Mrs. Gaskell's Ethical Concerns In Mary Barton

Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-1865) is considered one of the important novelists who depict the condition of England in the Victorian age. In 1848, her first novel Mary Barton was published anonymously. Being attractive and influential, this novel helped Mrs. Gaskell become one of the first-class English novelists.Although many literary critics have analyzed Mary Barton on its class issues, the thesis holds that this novel reflects Mrs. Gaskell's concerns about human-other and human-self relationships. In addition, Mrs. Gaskell herself stressed repeatedly that she wrote this novel from the perspective of humanism instead of politics. Ethical literary criticism was put forward by Professor Nie Zhenzhao in 2004. Professor Li Dingqing thinks that ethical literary criticism can be applied to critical practice through four kinds of ethical relationships, namely, human-nature relationship, human-society relationship, human-other relationship, and human-self relationship. This thesis intends to interpret Mary Barton from the perspective of ethical literary criticism in terms of the last two relationships mentioned above. By exploring the ethical elements in Mary Barton both in human-other relationship and human-self relationship, the thesis probes into Mrs. Gaskell's ethical thought and discovers its contribution to the rebuilding of humanistic spirit and construction of harmonious society.This paper includes five chapters.Chapter one gives a brief introduction to Mrs. Gaskell's works, critical reviews abroad and home of Mary Barton, Mrs. Gaskell's ethical concerns in Mary Barton and proposes the new approach of ethical literary criticism to interpret this novel.Chapter two is the theoretical and critical basis of this paper. It introduces the connection between ethics and literature, the major issues and research method of ethical literary criticism, Professor Li Dingqing's illustration of the four kinds of ethical relationships and factors contributing to Mrs. Gaskell's ethical concerns.Chapter three explores in detail Mrs. Gaskell's ethical position of humans' pursuit of good in terms of human-other relationship in Mary Barton. The thesis holds that Mrs. Gaskell, while pointing out the obstacles to the harmony in human-other relationship expresses humans' desire of pursuing good to overcome the obstacles and establish the harmony in human-other relationship. Through Mary Barton, Mrs. Gaskell extols good in forms of mutual love and help, altruistic spirit, compassion, fraternity and tolerance. Chapter four focuses on Mrs. Gaskell's conveying of humans' moral desire for the sublimation of a motal being in terms of human-self relationship. The thesis probes into the four main characters in Mary Barton to dig out Mrs. Gaskell's ethical concerns in terms of human-self relationship. Reason, self-examination and repentance are Mrs. Gaskell's concrete forms of humans' pursuit of moral sublimation.Chapter five is the conclusion. This thesis, interpreting Mrs. Gaskell's Mary Barton from literary ethical perspective, focuses on Mrs. Gaskell's ethical concerns about human-other relationship and human-self relationship, which is seldom paid attention to. In the end, the thesis holds that Mrs. Gaskell's ethical concerns are beneficial to the harmony in human-other relationship and human-self relationship which has social significance in both the rebuilding of humanistic spirit and construction of harmonious society in modern world.