ABSTRACT
ITisobviousenoughthatMrsGaskellisanovelistmuchconcernedwiththenatureofsocialchange.Herfamoussocialproblemnovels,MaryBartonandNorthandSouth,are,among otherthings,studiesoftheeffectsofindustrializationonworkingclassandmiddle-classfamilies.Theyalsoofferavisionof 'reconciliation'.MrsGaskellisclearlyalerttotheproblemsthat accompanyandinsomewaysareindustrialization.Equally clearly,shehopesthattheproblemscansomehowbedetached fromtheircontextandsomadetoappearcontingentrather thaninevitable.Theresultisthattwootherwisefinenovelsare weakenedbytheirauthor'sreadinesstoslackenherrealisticgrip onprobabilitiesinordertomakeroomforsomeconvenient liberalpieties;weareofferedanentirelyahistoricalviewof changeasbeingabletoaccommodateandreconcileconflicting interestsandenergies.Atitscrudest(andsuchaviewhardly everrisesabovesuchcrudeness)thiscomesdowntosuggesting thatmasterandmanwilllearntounderstand,respectandeven loveoneanother.BartonandCarson,HigginsandThornton: theyaretostandasageneralandgenerousstatementabout enlightenedrelationshipsinanindustrializedsociety.(Inotein passingthatMrsGaskell'sdesiretoconvertclass-antagonism intoapatternofreconciliationisdiscoverableinmanyofher shortstories,especiallyTheHeartofJohnMiddleton.)
Butitwillnotdo.InthenovelsthemselvesMrsGaskellhas tofudgetheimportantissuessheherselfhasraised.Itmayof coursebethatHigginsandThorntonwillcometounderstand oneanother-thoughMrsGaskellisagooddealmoreconvincingwhenshewritesoftheirmisunderstandings,anditmay
Lady Ludlow, written some five years later, begins: 'I am an old woman now, and things are very different to what they were in my youth.' And the narrator goes on to tell of her years as companion to Lady Ludlow, an imperious gentlewoman, now dead. I do not think that we can feel quite the sympathy for Lady Ludlow that Mrs Gaskell seems to have intended (her liberal, middle-class pride typically gives way whenever she writes of 'old' families: they are nearly always seen in an exclusively favourable light), yet we are free to admire how fully and finely she registers Lady Ludlow's qualities and distinction, quite simply because she is dead, has become a part of the past that is sealed off from the present. Like much of Mrs Gaskell's fiction, My Lady Ludlow is about an irrecoverable moment in English life: 'Alas! alas! I never saw my dear lady again. She died in eighteen hundred and fourteen.' The tale is also something of a lament.
