Wives and Daughters (111 page)

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Authors: Elizabeth Gaskell

Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Romance, #Literary, #Fathers and daughters, #Classics, #Social Classes, #General & Literary Fiction, #Literature & Fiction, #England, #Classic fiction (pre c 1945), #Young women, #Stepfamilies, #Children of physicians

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4. Gaskell never gives us an explicit account of Cynthia’s character, but rather wisely leaves it up to examples. What is the nature of Cynthia’s character? Describe it in all its ambiguities and contradictions.
5. Do you agree that Molly is less interesting than Cynthia? How is Cynthia’s happy ending a “generous revenge,” as Henry James puts it, on the idea that Cynthia’s character is hopeless? Does Cynthia act badly toward her various suitors (as Dr. Gibson believes)?
6. Gaskell’s methodology is one of a “simple record of the innumerable small facts of the young girl’s daily life.” Can Cynthia be excused of her fickleness and malleable character because of her upbringing? How is Molly’s conduct and morality superior? Is her superiority a result of something other than her upbringing?
7. Cynthia seems almost universally fascinating in the novel; most of the men, and even Molly, fall in love with her. Try to pinpoint the nature of Cynthia’s fascination. Is she sexually alluring? What else constitutes her appeal? Do you think the novel critiques Cynthia for the sexual aspect of her character; if so, why?
FOR FURTHER READING
Biographies and Works of Biographical Interest
Easson, Angus.
Elizabeth Gaskell
. London and Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 19 7 9 .
Foster, Shirley.
Elizabeth
Gaskell:A
Literary Life
. Basingstoke and New York: Pal-grave Macmillan, 2002.
Gaskell, Elizabeth.
The Letters of Mrs.
Gaskell. Edited by J. A. V. Chapple and Arthur Pollard. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1966.
.
The Life of Charlotte
Brontë. Edited by Jenny Uglow with revisions by Graham Handley. London: Everyman, 1997.
Gérin, Winifred.
Elizabeth
Gaskell:A
Biography
. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976.
James, Henry. “Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell.” In
Literary Criticism: Volume 1: Essays on Literature, American Writers
, and English Writers, edited by Leon Edel. New York: Library of America, 1984.
Uglow, Jenny.
Elizabeth Gaskell: A Habit of Stories.
New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1993.
Critical Studies
Craik, W A.
Elizabeth Gaskell and the English Provincial Novel.
London: Methuen, 1975.
D’Albertis, Deirdre.
Dissembling Fictions: Elizabeth Gaskell and the Victorian Social
Text. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997.
Flint, Kate.
Elizabeth Gaskell.
Plymouth, UK: Northcote House, 1995.
Langland, Elizabeth.
Nobody’s Angels: Middle-Class Women and Domestic Ideology in Victorian Culture.
Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995.
Homans, Margaret.
Bearing the Word: Language and Female Experience in Nineteenth
-
Century
Women’s Writing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986.
Lansbury, Coral.
Elizabeth Gaskell.
Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1984.
Schor, Hilary M.
Scheherezade in the Marketplace: Elizabeth Gaskell and the Victorian Novel
. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.
Stoneman, Patsy.
Elizabeth Gaskell.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987.
Wright, Terence R.
Elizabeth Gaskell “We are not
Angels”:
Realism, Gender, Values
. Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan Press, 1995.
Online Resources
The following is an excellent Web site dedicated to Elizabeth Gaskell:
http://www.lang.nagoya-u.ac.jp/~matsuoka/gaskell.html
. The site is well-maintained and thorough, with a very good bibliography, links to e-texts of Gaskell’s work, and biographical information. It is the work of Mitsuhara Matsuoka, a scholar from Nagoya University in Japan.
Other Works Cited in the Introduction
David, Deirdre, ed.
Cambridge Companion to
the Victorian
Novel
. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Helsinger, Elizabeth K., Robin Lauterbach Sheets, and William Veeder, eds.
The Woman Question: Society and Literature in Britain and America
1837-1883. New York: Garland, 1983.
Richetti, John, ed.
The Columbia History of the British Novel
. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994.
Tucker, Herbert F., ed.
A Companion to Victorian Literature and Culture
. Oxford and Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1999.
Watt, Ian P.
The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson and Fielding
. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1965.
a
Scottish or northern English dialect for suffocated, stifled, smothered.
b
Decorative folds of ribbon, fabric, or lace resembling a row of quills.
c
In the order of precedence among titled aristocracy, earl and countess come between viscount and marquis.
d
In England the train was introduced and rapidly spread in the 1830s.
e
Term for Parisian working-class republicans during the French Revolution.
f
Proper name for the common plant known as the sundew.
g
That is, sit wedged between two others in a seat meant for two.
h
Artificial flowers.
i
Outdoor flight of stairs leading up to an entrance.
j
Novel by Samuel Richardson published in 1753-1754; the hero comes to signify gentlemanliness.
k
Rankings of the English titled aristocracy, known as “the peerage.”
l
Physician’s office and examining rooms.
m
Concealed love; from Shakespeare’s
Twelfth Night
(act 2, scene 4).
n
Britain was engaged in the Napoleonic Wars against France (1800-1815).
o
The doctrines of the Church of England.
p
“Squire” is a term of regard for the foremost landowner of a borough or community.
q
Slang for having been failed in the final examinations.
r
Booby prize presented to the man coming in last in math.
s
One of the colleges at Cambridge University.
t
Or Punjab; region in British India, now between India and Pakistan.
u
Written in Latin, a prescription consisting of modesty, domestic fidelity, and deference; mix in water and take three times a day.
v
Female allegorical figure of truth, usually understood also as a symbol of the Church of England, in Edward Spenser’s The Faerie Queene (1590).
w
In Greek mythology, Scylla and Charybdis were two monsters who lived on either side of the straits of Messina; in trying to avoid one, sailors often found themselves threatened by the other.
x
Felicia Hemans (1793-1835), a contemporary popular poet.
y
Scholarship; one of two prizes awarded for classics and English poetry.
z
Important, widely read journal (1769-1862) that supported reform.
aa
Walking stick that doubled as a digging implement. ‡Starting in 1784, a tax on houses having seven or more windows.
ab
Novel by Walter Scott, published in 1819, that foreshadows Molly’s capacity for faithfulness.
ac
Natural Sciences would be established as a course of study at Cambridge in 1848.
ad
Alfred the Great (849-899), king of Wessex (871-899), considered the first king of England.
ae
Highly contagious, sometimes fatal disease associated with nineteenth-century childhood mortality.
af
Woe to the vanquished (Latin).
ag
Problem that seems to have no resolution.
ah
From outside (Latin).
ai
Cynthia is a name for the moon, which forebodes the character’s inconstancy in love.
aj
Intimate meeting of two people (French).
ak
Tool for collecting natural specimens in water.
al
That is, between teacher/mentor and student; in Homer’s Odyssey, when Odysseus departed for the Trojan War, he left his son Telemachus in the care of Mentor.
am
That is, unceremoniously; a colloquial early-nineteenth-century expression.
an
Wrapping paper used to protect objects.
ao
Dates that mark the start of hunting seasons: August 12 for grouse, September 1 for partridge.
ap
To debut—that is, be introduced into society as a marriageable girl.
aq
Popular novelist Maria Edgeworth (1767-1849).
ar
The hero of Walter Scott’s novel of the same name (1819).
as
Flourish or embellishment (French).
at
Warwickshire dialect for unfamiliar and thus unpleasant.
au
Bound by law to pass intact to the male heir; that is, it is a secure inheritance.
av
In a low or soft voice (Italian).
aw
See endnote 1 to chapter 17.
ax
Hidden (French).
ay
Scottish kinship is by marriage as well as blood.
az
That is, a relation as close as if it were a blood relation.
ba
See the Bible, 1 Corinthians 9:22.
bb
Songs (French).
bc
Final examination for an honors B.A. degree.
bd
Wrangler is the top division of honors; senior wrangler is the highest honor.
be
That is, he’ll have a scholarship to remain and study; ironically, this is what Osborne meant to achieve.
bf
Admiring of nothing; indifferent (Latin).
bg
Not timid (Scottish dialect).
bh
Prayer from the Bible, Psalm 31:9.
bi
False or disingenuous shame (French).
bj
That is, the clock at Whitehall in London, famed for its accuracy.
bk
Fretful (Scottish dialect).
bl
From the Bible, Luke 15:12; the words of the prodigal son.
bm
The law courts in London; Osborne is contemplating studying the law.
bn
Become a clergyman in the Church of England.
bo
Slang for Napoleon Bonaparte.
bp
Crapaud is French for “toad”; early slur for the French that later becomes “frog.”
bq
Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine and Quarterly Review; influential monthly journals.
br
Rustic long pipe for smoking tobacco.
bs
Long poem by Lord Byron, written in 1816.
bt
Somewhat deprecatory term for a female intellectual.
bu
Therefore (Latin).
bv
William Cowper, “The Diverting History of John Gilpin” (1782), an English comic narrative poem.
bw
You will repent if you take a wife, Colin (French).
bx
Inappropriate (French).
by
Mishap (French).
bz
It was the custom to wear new clothing in symbolic celebration of Christ’s resurrection.
ca
Mrs. Gibson reads Burke’s General and Heraldic Dictionary of the Peerage and Baronetage of the United Kingdom, published by John Burke in London in 1826; known as the Peerage or Burke’s Peerage.
cb
Special trains scheduled for holidays; popular starting in the 1840s.
cc
Strong-mindedness (French).
cd
Piece of jewelry consisting of a loved one’s tiny portrait.
ce
Choice; exquisite (French).
cf
Like a child (French); the duchess wears an inappropriately girlish dress.
cg
Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century science of facial expression and features.
ch
The Animal Kingdom (1817), by Georges Cuvier, French pioneer of modern zoology and paleontology.
ci
The Age of Louis XIV (1751), by Voltaire.
cj
Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (1772-1844), important French zoologist and comparative anatomist.
ck
See endnote 4 to chapter 1.
cl
Scholar; scientist (French).
cm
Nursery maid.
cn
Colloquial term for the Peerage (see footnote on p. 274).
co
Reference to The Thousand and One Nights, a.k.a. The Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, in which Alnaschar concocts unreahzed dreams of riches and marrying a wealthy woman.
cp
Star used in navigation.
cq
Cleaning work.
cr
That is, literally.
cs
Letter folded rather than contained in an envelope.
ct
University fellows could not marry.

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