The Building Of Female Communities In Mrs.Gaskell’s Novels

The building of the female community is the response of women’s class to the social and cultural environment they face,the social attributes of the class subordinate to the group,and the comprehensive environment in which the community needs to participate and integrate.Through a large number of close reading of the texts,this thesis analyzes the community construction by women of different classes in Mrs.Gaskell’s early works of Mary Barton,Cranford,and North and South by using the theory of ’Mind’ which is one of the connective forms of community proposed by Ferdinand T?nnies,including common beliefs,emotional connection and ideas.The first chapter discusses the reasons for the formation of the community of women of the lower class represented by Mary Barton in the context of the intensification of labor-capital conflicts between the bourgeoisie and the working class caused by the industrial revolution-religious beliefs and feeling connections,and the function of female community to resist the brutal industrial revolution.The second chapter studies the female community construction by the old aristocratic women in Cranford due to the old regulations,benevolence and emotions and the supplement of the female community by the invading masculine power.The third chapter mainly focuses on the family ideology and ideals of the Victorian middle-class family angels represented by Margaret Hale and women’s buffer against the labor conflicts.Finally,the following conclusions can be drawn:At the beginning of the 19th century,in the British society with the booming industrial revolution,no matter which class they belonged to,the female community and the male community were not opposite but complementary to each other and the existence of the female community significantly alleviated the class contradictions of the industrial revolution.