author's interest in the class divide. She openly pleads for reducing this divide through increased communication and, as a consequence, understanding between employers and workmen and generally through a more human behaviour based on Christian principles, at the same time presenting her own fears of how the poor will eventually act in retaliation to their oppression.
Gaskell also describes an Italian torture chamber where the victim is afforded many luxuries at first but in the end, the walls of the cell start closing in and finally they crush him. It is believed that the story has been influenced by
William Mudford's short story "
The Iron Shroud".
[Title Elizabeth Gaskell: an annotated guide to English language sources, 1992–2001](_blank)
Author Nancy S. Weyant Edition annotated Publisher Scarecrow Press, 2004 , Length 489 pages p. 101 note#162 Stephen Derry mentions that Gaskell uses the concept of the shrinking cell to describe John Barton's state of mind but also added the element of luxury to further enhance it.
Death plays a significant and unavoidable role in the plot: it has been interpreted both as mere realism (Lucas points out the average
mortality rate
Mortality rate, or death rate, is a measure of the number of deaths (in general, or due to a specific cause) in a particular Statistical population, population, scaled to the size of that population, per unit of time. Mortality rate is typically ...
at the time was 17) and autobiographically as the
cathartic
In medicine, a cathartic is a substance that ''accelerates'' defecation. This is similar to a laxative, which is a substance that ''eases'' defecation, usually by softening feces. It is possible for a substance to be both a laxative and a cathar ...
relief of grief over her son's premature death. The image of a dying child was also a trope of Chartist discourse.
Reception
The novel was first published
anonymously, but its authorship was widely known within a year.
Early reception of the novel was divided, with some praising its honesty and fidelity to facts and others criticising it for presenting a distorted picture of the employer-employee relationships. The ''
British Quarterly Review'' said it was a "one-sided picture", and the ''
Edinburgh Review
The ''Edinburgh Review'' is the title of four distinct intellectual and cultural magazines. The best known, longest-lasting, and most influential of the four was the third, which was published regularly from 1802 to 1929.
''Edinburgh Review'', ...
'' that the division between employers and employed was exaggerated.
They were echoed by the ''
Manchester Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
'' and the ''Prospective Review'', however the ''
Athenaeum'', the ''
Eclectic Review'', the ''
Christian Examiner'' and ''
Fraser's Magazine
''Fraser's Magazine for Town and Country'' was a general and literary journal published in London from 1830 to 1882, which initially took a strong Tory line in politics. It was founded by Hugh Fraser and William Maginn in 1830 and loosely direc ...
'' took a different stance.
The ''Athenaeum's'' otherwise positive review raised the question of whether "it may be kind or wise or right to make fiction the vehicle for a plain, matter of fact exposition of social evils".
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle (4 December 17955 February 1881) was a Scottish essayist, historian, and philosopher. Known as the "Sage writing, sage of Chelsea, London, Chelsea", his writings strongly influenced the intellectual and artistic culture of the V ...
wrote a letter to Gaskell in which he called it "a Book seeming to take its place far above the ordinary garbage of Novels".
Part of the sensation the novel created was due to the anonymity with which it was published. Gaskell claimed that on occasion she had even joined in with discussions making guesses at the authorship.
Adaptations
There have been a few stage adaptations (mostly loosely so and mostly in the 19th century) and one adaptation in each of radio and television. There have been no films, although one of the stage adaptations has been filmed a number of times.
Radio
In 2001, the
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
broadcast a 20-episode serialisation of Mary Barton.
Television
The BBC broadcast a four-episode series in 1964. All four episodes ('Fire', 'Violence', 'Murder', and 'Trial'), are believed lost, although it has been hypothesised that copies may still exist in BBC Archives.
[Recchio, Thomas, 'Adapting ''Mary Barton'': History, Research, Possibilities', Chapter 3 in Salis, Loredana, ''Adapting Gaskell: Screen and Stage Versions of Elizabeth Gaskell's Fiction'', Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle, 2013, pp 33 – 50.] Directed by
Michael Imison, it featured Lois Daine (Mary Barton),
George A. Cooper (John Barton),
Barry Warren (Jem Wilson),
Gwendolyn Watts (Margaret Legh), Brian Peck (Will Wilson) and
Patrick Mower (Harry Carson).
In 2012, there were reports that the screenwriter
Heidi Thomas
Heidi Thomas (born 13 August 1962) is an English screenwriter and playwright.
Career
After reading English at Liverpool University, Thomas gained national attention when her play, ''Shamrocks and Crocodiles'', won the John Whiting Award in ...
(who wrote the script for the BBC serialisation of ''
Cranford'') was working on a TV adaption of Mary Barton for the BBC, but nothing seems to have come of this.
Theatre
The first adaptation occurred soon after publication, by the playwright
John Courtney at
The Old Vic
The Old Vic is a 1,000-seat, nonprofit producing theatre in Waterloo, London, England. It was established in 1818 as the Royal Coburg Theatre, and renamed in 1833 the Royal Victoria Theatre. In 1871 it was rebuilt and reopened as the Royal ...
, then called the Victoria Theatre, in 1851. While the novel targeted middle and upper class readers, Courtney's production engaged a specifically working-class audience – according to the playbill, it was 'written expressly for this Theatre', meaning the local working class community.
In the years following, there were then a number of stage productions, based more or less loosely on the plot and themes of the novel:
Colin Hazlewood, ''Our Lot in Life'', 1862;
Dion Boucicault
Dionysius Lardner "Dion" Boucicault (né Boursiquot; 26 December 1820 – 18 September 1890) was an Irish actor and playwright famed for his melodramas. By the later part of the 19th century, Boucicault had become known on both sides of the ...
, ''The Long Strike'', 1866 (at the
Lyceum
The lyceum is a category of educational institution defined within the education system of many countries, mainly in Europe. The definition varies among countries; usually it is a type of secondary school. Basic science and some introduction to ...
, in which the political plot was removed and which also incorporated elements of ''Lizzie Leigh''); J P Weston, ''The Lancashire Strike'', 1867;
George Sims, ''The Last Chance'', 1885; and, best-known,
Stanley Houghton
William Stanley Houghton (22 February 1881 – 11 December 1913) was an English playwright. He was a prominent member, together with Allan Monkhouse and Harold Brighouse, of a group known as the Manchester School of dramatists. His best k ...
, ''
Hindle Wakes'', 1912, of which there have been four film versions.
In 2016 Rona Munro wrote a 2-act version, which premiered at the
Royal Exchange, Manchester
The Royal Exchange is a grade II listed building in Manchester, England. It is located in the city centre on land bounded by St Ann's Square, Exchange Street, Market Street, Cross Street and Old Bank Street. The complex includes the Royal Ex ...
. It was directed by
Sarah Frankcom and designed by Liz Ascroft, and featured
Kellie Bright in the lead role.
See also
* ''
North and South'', one of Gaskell's later novels with a similar theme
Notes
References
External links
*
{{Authority control
1848 British novels
Novels by Elizabeth Gaskell
Novels set in factories
Novels set in Manchester
English novels
Victorian novels
1848 debut novels
British social novels