Criticism of Mary Barton

Summary:

Rosemarie Bodenheimer’s criticism entitled, “Private Grief and Public Acts in Mary Barton” was the piece that I really focused on. Bodenheimer writes from a very interesting angle that deeply explores the use and implications of emotions that were associated with Gaskell’s novel that deal with the characters individually as well as the emotions that Gaskell brought to the societal classes from the era. Specifically, she really looks at the “grief”, sadness, tragedy, pain, deaths and sorrow that Gaskell includes in the book. As the critic, Bodenheimer does not solely take one stance or another, but rather she looks at what worked well in the novel and what was not as successful; in short, Bodenheimer is very precise and articulate in examining Gaskell’s work from several different angles, focusing mostly on the emotions that the writing provoked for the audience. She writes, “I want to argue for an essential consistency in the novel’s internal conflicts, and for the ways that its troubling issues cut across both plots (referring here to the plot of the novel as a story and then the plot of the politics and economics issues), and even shape the fluctuations of the narrative voice” (511). The criticism goes into fascinating detail about how Gaskell utilizes the voices (implying that there are many) of the narrator in order to serve a number of purposes in the book. In other words, Bodenheimer explores how the narrator in Mary Barton works in conjunction with the characters as a means to deliver both story and political notions. Thus, proving that there are, without a doubt, both story and political intentions; she even references at some point that Mary Barton can be viewed as a “split-novel”.

Analysis:  

I have to confess that I may have slightly cheated in the readings of the criticisms. I looked at several that I really did not care for before reading Bodenheimers’. This writing really caught my attention and it made me think of this novel in so many different ways that I had not thought of prior to it. I felt that she was really brilliant in how she looked at Gaskell’s writing and it pertained, as well as supported, much of what we discussed in today class. She too, looked at it from the contexts of what Gaskell’s intentions may have (or may not have) been. It is clear that she also questioned the same thing that all of us did today when we created our discussion questions in our blog groups. However, she gave so many great examples as well as instances in the book that showed how Gaskell presented different instances of emotions. Bodenheimer brought up a good point in saying, “When we hear, in the little Canadian epilogue, that Margaret Legh has regained her sight, the news comes with a sense of violated tone, for it is the only piece of simple ‘good tidings’ in the book” (510). My first thought of this statement was, “wow that is a pretty profound and confident point to make”, but in all honesty (depending on how you look at all instances in the book) she is making a pretty credible observation. Throughout the rest of the criticism Bodenheimer digs deep in looking at many details that I had merely passed over in the book as a reader, but she tells us why they were important. I think that it is very interesting to see this novel as solely expressing grief, (as she puts it (and such like emotions). That is an emotion that is consistently remains throughout the book, but I had not truly looked at it that way. I think that Bodenheimer uses the presence of this particular emotion to support the fact that it can be seen within the character’s lives as individuals (the story) as well as in the different social classes, no matter what rank of class they belonged to (the idea of it being a political/social novel), either way it was an emotion that was experienced by ALL in Gaskell's novel of Mary Barton, which could be a way of seeing Gaskell proving her point about the issues that lie between the upper and lower classes.