{"id":757,"date":"2022-09-12T19:30:50","date_gmt":"2022-09-12T19:30:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/?p=757"},"modified":"2022-10-26T18:18:02","modified_gmt":"2022-10-26T18:18:02","slug":"the-portrayal-of-leisure-in-mary-barton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/2022\/09\/12\/the-portrayal-of-leisure-in-mary-barton\/","title":{"rendered":"The Portrayal of Leisure in Mary Barton"},"content":{"rendered":"

The line I chose to examine in Elizabeth Gaskell\u2019s <\/span>Mary Barton <\/span><\/i>is \u201cThere were homes over which Carson\u2019s fire threw a deep, terrible gloom; the homes of those who would fain work, and no man gave unto them\u2014the homes of those to whom leisure was a curse\u201d (Gaskell 58).\u00a0<\/span>This passage is written in the context of the fire at Carson\u2019s mill. The imagery of the \u2018gloom\u2019 covering both types of people\u2019s houses, the rich and the poor, shows that there is a perceived unification of the two classes that in reality does not exist. Some people, the rich who \u201cwould fain work,\u201d can afford leisure time and have an abundance of it. For others, \u201cleisure was a curse\u201d because they must work constantly to earn their living, and any rest they take could mean that they or their families starve. This is partially illustrated through the description of the gloom as \u201cterrible,\u201d because this can be interpreted to mean that its coverage\u00a0is deceiving. This line therefore brings to light the intense contrast between the lives of the two social classes living so close to one another. It also throws into light the dystopia that this class division creates. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Similar themes can be found in <\/span>The Count of Monte Cristo <\/span><\/i>by Alexandre Dumas. The main character, Edmond Dantes, starts out as a peasant earning just enough to get by, and when he is promoted, he is betrayed by his friend because of\u00a0a moment of leisure, when they discuss this event that should be celebrated. Instead, he is thrown into jail to rot for life as a result of this moment of leisure, so one could argue that this leisure turned out to be a curse for him. Later, he escapes from prison and becomes very wealthy, and uses his wealth to punish those who betrayed him. This is a similar contrast to the one found in <\/span>Mary Barton, <\/span><\/i>where Henry Carson and his family are cursed for having too much leisure and not allowing their employees to have any.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Both texts, therefore, share the idea that leisure is a privilege that is only reserved to the most fortunate, and those who are less fortunate are punished when they try to take advantage of this same privilege. By illustrating this position, Gaskell uses what she has seen in her life to try to convey the struggles of the working class in a way that people can understand. This is also an example of the \u201cventing\u201d about class struggle mentioned in Richard Altick\u2019s \u2018Victorian People and Ideas,\u2019 which he argues is the reason that \u201cVictorian England escaped class struggle\u201d (Altick 72). Whether Altick\u2019s claim is true and supported by evidence or not, messages of this type were common in Victorian novels because of the pressing issues of the time.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The passage contributes to the novel as a whole by setting up the context for the later class struggle that leads to the murder of Harry Carson. By showing the stark contrast between the lives of the working class and the rich, especially by saying that to the working class \u201cleisure was a curse,\u201d this helps to explain the working class people\u2019s motivation to form a union, and later to take drastic measures to try to achieve their goals. Leisure is a common human desire, so this helps to foreshadow and explain later events in the novel. The juxtaposition of the two types of homes is therefore meant to contribute to the overall spirit of justice in the novel.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The line I chose to examine in Elizabeth Gaskell\u2019s Mary Barton is \u201cThere were homes over which Carson\u2019s fire threw a deep, terrible gloom; the homes of those who would fain work, and no man gave unto them\u2014the homes of those to whom leisure was a curse\u201d (Gaskell 58).\u00a0This passage is written in the context … Continue reading The Portrayal of Leisure in Mary Barton<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4982,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[344620],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall-2022"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4982"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}