ELIZABETH GASKELL AND CHARLES KINGSLEYt THE CREATIVE ARTIST'S INTERPRETATION OF A WORKING GLASS WORLD John Simpson Cartwright Thesis submitted to the University of London for the degree of Ph.D. in English Bedford College, I 98O ProQuest Number: 10098402 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest. ProQuest 10098402 Published by ProQuest LLC(2016). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 1. Abstract of a Thesis for a Ph.D. Degree in English ELIZABETH GASKELL AND CHARLES KimSLEY; THE CREATIVE ARTIST'S INTERPRETATION OF A WORKING CLASS WORLD. by John Simpson Cartwright The dissertation examines the particular skills of Charles Kingsley and Elizabeth Gaskell as writers of fiction in their attempts to present a view of the working classes in Yeast, Alton Locke, Mary Barton and North and South. The introduction provides a short account of the social back­ ground and examines the concepts and methods used in this study. The first chapter briefly shows a selection of alternative approaches to fictional representation of the working class in other contemporary minor novelists. Chapter two considers those aspects of Charles Kingsley's intellectual development which were most significant in the formation of his views of the working class. Chapter three provides a detailed examination of Yeast and considers the way in which Charles Kingsley first attempted to incorporate working class figures in his novels. Chapter four discusses the development of Charles Kingsley's writing on the subject and analyses the treatment of the working class milieu of Alton Locke. Chapter five examines Mrs Gaskell's first novel, Mary Barton, which also presents a working class environment. Chapter six shows the further development of Mrs Gaskell as a writer in this area, by an examination of the way in which the working 2 . class is seen in relation to other social groups in North and South. Chapter seven analyses a particular aspect of Mrs Gaskell*s treatment of the working class by a consideration of her use of dialogue in the two novels. The conclusion briefly compares and contrasts the individual approaches of the two authors to the writing of novels about the working class. 3. CONTENTS Page No. Introduction 4 Chapter 1: The working class in the works of other contemporary minor novelists. l 6 C hapter 2t The influences on Charles Kingsley's early intellectual development 39 Chapter 3; Yeast 56 Chapter 4; Alton Locke 94 Chapter Mary B arton 152 C hapter 6: North and South 214 Chapter 7: Mrs Gaskell's use of dialogue in her characterization of the working class 278 Conclusion 305 Appendix I 314 Bibliography 3I 8 INTRODUCTION The aim of this study is to examine the way in which Charles Kingsley and Elizabeth Gaskell have presented a working class milieu in some of their novels and to draw attention to their sehitivity in creating, within their novels, an account of a culture in which the working class norms, values and patterns of behaviour are seen to be distinct from a middle class view of them - a view held by the majority of readers and writers in the first half of the nineteenth century. My references throughout the thesis to the 'a rt' of Charles Kingsley and Elizabeth Gaskell will refer to those techniques and skills which they have used to interpret this particular aspect of their work. The purpose of this dissertation is not so much to attempt to establish the accuracy with which the novelists have recorded historical events and facts - although this has a part to play - but to examine the way in which the writers have used their creative skills in making fiction out of life amongst the working class and have given expression to its attitudes, feelings and behaviour. The dynamic aspects of their work therefore cannot be reduced to factuaJ. accounting. To include factual detail in a novel does not necessarily enhance its quality as a piece of literature, nor does it inevitably contribute to a greater understanding of a world which the writer has chosen for his fictional background. Taine, one of the earliest writers to adopt a sociological approach to the interpretation of literature, attempted to apply the methods of the natural sciences to the social sciences and treat the novel as though it were an object which was capable of scientific analysis. Because Taine believed that literature was a reflection of society, he felt that it could thus be used as an historical document. Modifications of Taine's approach, particularly in the analysis of certain types of nineteenth cetury fiction, have persisted and led P.J. Keating, fairly recently to lament that: Too often individual working-class scenes in Victorian novels are praised for their historical accuracy, while the total pattern and effect of the novel is either ignored or excused. When we look more closely at how exactly working-class characters are treated in relation to characters of other classes, we find time and time again that the novelist has unconsciously set in motion a process of avoidance which prevents him from dealing with his professed subject - the working classes.^ In attempting to avoid such sim plistic accounting, the emphasis throughout the thesis is upon the examination of the awareness of social interaction of particular social groups in the novels of Charles Kingsley and Elizabeth Gaskell, and their understanding, in part, of the social structures and growth of class consciousness amongst the working class of the nineteenth century. This necessitates an examination of the dialectical nature of the relationship between the writer and his subject, in this case the working class, which contributes to the understanding and interpretations revealed in the novels. Clearly there is an important relationship between the social context and the creative work of the w riter, as Malcolm Bradbury and Bryan Wilson have pointed out : while the ideal portrait of the creative process is of an act pursued in freedom, solitude and without constraint, the fact remains that ^ P.J Keating, The Working Classes in Victorian Fiction (London, 1971)» pp.4 - 5. by another definition the writer is neither solitary nor autonomous. He is bound into his time, and lives within its horizons and potentials for thought and vision. He is also bound into a body of practices, conventions, and precepts - bound by the language he uses, which is never alone personal; by the orders and structures with which he shapes and designs his material; and by much more practical conventions 2 of his profession and his craft. The relationship of the writer to his environment is extremely complex and the sources of his materials and ideas almost impossible to identify in any direct sense. Although there obviously existed a world which, in part, can be accounted for objectively in terms of historical evidence and one which was clearly experienced by the working classes themselves, these novelists are more often concerned with the interpretation of experience within this society. Therefore in discussing these novels, it is not always easy to speak categorically of * the working class world of the l840s and l850s*, and more frequently the interpretations of a working class image are dependent upon the degree of access which the observer had to certain types of information, his contact with groups of workers and his own attitude of mind. Martin Bulmer, writing on the subject of research into class imagery says; the problems associated with the.nature of imagery are generalisable to the study of culture more generally. The variety, diffuseness and lack of precision evident in the study of imagery does not mean that the investigation of the social sources of their variation is mis­ conceived. Rather it underlines the point that subjective aspects 2 Robert Escarpit, Sociology of Literature, translated by Ernest Pick with an introduction by Malcolm Bradbury and Bryan Wilson (London, 1971), p.7. 7 of social action and social relations are by definition idiosyncratic, 3 particularistic and relatively formless. In speaking of the problems of interpretation for sociologists, Martin Bulmer i s a ls o making a very re le v a n t comment on the d i f f i c u l t i e s facing novelists when they attempt to interpret social situations. If, for example, consideration is given to the working class of Manchester, the way in which the image of the worker is constructed will vary from observer to observer. Although the same events and places were accessible to all those wishing to examine the area, the way in which these primary sources were used and interpreted depended upon the individual. Hence 4 the different interpretations that were produced by, say, W. Cooke Taylor and Frederick Engels^, when they explored situations which were superfic­ ially similar. But if we can be faced with problems of interpretation created by the underlying ideologies or presuppositions of historians, then it must be seen that the use made by novelists of historical facts can also present difficulties. However, the novelist must eventually choose to record accounts in a way which he believes will be most convincing to his audience, and this raises the question of the nature of representation.