A study of women's labor in Elizabeth Gaskell's Mary Barton

Abstract

The present study aims at studying women's labor in Elizabeth Gaskell's Mary Barton. For this purpose, it will start by tracing the writer's historical, social, and critical background, the milieu which shaped her perspectives and henceforth her work. Besides, it will discuss the writer's response to the changes which occurred in her lifetime and at the same time served as a strong agent for change. The following part will shed light on Gaskell's contribution, reputation and writing career. Unlike her contemporaries, she presents the process of finding one's vocation as central to a women's life. Further, the study will examine women's labor in Mary Barton where the writer's focuses on working-class society in which young women were drawn from the conventions governing feminine behavior, since they lived outside the boundaries of gentility. One of the problems addressed by the novel is the separation between classes and genders; Gaskell's novel tends to bridge the boundaries between her characters and her readers and discourage the middle-class sense of complacent superiority. © 2014 ACADEMY PUBLISHER Manufactured in Finland.