Mid-nineteenth-century England saw great social transformation in the face of industrialisation, changing working and living conditions, and voting reforms, and with these changes came new conceptions of masculinity and what it meant to be a man and a gentleman. Though much critical attention has been given to Elizabeth Gaskell's representation of women—not surprisingly, given titles such as Wives and Daughters, Mary Barton, Cousin Phillis, and Ruth—her works span class, region, time, and genre to grapple with ideas of masculinity. This thesis aims to explore her understanding of masculine identity as a social construct, to examine the representation of manliness in her novels, and to consider how her writing engages with Victorian ideologies of masculinity. The introduction provides context on Gaskell's background and Unitarian faith, discourses of sympathy, Victorian manliness, and masculinity studies. The thesis is presented in three sections, each comprising two chapters. The first examines working-class masculinity and the gentleman in her industrial fiction; the second explores intertextuality, examining the ways in which she borrows and transforms notions of masculinity from contemporaries' works; and the third examines her representation of previous models of manhood in her historical fiction. Together, these sections reveal that Gaskell views masculinity not as monolithic but rather as relational and shaped by many contexts, from regional identity and historic change to intertextuality and sympathy, which echo throughout her entire oeuvre; in examining her longer fiction in juxtaposition, this thesis makes it clear that just as Gaskell views masculinity as a category that cannot be neatly contained, she systematically excludes male characters from her resolutions, struggling to contain her models of masculinity within the form of the novel. The appendix, based on archival research, presents a list of the books that Elizabeth and/or William Gaskell borrowed between 1850 and 1865 from Manchester's Portico Library.

In this dissertation, I examine relationships between gender and agency in the works of Victorian author Elizabeth Gaskell. Gaskells position within discussions of nineteenth-century feminisms has long been a subject of debate, and her celebration of and focus on femininity, womens lives, and the domestic sphere of nineteenth-century womanhood is inevitably crucial in critical analyses of her work. I argue that Gaskells take on gender is a more sophisticated one than has been recognised. In her fictional depictions of the agency and power of women and men, as well as in commentary from her correspondence and her biography of her friend and contemporary woman author Charlotte Brontë, Gaskell conceives of the traditionally feminine sphere of influence as more conducive to action than the masculine realm, where notions of authority and responsibility paradoxically place limits on individual ability and agency. These ideas are further complicated in Gaskells work by an awareness of the constructed or unfixed nature of gender, a conscious recognition of gender roles as not essentially tied to sex difference but rather as fluid, mutable, and primarily utilitarian.<p> My argument situates Gaskells position contextually, with reference to contemporary nineteenth-century discussions of the roles and expectations of men and women. It is organised in terms of the thematic focus of her novels, with chapters on industry and class relations, fallen women, religion and marriage, and home and family. Within this framework I suggest a progression in the complexity of Gaskells thinking both chronologically and in the shift of focus from topics that are centered in masculine spheres of power, such as the economic, political, and religious, to those that are firmly ensconced in the feminine domestic realm of the personal home and local community. I end with a discussion of The Life of Charlotte Brontë and Gaskells thoughts on female authorship, concluding that Gaskells locating of agency in the feminine is a means by which she can promote alternative ways of being and recognize that diverse ways of seeing the world and ones own identity or position within it are essential in order to create and maintain effective societies.

In this dissertation, I examine relationships between gender and agency in the works of Victorian author Elizabeth Gaskell. Gaskells position within discussions of nineteenth-century feminisms has long been a subject of debate, and her celebration of and focus on femininity, womens lives, and the domestic sphere of nineteenth-century womanhood is inevitably crucial in critical analyses of her work. I argue that Gaskells take on gender is a more sophisticated one than has been recognised. In her fictional depictions of the agency and power of women and men, as well as in commentary from her correspondence and her biography of her friend and contemporary woman author Charlotte Brontë, Gaskell conceives of the traditionally feminine sphere of influence as more conducive to action than the masculine realm, where notions of authority and responsibility paradoxically place limits on individual ability and agency. These ideas are further complicated in Gaskells work by an awareness of the constructed or unfixed nature of gender, a conscious recognition of gender roles as not essentially tied to sex difference but rather as fluid, mutable, and primarily utilitarian.<p> My argument situates Gaskells position contextually, with reference to contemporary nineteenth-century discussions of the roles and expectations of men and women. It is organised in terms of the thematic focus of her novels, with chapters on industry and class relations, fallen women, religion and marriage, and home and family. Within this framework I suggest a progression in the complexity of Gaskells thinking both chronologically and in the shift of focus from topics that are centered in masculine spheres of power, such as the economic, political, and religious, to those that are firmly ensconced in the feminine domestic realm of the personal home and local community. I end with a discussion of The Life of Charlotte Brontë and Gaskells thoughts on female authorship, concluding that Gaskells locating of agency in the feminine is a means by which she can promote alternative ways of being and recognize that diverse ways of seeing the world and ones own identity or position within it are essential in order to create and maintain effective societies.

This essay argues that the protagonist of Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South (1855), Margaret Hale, is a Byronic heroine. The counter argument that any such comparison is impossible because of her sex is refuted and examples are given of how Margaret is not portrayed like the other young women of the novel. She rejects the female stereotype of the time and it is furthermore proved that she steps out of the passive role considered best suited for a female, and takes on the active one, becoming the heroine of the piece. Finally, traits of Margaret’s character are compared to that of the archetypical Byronic Hero, and it is shown that she shares most of the defining character traits. It is concluded that certain discord in the comparison is needed for the concord to be visible, but rather than being idealized, Margaret is portrayed as a flawed character that rebels against the rules of society for the sake of those she loves. This makes her a Byronic heroine.

This essay is a literary analysis of two ghost stories, Elizabeth Gaskell’s “The Old Nurse’s Story” (1852) and Susan Hill’s The Man in the Picture (2007). The main focus of the essay is the theme of revenge, which is explored on the basis of similarities and differences in the mentioned ghost stories. It is shown that, in spite of many similarities, The Man in the Picture is a more developed and less conventional ghost story than “The Old Nurse’s Story”. This development is seen in the setting, the narrators and the structure of the story, all of which contain more layers in Susan Hill’s story. The essay also includes a didactic chapter which shows how a teacher can use the two ghost stories in the classroom to teach students in upper secondary school about literary analysis and the Gothic genre.

Texte remanié de: Diss.--Buffalo--State University of New York. / Bibliogr. p. [159]-162. Index.

Although Victorian psychology has been the subject of much recent scholarship, Elizabeth Gaskell's work has not been considered in relation to nineteenth-century theories of mind. In this thesis, I argue that Gaskell's final novel, Wives and Daughters, deals with associationism, an early branch of psychology that played a key role in public debates over cognition that took place throughout the century. Gaskell was exposed to associationism through her Unitarian faith, and Unitarian educators in particular articulated associationist principles in their writings about cognitive development. Gaskell was preoccupied with a similar model of learning throughout her fiction, and I read Wives and Daughters as a novel that redefines education in associationist terms, presenting the protagonist Molly Gibson's education not as a matter of formal schooling but as a matter of experiential and psychological growth.

De Mary Barton à Wives and Daughters, les romans d’Elizabeth Gaskell mettent en scène des héroïnes qui affrontent des épreuves comme la mort, la maladie, la disparition de membres de leur famille, la naissance d’un enfant illégitime, la banqueroute, etc. Ses héroïnes sont forcées d’évoluer afin de survivre, d’autant plus que la période victorienne, jalonnée d’évolutions sociales, politiques, et scientifiques, ne les épargne pas. Si le trauma est souvent décrit comme un événement extraordinaire, les romans de Gaskell prouvent au contraire qu’il trouve sa source dans le quotidien. Même si les notions de trauma et de résilience n’existaient pas à l’époque victorienne, elles ne sont pas nées avec la psychanalyse, et Gaskell a su trouver son propre vocabulaire pour décrire l’intense vie psychique de ses personnages et leur capacité à se remettre de leurs blessures. Elle donne une voix aux répercussions mentales et physiques du trauma, saisissant les signes infimes, afin de rendre communicable ces expériences de la douleur. Nous verrons comment Gaskell parvient à construire un nouveau type de personnage féminin, l’héroïne gaskellienne, caractérisée par sa capacité à absorber les chocs traumatiques et par son héroïsme. Les adaptations cinématographiques de ses romans réalisées ces dernières années (North and South, Cranford, Wives and Daughters) participent à la nouvelle popularité de Gaskell. Le cinéma offrant un nouveau régime de visibilité et d’audibilité aux expériences traumatiques, nous analyserons les choix faits par les réalisateurs et scénaristes (utilisation du son, montage, ajouts de personnages, etc.) pour transposer à l’écran la subtilité de Gaskell. / From Mary Barton to Wives and Daughters, Elizabeth Gaskell’s novels portray heroines who have to deal with ordeals such as death, disease, missing family member, illegitimate child, bankruptcy, etc. Her heroines are forced to evolve in order to survive, especially as they live in a period riddled with social, political and scientific changes which does not spare them. If trauma, which Greek origin refers to the wound, is often described as an extraordinary event, Gaskell’s novels, on the contrary, demonstrate that trauma arises in daily life. Even if these notions did not exist in the Victorian period, trauma and resilience were not born with psychoanalysis. Gaskell found her own language to describe her characters’ deep psychic life and their aptitude to resist and to recover from their wounds. She gives voice to the mental and physical repercussions of trauma, grasping all the hardly perceptible signs, in order to communicate these experiences of pain. We will see how these writing strategies enable Gaskell to build a new type of feminine character, the Gaskellian heroine, characterized by her aptitude to absorb traumatic shocks and by her heroism.Screen adaptations of her novels (North and South, Cranford, Wives and Daughters) were made in the last few years, thus contributing to Gaskell’s new popularity. As cinema offers a different regime of visibility and audibility to traumatic experiences, we will analyse the choices made by directors and scriptwriters (use of sound, editing processes, addition of characters, etc.) to adapt for the screen Gaskell’s subtlety.

This essay argues that Elizabeth Gaskell challenges the limiting gender roles of the Victorian era through giving her heroine, Margaret Hale in North and South, both the traditionally female qualities of virtue and selflessness and the traditionally masculine qualities of independence and action. The essay also argues that Gaskell’s heroine balances between the feminine and the masculine world as to not appear “unwomanly”, but rather subtly influencing the readers and calls for changing gender norms. Concrete examples of the heroine’s gender transgressions are put forward, but also her compliance to the traditional gender roles summed up in three roles or themes: the angel in the house, the female visitor and the refined lady. This essay also provides a didactic approach on working with North and South and the topic of Victorian gender norms in the upper secondary school. The relevance of and reasons for reading literature in school are also presented. The didactic chapter offers a concrete lesson plan on how to work with the theme of Victorian gender norms, which may develop students’ emphatic skills and also make them aware of ties between themselves and people that lived a long time ago.

The essay analyses three works of supernatural horror fiction written by different authors over various periods of time. These three works are “The Old Nurse’s Story” by Elizabeth Gaskell, “Lost Hearts” by M. R. James and The Small Hand by Susan Hill. The argument of the essay is that all three stories diverge from the conventions of Gothic horror stories by including a child in the role of victim and ghost. This makes the stories more frightening since they challenge the reader’s expectations of children’s innocence. In order to discern how the stories diverge from the norm the essay explores the traditional conventions of the genre such as setting, narrator, the structure of the time-frame, the buildup of mystery, the observer of the ghost, the ghost itself, and finally the visitation. In the end, the essay finds that all three of the analysed stories fit the formula of a conventional Gothic horror story, using similar methods for building up suspense and fear in the reader. Moreover, all three enhance the effect through the combination of evil and innocence in the children.