DOCSLIB.ORG

The Novel of English Working-Class Movements, 1848-1914: Gaskell, Dickens, Harkness, and Tressell

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Novel of English Working-Class Movements, 1848-1914: Gaskell, Dickens, Harkness, and Tressell ANUSTATE IVSER SILTY IIIIIIIIII I IIIIIIIII IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII I- 31293 00888 3930 LIBRARY Michigan State UnIversIty This is to certify that the dissertation entitled THE NOVEL OF ENGLISH WORKING-CLASS MOVEMENTS, 1848-1914: GASKELL, DICKENS, HARKNESS, AND TRESSELL presented by Kathleen Ann Nesbitt has been accepted towards fulfillment of the requirements for Ph . D . degree in English [’76 ZZZ/:J //(:2 {/l/Z/{t24.__, Major professor Date/2% aZaéy /77/Z. MS U i: an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Institution 0-12771 ———___— -— ..— _, 7 7 , 7 _ ___ ._._ _. __ r__ u_. _ 777— PLACE IN RETURN BOX to remove this checkout from your record. TO AVOID FINES Mum on or before date due. DATE DUE DATE DUE DATE DUE MSU Is An Affirmative ActIorVEquaI Opponunlty Inwtution omen“! THE NOVEL OF ENGLISH WORKING-CLASS MOVEMENTS, 1848-1914: GASKELL, DICKENS, HARKNESS, AND TRESSELL BY Kathleen Ann Nesbitt A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of English 1992 ABSTRACT {(5% THE NOVEL OF ENGLISH WORKING-CLASS MOVEMENTS, 1848-1914: GASKELL, DICKENS, HARKNESS, AND TRESSELL 07/4 BY Kathleen Ann Nesbitt The critical reception of Victorian and Edwardian "social problem novels" has tended to focus on those parts of the narrative which contain allusions to historical events. This emphasis is incomplete without considering how the economic system requires supporting ideologies, institu- tions, and formations to create conditions for the control of the means of production and to repress activities that may interfere with these conditions. Gaskell's nary Barton, Dickens’s garg_1img§, Harkness’s WM, and Tressell’s Messed IIgnfigzgg_£n11antnzgpi§t§ present class struggles as chal- lenges to the dominant social order. The complexity of these novelists' responses to Chartism, trade unionism, and socialism can be determined through Raymond Williams's theory of cultural materialism, an explanation of the speci- ficities of material culture and literary production within historical materialism. Williams's concepts of ideology, hegemony, institutions, and formations reveal that these novelists’ thinking about the efficacy of working class movements is either limited by their inability to transcend practical consciousness, or by an awareness of the capabili- ty of the capitalist system to absorb criticism and threats. This dissertation analyzes both the ideological conditions from which these responses originated, and the process by which the authors attempted to solve the cultural contradic- tions upon which they are based. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction Page "To make great riches and great Page 16 poverty square with Christ's Gospels": A Pedagogy for the Oppressed in uaz1_hgrtgn Institutions and Reform in Page 55 Earnings Feminism and the Problem of Page 84 Political Consciousness in Late Victorian Socialism: Margaret Harkness’s QEQIQ§_E§§LEQDEL_E§DQ§I§I The Struggle for Hegemony in Page 122 u e e h List of References Page 160 ii INTRODUCTION In the early 1980’s, I audited a seminar on speech act theory. The course was representative of the department's emphasis on stylistics--not rhetorical analysis, but rather the analysis of sentence structures, verb tense, and vocabu- lary.1 We were required to read Austin, Searle, and Pratt in order to be able to identify and categorize types of "utterances"--commands, performatives, expressives, etc.-- according to their linguistic properties. Speech act theory itself was not the subject of the course; rather, the empha- sis was on the application of the concepts to a Henry James novel--Ihe_fiwkygr§_5gg. Hours of class time were spent analyzing speech acts and determining their linguistic force in the context of the situations within the text. At the end of the term when we successfully constructed a "meaning" of the novel with our linguistic tools, I remember the general sense of satisfaction coming from the students in the class, and although I shared in the feeling, I was also conscious of a dissatisfaction with the literary theory that the institution expected me to practice, not just speech act theory but structuralism, stylistics, and "new criticism." 1See Jameson's "Criticism in History" 121-123 for a description of the two distinct kinds of "stylistics." 1 2 A year later in a different department, I took another seminar in literary theory. This time the topic was the "nee-historicism” of Adorno, Benjamin, Williams, and Jameson. The course emphasized historicism as a theory rather than a method, but the authors’ practices were clear enough for me to realize that I was probably as far from stylistics as I could get, and I liked where I was. What struck me--and renewed my interest in literary studies-~was that these writers refused to respect the traditional bound- aries of academic disciplines. For example, Williams's Th2 gguntry_and_the_gity is sociology, philosophy, literary criticism, and political theory. The result is a fascinat- ing critique of the myth of an organic English past. And yet I saw that the emphasis on language characterizing all literary studies is still important--indeed crucial--to the consideration of literature as a historically specific production. Later, with Jameson's principle "always historicize" in mind,2 I gave a report in a seminar on English Marxist literature that outlined a history of the labor movement and its connection to socialism. A month before the term paper was due, I began to wonder how I could bring that history to literature without producing a reductive content analysis. The problem remained with me for a while until as a result of further reading, I discovered that form is the final 2These are the first two words in the introduction to W. 3 articulation of the deeper logic of the content itself. I read, for instance, the following statements by Engels from the 1888 edition of the ggmmunist_uanifig§tg: The manifesto being our joint production, I con- sider myself bound to state the fundamental propo- sition which forms its nucleus, belongs to Marx:3 That proposition is: That in every historical epoch, the prevailing mode of economic production and exchange, and the social organization neces- sarily following from it, the basis upon which is built up, and from which alone can be explained, the political and intellectual history of that epoch; that consequently the whole history of mankind . has been a history of class strug— gles, contests between exploiting and exploited, ruling and oppressed classes; that the history of these class struggles forms a series of evolutions in which, nowadays, a stage has been reached where the exploited and oppressed class--the proletari- at--cannot attain its emancipation from the sway of the exploiting and ruling class--the bourgeoi- sie--without at the same time, and once and for all, emancipating society at large from all ex- ploitations, oppression, class distinctions, and 3Stedman-Jones reconsiders Engels's contribution to historical materialism in "Engels and the Genesis of Marx- ism,” which argues Engels was being modest when he made this assertion. 4 class struggles. (6) It followed, then, that literature is a history of class struggles as well as a social product that loses its meaning when cut away from its economic context. Content analysis has an interpretative value, I found, but it is incomplete without considering how the economic system requires sup- porting ideologies, institutions and formations to create conditions for the control of the means of production and to repress activities that may interfere with these conditions. These activities, of course, are those engaged in by the working class, which at the beginning and end of the nineteenth century posed real challenges to the hegemonic process as the workers began to be conscious of themselves as a class. Chartism, trade unionism, and socialism were movements in which the working class acted in its own inter- ests and thereby produced its own history. The novels with which this study is concerned were written either during the rocky assimilation of the industrial revolution in the 1840's and 1850’s, or the early 1900's when socialist ideas began to permeate labor movements. Between the radical unionism in fiazg_Iimg§ and the fully-realized socialist I C) vision in Ihe_Bag9ed_Irousered_£nilanthroei§t§. there is a gap of over fifty years. Nevertheless, as E. P. Thompson has pointed out, "Each historical event is unique, but many events, widely separated in time and place, reveal, when brought into relation with each other, regularities of process” (Egygrty_gfi_Thegry 84). It is not surprising, 5 then, that the intense socialist agitation at the end of the century prompted one reporter to warn his readers that Chartism was being revived.‘ History as process, background, and determining princi- ple in four novels that exploit historical events to argue for social reforms or social revolution is used in this work as the framework to interpret four novelists’ confrontation with a maturing working class consciousness. These authors- -Elizabeth Gaskell, Charles Dickens, Margaret Harkness, and Robert Tressell--all represent real historical limits to Marx and Engels’s socialist vision, either because they were not able to transcend the limitations of their own practical consciousness, or because they perceived (and wrote about) the capability of the capitalist system to adapt to criti- cism and threats, particularly those which emanated from labor movements and socialist ideas. As everyone knows, England was the first country to meet all of the requirements for a socialist revolution: the industrial revolution began there; a proletariat was creat- ed: Marx and Engels worked in and disseminated their ideas from London: there was sporadic and sometimes violent work- ing class unrest. Yet there was no revolution. The reason most often cited for this is the ability of English culture to accommodate change and mitigate conflict.S If this were ‘See Beer II: 323.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Women Writers, World Problems, and the Working Poor, C. 1880-1920 : ”Blackleg’ Work in Literature’
    ORBIT-OnlineRepository ofBirkbeckInstitutionalTheses Enabling Open Access to Birkbeck’s Research Degree output Women writers, world problems, and the working poor, c. 1880-1920 : ”blackleg’ work in literature’ https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/40371/ Version: Full Version Citation: Janssen, Flore (2018) Women writers, world problems, and the working poor, c. 1880-1920 : ”blackleg’ work in literature’. [Thesis] (Unpublished) c 2020 The Author(s) All material available through ORBIT is protected by intellectual property law, including copy- right law. Any use made of the contents should comply with the relevant law. Deposit Guide Contact: email Birkbeck, University of London Women Writers, World Problems, and the Working Poor, c. 1880–1920: ‘“Blackleg” Work in Literature’ Flore Willemijne Janssen Submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2018 1 Declaration I, Flore Willemijne Janssen, declare that this thesis is my own work. Where I have drawn upon the work of other researchers, this has been fully acknowledged. Date: Signed: 2 Abstract This thesis uses the published work of professional writers and activists Clementina Black and Margaret Harkness to explore their strategies for the representation of poverty and labour exploitation during the period 1880–1920. Their activism centred on the working poor, and specifically on those workers whose financial necessity forced them into exploitative and underpaid work, causing them to become ‘blacklegs’ who undercut the wages of other workers. As the generally irregular nature of their employment made these workers’ situations difficult to document, Black and Harkness sought alternative ways to portray blackleg work and workers. The thesis is divided into two parts, each comprising two chapters.
    [Show full text]
  • 1 Fact, Fiction and Method in the Early History of Social Research
    Fact, fiction and method in the early history of social research: Clementina Black and Margaret Harkness as case-studies Ann Oakley Professor Ann Oakley Social Science Research Unit UCL Institute of Education 18 Woburn Square London WC1H ONR 0207 612 6380 [email protected] 1 Abstract The development of social science research methods by women reformers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is a largely buried history. This article examines the work of Clementina Black and Margaret Harkness, two British reformers who conducted many social investigations using a wide range of research methods. They also crossed genres in writing fiction, which was an accepted method at the time for putting forward new ideas about social conditions. Black and Harness were part of a vibrant network of women activists, thinkers and writers in late nineteenth century London, who together contributed much to the growing discipline of social science and to imaginative forms of writing about social issues. Keywords Social science; research methods; social reform; fiction. 2 Introduction Standard histories of sociology in both Europe and North America privilege the development of theory by men in academic institutions.1 This ‘origin myth’ eclipses empirical social science work done in community settings, an area of activity in which women reformers and researchers excelled in the decades around the beginning of the twentieth century. Historical narratives also pay little attention to fiction as a vehicle for transmitting accounts of social conditions, a tradition which flourished alongside the early development of social science. This article examines the use of fact and fiction and the development of social research methodology in the work of two women reformers, Clementina Black and Margaret Harkness, who both undertook and published social research and also wrote fiction in the period from the late 1870s through to the 1920s.
    [Show full text]
  • Murdoch, Christina (2012) ‘A Large and Passionate Humanity Plays About Her’: Women and Moral Agency in the Late Victorian Social Problem Novel
    Murdoch, Christina (2012) ‘A large and passionate humanity plays about her’: Women and moral agency in the late Victorian social problem novel. PhD thesis. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/3703/ Copyright and moral rights for this thesis are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Glasgow Theses Service http://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] ‘A Large and Passionate Humanity Plays About Her’: Women and Moral Agency in the Late Victorian Social Problem Novel Christina Murdoch M. A. Hons, M.Litt Submitted in Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy April 2012 School of Critical Studies College of Arts University of Glasgow Abstract This thesis examines responses to the idea of a specific female moral agency in depictions of women’s philanthropic work by late nineteenth- century female novelists. Focusing on depictions of romantic and sexual female experience in the late nineteenth-century campaign against poverty, I explore the role of gender and sexuality in the making of the female moral self in novels by Mrs. Humphry Ward, Iota, Margaret Harkness, Jane Hume Clapperton, Gertrude Dix.
    [Show full text]
  • The Social Question and the Jewish Question in Late Victorian London
    THE SOCIAL QUESTION AND THE JEWISH QUESTION IN LATE VICTORIAN LONDON THE FICTIONS AND INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM OF MARGARET HARKNESS Seth Koven Introduction 1 In 1843, the young Karl Marx clearly saw that the Jewish Question in mod- ern Europe could not be divorced from the Social Question. The case for the political emancipation of the Jew revealed the illusory freedoms of the lib- eral state while the Jew himself embodied the unbridled egotism driving capitalism and producing class conflict. Marx’s rhetorical use of Judaism and Jewish history as abstract metaphors for the alienation inherent in a so- cial system based upon private property is a suggestive starting point for analyzing the social question in Victorian London. 2 Much like the figure of the Jew in the 19 th century imagination, the social question proved mobile and protean, able to disguise and attach itself to a wide range of causes, ideas, and issues. 3 The social question and the Jewish question – and their representation – converged in the slums of late Victorian East London as each functioned as the doppelganger for the other. This convergence depended at least partly on the historical particularities of East London, which became a site of over- lapping and competing ‘conversion’ efforts in the 1880s and 90s. 4 While Jack the Ripper’s murders in 1888 brought East London global notoriety as 1 For comments and editorial suggestions on earlier drafts, I thank Pamela Walker, Deborah Nord and Jill Rappoport along with the editors. 2 For a provocative reading of aspects of the erotics and politics of Marx’s ‘On the Jewish Question’ in relation to Victorian culture and literature, see Dellamora, Friendship’s Bonds , pp.
    [Show full text]