Physical And Social Diseases In Early Victorian England: A Pathological Study Of Mary Barton

Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell is one of the outstanding writers in the Victorian period of Britain.She has been praised for her detailed and concrete presentation of the lives of many strata of Victorian society,especially for her depiction of the sizable social divide between the rich and the poor during her lifetime.Published in 1848,Mary Barton is her first novel and is considered as one of the masterpieces of the industrial novels.Set in the 1830 s and 1840 s,a period of economic crisis in England,the story reveals serious social problems at that time.Moreover,disease serves as an important clue in Mary Barton.The novel presents the different living conditions of the poor and the rich in disease-ridden Manchester,and shows that the poor rely on alcohol and opium to relieve their bodily and mental suffering.Therefore,this thesis mainly examines the diseases in the novel.And the aim of this thesis is to analyze both the physical and social diseases displayed in Mary Barton from the perspective of pathology within its historical context,to explore the causes of diseases,and to figure out the reason why these diseases are difficult to be cured with reference to Marxist theory.The main body of this thesis includes five chapters.Chapter one is to introduce the rise of literary pathological criticism and some key terms,including “body,”“disease” and “cure.” Chapter two displays the historical context by focusing on the reality of public health and society in the Victorian era.Meanwhile,depictions of both physical and social diseases in Mary Barton are shown in this part.Chapter three“Causes of Diseases in Mary Barton” elaborates the causes of diseases in the novel.The epidemic disease in early Victorian England is tied to the unhealthy economy at the time.Chapter four “Means of Alleviation to Physical Diseases in Mary Barton”mainly analyzes several means of relieving physical diseases in Mary Barton.In the novel,sick characters mainly rely on alcohol and opium to ease their bodily and mental pain.However,none of these ways can cure them completely.And Chapter five “Early Victorian Society’s Anxiety on Class Conflict” focuses on the public anxiety on the social disease of the time,namely sharp class conflict.Gaskell tries to offer her“prescription” for economic and social problems at that time.However,given that her“solution” mainly come through mutual goodwill and recognition of wrongdoing,her“prescription” may not be a good one.Moreover,Gaskell’s contemporaries take a different view of class conflict and thus propose various solutions,showing the uncertainty of class conflict in Victorian society.To sum up,Gaskell’s vivid depiction of the “sick” social conditions in nineteenthcentury England during the economic recession reveals a serious social problem at the time—increasingly sharp class conflict.Although Gaskell and her contemporaries try to solve this problem,their views on class conflict are very different,which exactly reflects the anxiety and uncertainty of the Victorians about the class issue.