It's a pity that Mr. Gibson didn't talk to Molly about the note he intercepted. She would have listened to her father if he told her that if she should ever receive a note from a young man, she should show it to him.
I think fathers in those days thought girls shouldn't be given that kind of information
I'm going away with friends for the weekend but might be able to join in a zoom discussion on May 1st depending on the time.
Moo, the hiding of the note was aggravating, as were the keeping of some of the other secrets. I guess it was the first time Dr. Gibson realised Molly was growing up, but he still felt she needed to be protected as a child.
Sad that I can't do Zoom, but enjoying the conversation here. This novel came as a great and welcome surprise: I've only thought of Elizabeth Gaskell as Charlotte Bronte's biographer and now want to read more of her fiction. If it had been completed, I think Gaskell would have made a number of dramatic changes and it might be have been more widely appreciated. The unfinished nature of the novel, though, gave me more to think about as regards possibilities and likely outcomes.
One aspect I kept coming back to was the characters off-stage who suddenly 'arrive' in the fiction and demand attention. Cynthia is mentioned a number of times as mysterious, tricky, 'a little leetle wilful' in her mother's words. The reasons why this young girl has been exiled to France for her schooling and left there for vacations are not clear and Mrs Gibson the mother (and new stepmother) has evidently not shown much maternal solicitude. Cynthia for me overtook Molly as a central character and that would have been a problem for Gaskell as author. Cynthia's charm and mysteriousness is evident at once as is her contempt and dismissiveness of her mother, the former Clare Kirkpatrick. That Cynthia has a more lax morality than Molly is suggested but with extenuating circumstances -- Cynthia has not been raised as protectively and with the Scotch integrity Milly has had from her father.
I found the tensions around mother-daughter conflict more interesting than the disappointing marriage Dr Gibson has made, something he realises almost at once after proposing and hearing that this marriage had been suggested to Hyacinth Clare. Molly has good reason to distrust and even dislike her new stepmother and regret the closeness she had with her father, but Mrs Gibson has not treated Molly as badly as her own daughter Cynthia. I found some echoes of Middlemarch (Lydgate and Rosemary Vincy) in Dr Gibson's very evident regret and impatience with the fool of a woman he has married.
There's less sympathy for Mrs Gibson as a former governess than might have been expected. The character of Miss Eyre, a shop-keeper's daughter become ladylike governess, is sketchy and just a nod to the great governess figure in Jane Eyre. Servants are treated badly (Bethia sent away, Betty fired, the cook who resigns because as a Methodist she won't do 'Papist' French cooking) and Gaskell's sympathy is obvious. But when it comes to Clare, who has had a hard life in many ways and longs for comfort and a home of her own, Gaskell is quite unsparing.
Another character who begins offstage and then plays a significant role even though her character is undeveloped, is Aimee, the secret wife of Osborne Hamley and herself a French Roman Catholic nursery maid. Throughout the novel there are constant ironic and comic allusions to the corrupt, decadent, unsuitable influence of France and the French (anticipating the great later novels of Henry James such as The Europeans) and I was amused to hear Elizabeth Gaskell wrote most of the fiction while staying in Paris! Aimee and her child will displace both Roger and Molly from living at Hamley Hall. Would they go away to colonial Africa, designated as a place of scientific and exploratory interest ? I'm less sure about that.
Did Dr. Gibson make a wise choice in marrying Hyacinth Kirkpatrick/Clare? Would staying single or marrying one of the other eligible village women have been a better choice?
I think it's clear the author wants us to consider this a poor choice, and there is not much sympathy for Clare in the novel -- a little, for the poverty she has endured, but this is largely undercut by the portrait of her as a silly, shallow woman who uses everyone in the service of her own comfort and advancement. The marriage seems to make things worse for both Dr. Gibson (who doesn't seem to enjoy being married to her much at all) and for Molly, whose new "mother figure" is definitely problematic.
As a 21st century woman I found myself bristling at a lot of the decisions Dr. Gibson was making on Molly's behalf without consulting her -- like assuming that having a stepmother would be necessarily in her best interests, or even keeping Mr. Coxe's letter from her in the first place. But of course that's very my much modern perspective, and in the thinking of the time he was well within his rights to do so, though it still would have been nice to at least discuss the idea of his remarriage with Molly, as it was allegedly for her benefit, before going ahead and doing it.
A lot of the plot points centred around secrets that various characters were keeping from their children, parents and fiancés. Do you feel this was mainly to create an interesting plot or reflective of real life at the time?
I think secret-keeping is mainly a plot device, as it is in many novels, but that said it's one that works well in any era, as people do keep secrets from the ones they love, and those secrets can often have unforeseen consequences.
Did you find Molly or Cynthia to be the more engaging character?
I loved Molly, as we are meant to, I think, but I also liked Cynthia quite a lot and empathized with her situation re Mr. Preston. I thought the direction of the novel was that Cynthia was going to be a terrible stepsister and make Molly's life miserable, but I actually loved the close sister-like bond that developed between them despite how different they were.
Does the concept of ‘honourable blood’ still exist among people of British ancestry? Do these attitudes to hereditary differ between those of British ancestry in the United Kingdom and people of British ancestry elsewhere in the world?
I'd love to hear from a British person on this -- does it still matter that your family, like the Hamleys, has been on the same piece of land for centuries, even if they don't have a lot of money? Is there still prestige in having a good "bloodline"? I don't think that kind of thing matters at all here in Canada, even though the ancestors of most English Canadians are only about 200 years (more in some places) out from Britain. There's a class system here for sure but it's all about money; how you made your money or who your family is doesn't seem to carry much weight. There are old merchant families here in NL where I live whose current generations are still big names in local business and politics, but that seems to be more around their ancestors having made a lot of money many years ago, rather than being associated with landed nobility.
The book is set in the 1820s and 1830s at a time of scientific discovery. Did you find it surprising that Roger is not considered to have a true profession despite his employment as a scientist/naturalist?
I found it interesting and a bit amusing that Roger's work in natural sciences, at which he was clearly a bit of a genius, was treated by his family as a quirky hobby and not evidence of real brilliance like his brother's (apparently not very good?) poetry. It's definitely a reflection of what people of his background and class would have seen as legitimate areas of scholarship, but the acclaim Roger finds in the wider world shows that he's living at a time when all that is changing.
Any suggestions for how Gaskell may have written the ending, had she lived or how you would like the book to have ended?
Where did everyone else's copy end? Mine ends with a possible declaration of love between Roger and Molly, but Roger then heading off to Africa again with the hint that maybe they'll be together when he gets back. I assume this is the original, unfinished ending? There was no afterword in the version I read, as there seems to be in some, suggesting what the author might have intended for the ending. Would love to know what other people have read. Seems to me she clearly intended to have Molly and Roger end up together, but this being a 19th century novel it seems just a possible that one of them dies of something before they can get back together, so I felt like I had to write my own happy ending for them.
I have several more thoughts on this book but those will do for now ...
The original book ends with Mrs Gibson saying she will “dream about Cynthia and my new shawl”. Mrs Gaskell had the ending all planned but died very suddenly during a family dinner, just while recounting an anecdote about an elderly couple.
Here are some extracts, then, from the afternote in my edition of the book - Penguin Classics - by Frederick Greenwood, editor of the Cornhill Magazine in which "Wives and Daughters" was first published. He says of it, "We have repeated, in this brief note, all that is known of her designs for the story, which would have been completed in another chapter."
"We know that Roger Hamley will marry Molly, and that is what we are most concerned about... Had the writer lived, she would have sent her hero back to Africa forthwith... He returned... found it difficult after all to tell Molly how much he hoped she loved him; and might have blundered if he had not thought of beginning by showing her the flower that was plucked from the nosegay. How charmingly that scene would have been drawn, had Mrs Gaskell lived to depict it, we can only imagine...
"Roger and Molly are married... [he] has no need to draw upon the little fortune which is to go to poor Osborne's boy, for he becomes professor at some great scientific institution and wins his way in the world handsomely...
"...Of what was to happen to Cynthia after her marriage the author was not heard to say much... One little anecdote, however, was told of her by Mrs Gaskell... One day, when Cynthia and her husband were on a visit to Hollingford, Mr Henderson learned for the first time, through an innocent casual remark of Mr Gibson's, that the famous traveller, Roger Hamley, was known to the family. Cynthia had never happened to mention it."
I haven't seen the miniseries but I believe they ended it slightly differently but in a satisfying way. Maybe someone can enlighten us?
It just occurs to me to wonder, as Roger didn't see Molly face to face before he left for Africa and was away for quite a while, why he didn't write to her - either before he went or while he was away? Am I missing something?
I have linked to a copy of the afterword in question 9 if anyone wants to read the whole text. It begins with the final chapter, but if you scroll down you will find the afterword.
I think Roger chose not to write in a romantic fashion as he thought Molly would think him fickle to love her so quickly after loving Cynthia and might not believe his love was sincere. He was only going for another 5 months. The afterword says that when he came back he chickened out on proposing again as he was worried Molly couldn't love him because he love Cynthia first, but that he eventually showed Molly her flower that he kept and the resulting conversation became a proposal when he realised Molly loved him too. So sad we can't read it in Gaskell's words!
The main change in the ending of the miniseries is mentioned in the plot summary section in the article on the book on Wikipedia if you want to compare endings. I'm happy to discuss here if nobody is worried about spoilers!
My answers to some of the questions. I enjoyed the novel, which I had not read before.
1. Did Dr. Gibson make a wise choice in marrying Hyacinth Kirkpatrick/Clare? Would staying single or marrying one of the other eligible village women have been a better choice?
Frankly, no. While I can understand Dr Gibson’s desire to protect Molly, and perhaps his concern that a woman might be more able to introduce Molly to ‘society’, he made a bad choice in Hyacinth Kirkpatrick. This is mainly because she was so shallow and manipulative. On the other hand there don’t seem to have been other suitable women in the small circle where he was looking. So probably better to have stayed single.
4. Did you find Molly or Cynthia to be the more engaging character?
Molly is the more attractive character, though I can see that some might find her anaemic. We had the same issue, I remember, with Fanny Price last year – she’s the ‘moral centre of the novel’, but is not exciting. Moral clarity, goodness, is hard to represent effectively, though I think Gaskell does a pretty good job. Cynthia is difficult, hides things, is self-centred, but as we learn more about her childhood her actions seem rather more explicable. And she seems to genuinely like Molly; their friendship seems sincere on both sides.
5. Does the concept of ‘honourable blood’ still exist among people of British ancestry? Do these attitudes to heredity differ between those of British ancestry in the United Kingdom and people of British ancestry elsewhere in the world?
Being of English origin, I think I understand the distinction Gaskell is making about ‘old blood’ and the more recent titles given to industrialists and the like. It’s about status derived from land as against the status of more recent money. In fact the Hamley family don’t seem to have formal titles, ‘nobility’ isn’t quite the right word for the landed squirocracy, lord of the manor ‘since before the Romans’ (pg 35 in my edition -Wordsworth Classics). He’s ‘Squire’ rather than a knight.
In Australia anyway (can’t answer for USA and Canada) such distinctions would not matter – but it tended to be 4th or errant sons of the old, landed families who ended up here, and whether they were able to maintain any social status largely depended on their own adjustments and abilities. And of course there was always potential for those not quite so noble to play up their blue blood – if they could find anyone to take them seriously!
7. The book is set in the 1820s and 1830s at a time of scientific discovery. Did you find it surprising that Roger is not considered to have a true profession despite his employment as a scientist/naturalist?
The problem Roger has is that in the 1830s there was no real professional employment as ‘scientist’. He had done maths at Cambridge; natural sciences weren’t taught till the 1850s, when various other institutions also started teaching ‘science’ (dissenting academies etc). And anyway being a university fellow is restricted to the celibate (till at least the 1860s - varied by college). The scientific discoveries were undertaken by either the wealthy who didn’t need extra income, Anglican clergy in undemanding parishes, industrialists (as in the Lunar Society), but employment as ‘scientist’ was rare if not unknown. Benefactors of various sorts put up money for expeditions – but it’s contract work and not permanent employment. I recently read a biography of Humboldt (by Andrea Wulf, very good) and he had the same problem; he spent frustrating years as a courtier (and doing scientific work on the side) because there was no real income in professional science. So Roger is embarking on an insecure enterprise, needing patronage, though things were to improve considerably in the 1850s and 60s.
I think at that time the few scientists who were employed were astronomers (for example William and Caroline Herschel). Note that Elizabeth Gaskell had a family connection by marriage to a scientist who studied at Cambridge and whose father had despaired a bit about him ever amounting to much and who went of on an expedition (though not to Africa). Her mother's two brothers were married to sisters who were first cousins to Charles Darwin's mother; fairly obscure perhaps though Gaskell was friends with Julia Wedgwood, Darwin's niece.
Yes, I'd forgotten the Gaskell -Darwin family link. The publication of Origin of Species and the subsequent debates all push the profession of 'scientist', but in the 1830s and earlier a wealthy sponsor, or a contract with the navy (army too, I suppose, though I can't think of many of them), or personal wealth was necessary to go on a scientific expedition. The govt employed a few astronomers, and doctors often were interested in general science, which wasn't divided into separate disciplines till much later. The scientist on an expedition was part botanist, zoologist, astronomer, anthropologist, geologist etc - not that such terms would have been used.
May 1st is fine for me apart from between 14.00-16.00 BST for a zoom meeting If someone wants to work out the best time when we could all meet up I'll set the meeting up.
To get back to the second point about secrets. I think it is partly a plot device. There needs to be a good reason for Mr Gibson to marry again for instance. However all the secrets do seem to come out of the characters' personalities rather than just there to move the story along. This is in contrast to some other Victorian novels I've read, The Heir of Redclyffe for instance where keeping a secret doesn't seem a plausible or sensible thing to do. In W&D Mr Gibson has very strong moral principles that lead him to think his daughter needs to be 'protected.' Hyacinth Kirkpatrick just wants a comfortable life and will do whatever is needed to achieve that. Cynthia is similar, though the situation with Mr Preston seems all too plausible. In modern times I don't think he'd be pressing for marriage though. Hyacinth Clare/Kirkpatrick/Gibson is one of my favourite characters in literature. I love the way Elizabeth Gaskell makes her so plausibly horrible. Cynthia I liked, and she's one of those people whose company I would have enjoyed, though I would never have trusted her an inch. I think the relationship between her and Molly was well done.
The honourable blood question is an interesting one. I'm thoroughly English (with a tiny bit of Welsh) for as many generations back as family members have researched. I don't think it's a concept that has much meaning for me, but then I was bought up by a die-hard republican. From what I can see from my occasional dips into the Daily Mail it is something that some people find important.
Oops I ran out of editing time - to continue.
I read somewhere that Gaskell was influenced by Darwin's story when writing the character of Roger. It is obvious that Mr Gibson is interested in such maters, his joy and being able to go to London to discuss them. Lord Hollingford is presumably an accurate portrait of the sort of wealthy man interested in science who doesn't worry too much about class distinctions when it comes to advancing scientific knowledge. It's amazing to think that science wasn't taught at university at the time, and that the route to becoming a doctor was still pretty much as it had been in the middle ages.
To pick up on what @Marama pointed out earlier, the novel is set in the 1830s although written in the 1860s. The funding for explorers and 'scientists' would have been precarious and that would be one reason Molly accompanying Roger on expeditions to Africa might not have seemed a plausible enough ending in literary realist fiction of the time. All the same, there's something brave, feminist and romantic about thinking of little Molly setting sail for the unknown Africa and a new life.
Gaskell might have had second thoughts about her planned ending, in that she was a careful pragmatic author, not much romantic gothic here. It struck me too that in the 19th century, Africa was not an expatriate destination in the same way France or Italy might have been. Expeditions to the wilderness of Ethiopia would have lasted only several months and those on the expedition would need to return home to England to write up and publish findings, begin preparing for another expedition. It is unlikely that Roger and Molly would 'settle' in Africa because they would have to live in the rough-and-ready Cape Colony and unless Roger were to be employed by a colonial administrative body, life would not be easy. What would happen when and if Molly had children? She would be unlikely to live in London and might return home to her village and family home or live at Hambley Hall.
How would Roger be able to contribute to the Hambley estate finances depleted by Osborne? The character of Aimee might have needed a rethink to show her as a capable manager and fit to belong as a Hambley, even though not of 'honourable blood'. It's worth noting that the sketchy character of Aimee the working-class French interloper undercuts all earlier opinions on 'breeding' or lineage, attitudes that would now be considered laughable. Aimee will become mistress of ancient Hambley Hall and her son will inherit the estate. This is a very clever novel in setting out a certain bourgeois Victorian morality and apparent established family values only for them to be thrown into question by plot reversals.
As others have mentioned the character of Dr Gibson is enigmatic and not altogether sympathetic. Once or twice it is indicated that Dr Gibson's real enduring love is for a girl he never married, the mysterious Jeane. He has been married three times but Jeane still remains the ideal to which he is faithful. He doesn't like educated women, doesn't like silly uneducated women, has a definite patriarchal understanding of his role in family and household. He isn't a gentleman (doctors then were often considered just a cut above tradesmen) and although his relationship with Molly is presented as warm and caring, he is also a bully, judgmental, tyrannical, unforgiving.
This observation isn't just hindsight from the 21st century, at least I hope not -- I think Gaskell titled her fiction Wives and Daughters because she wanted to foreground the contradictions of women's lives subjugated by fathers and husbands, and limited marital choices. The Scotch integrity and moral code Molly has learned from her father isn't enough to help her as an adult woman faced with Cynthia's ambiguous lax morality, the sly stalker Mr Preston, her loss of reputation or her own dealings with a difficult step-mother or disappointment in love: she has to stand up to her father a demand he respect her autonomy and silence.
Reading Molly and Cynthia in tandem made me think of Virginia Woolf 50 years later writing about needing to kill the 'Angel in the House' and how perfectly Molly personifies that selfless ministering put-upon Angel of the House for Roger and his family. While Cynthia may not ever make a happy marriage and cause heartache wherever she goes, she has a sense of herself and her own potential beyond the roles available to her at that time.
He doesn't like educated women, doesn't like silly uneducated women...
I think the 'educated women' of that day did not receive what I would consider education. I have the impression that it produced women who were self-satisfied and arrogant.
Molly's father gave her the free-run of his library. She educated herself.
This observation isn't just hindsight from the 21st century, at least I hope not -- I think Gaskell titled her fiction Wives and Daughters because she wanted to foreground the contradictions of women's lives subjugated by fathers and husbands, and limited marital choices.
It would be an interesting exploration of the same story entitled "Husbands and Sons" to have it written from, say, the point of view of Osborne, exploring his relationship with Roger and his father and Aimee. (Of course, the story wouldn't get as far as he doesn't make it to the end. Maybe Roger's point of view would be better.)
I'm interested in what @MaryLouise says about Cynthia being aware of her potential which went beyond the roles available to her as she was still clearly keen to make a marriage of some sort and unless I'm missing something she doesn't come out of the story as positively as Molly.
On the topic of secrets, this book made me want to talk about sex in Victorian novels.
I've made the point, here and I think on the general reading thread, that a contemporary novelist can capture the details and attitudes of the era the way a historical novelist writing decades or centuries later can never quite get, no matter how detailed their research. But I also think there's an area where the historical novelist has an advantage, because Victorian (and Regency) novelists had to write within the restrictions of what was acceptable to publish, which meant a fair degree of dodging around the issue of sex.
Clearly, people have been having sex outside of soceitally-approved heterosexual marriages throughout history, including in 1800s England, but you rarely ever get a hint of that in novels of the time (and if you do, it's a character whose virtue has been so irredeemably tarnished that she has to end up dead at the end of the novel). If a respectable young girl who has any hope of semi-redemption at the end of the novel gets into any sort of "scandal," it can never involve her actually having sex.
So you get situations like Cynthia & Mr. Preston. It seems pretty obvious to me that in a real-life situation of that era, the actual scandal would be that Mr. Preston coerced or outright forced this impressionable young girl into a sexual relationship, then blackmailed her by threatening to reveal it. But Cynthia can't be tarnished by actual sex, so instead the "scandal" is a secret engagement. The "scandal" for Osborne and Aimee is also, of course, a secret marriage, rather than Osborne just sleeping with the girl and getting her pregnant --which, given the commonality of children born out of wedlock in that era (and all eras!) was more likely what would really have happened.
I'm thinking also of Lydia Bennet and George Wickham in Pride and Prejudice, where the implication is that, although Lydia runs away with George thinking they are about to be married, they do in fact stay together (and presumably have sex) without being married, and Lydia's reputation is only saved by Darcy forcing Wickham to marry her. That's about as risque as it gets, I think, for a respectable young lady of that era -- I don't think the novel is ever explicit about the fact that L&G are sleeping together, but they likely are, however it has to be done under the cover of an elopement that she presumes will lead to a secret marriage. Am I remembering that right?
Anyway, the point of the Pride & Prejudice diversion is just to say that I think it's common for 19th c novelists to use elopements and secret engagements as a stand-in for illicit sex -- something that's scandalous enough to be shocking, but not so scandalous that the character cannot be redeemed and still make a proper marriage, as Cynthia does.
Are there any respectable female characters in 19th century novels who have sex outside of marriage and still get a happily-ever-after ending? I can't think of any. And that prudishness around allowing characters to have actual sexual relationships gives some of these storylines an air of unreality, to me.
From a relatively obscure novel and not a particularly happy ending, but (the at least socially respectable) Mrs. Light in Henry James's Roderick Hudson winds up financially secure and escapes disgrace (would give more details, but it would involve (more?) spoilers).
(Hope to have time to answer the questions by this weekend.)
Lydia and George are more or less as you suggest, except that there's one particularly scandalous bit where she says to Elizabeth that they would be married sooner or later, it didn't particularly matter when--which is of course tantamount to "I don't give a shit."
Tangenting to Austen for a bit - Harriet in Emma is introduced as illegitimate. Her unknown parentage allows Emma to romanticise her origins. When her actual father acknowledges her, Emma is rocked by the idea that she inadvertently encouraged a match between Mr Knightley and the daughter of a tradesman.
Once she is married, we are assured that she stops falling for other men. Also Lydia maintains the 'reputation' secured by marriage by staying faithful to Wickham (though it's doubtful he returned the favour).
It's also clear that Mrs Clay is the mistress of Walter Elliot and likely to finagle him into marrying her.
So it seems illicit sex is ok as long as you end up married (Maria's big mistake).
Reading between the lines in 18th-century or Victorian novels. It always fascinates me that these astute and well-informed women writers from Austen to Gaskell would have read Shakespeare or even Aphra Behn and known that earlier writers would have been able to write less prudishly about sex.
The village knows that someone like Preston is a sexual pest, what we'd call a serial predator. They might not know what he did to Cynthia, but they know someone like Molly shouldn't be meeting alone with him, There a scene where Preston invites Molly out into the garden with him and Lady Harriet smacks him down very fast. She herself has refused to accompany Mr Preston into the garden and she then says to Molly in a plain-spoken but coded speech:
"But, at any rate, you are not to go out walking with that man. I've an instinctive aversion to him; not entirely instinctive either; it has some foundation in fact; and I desire you don't allow him ever to get intimate with you. He's a very clever land-agent, and does his duty by papa, and I don't choose to be taken up for libel; but remember what I say!"
That 'foundation' is what we'd now think of as a whisper campaign, women warning one another to avoid dangerous men. It can be read as Lady Harriet's peremptory arrogant manner as an aristocrat, contemptuous of her father's land agent, but the word 'intimate', often so innocuous at the time carries a sexual freight here. This man will take advantage of you, he will not marry you, he is bad news and some of us know he has treated other woman badly. Harriet has seen Preston at work, she may herself be exempt from threat because she has advantages of birth and rank, but she watched her former governess and the young Cynthia responding to Preston. And perhaps others. Harriet knows what happens to unprotected, naive women and (picking up on what @Firenze mentioned) that Preston will wriggle out of any marriage agreement or make a wife's life hell.
For most of the book I loved Lady Harriet, her wit and astuteness and her championing of Molly, and wished there was more of her. However, I went off her near the end when she and Lord Hollingford are discussing Roger and she speaks heartlessly of Osborne's child: "'... - a hundred things may happen - some one may leave him a fortune - or this tiresome little heir that nobody wanted, may die.'"
@Nenya, yes! There's a certain brutality in Lady H and I was torn between her willingness to change and show respect to the Browning sisters, and that casual arrogant way of dismissing others. A chilling portrait in some ways.
Rosamund Pike, an actor I enjoy watching act, plays Lady Harriet in the miniseries. A lot of the characters she plays are a bit dishonest or totally ruthless and she seems to play the parts well.
@Nenya, yes! There's a certain brutality in Lady H and I was torn between her willingness to change and show respect to the Browning sisters, and that casual arrogant way of dismissing others. A chilling portrait in some ways.
I think one of the things I appreciate about this book is that most of the characters are realistically flawed, to a greater or lesser extent, and likeable or unlikeable to differing degrees for that reason. Cynthia is complex and - for me - irritating but I did warm to her once I knew some back story and I admired her for being self-aware enough to recognise the issues she had because of her upbringing. Hyacinth I found insufferably annoying but maybe she was always grieving the departed Mr Kirkpatrick; or maybe was one of those people who are always going to be discontented with life (we've all met them).
Molly is the exception (racking my brains to think of some flaws) and arguably one-dimensional and a bit uninteresting because of that. I think it's uplifting to reflect that she's the only character who remains constant in her loves. She loves her father deeply despite his shortcomings. She loves Cynthia even though she sees her faults. Her love for Roger is constant. I find it wholesome and reassuring (yes, call me an idealistic romantic!).
Hyacinth I found insufferably annoying but maybe she was always grieving the departed Mr Kirkpatrick; or maybe was one of those people who are always going to be discontented with life (we've all met them).
Hyacinth was always selfish and manipulative. She tells of her first husband walking miles in the cold rain to buy her a muffin because she had expressed a desire for one. She matter-of-factly said that he caught a chill that eventually killed him. She told this story proudly as an illustration of how devoted to her he was.
Hyacinth I found insufferably annoying but maybe she was always grieving the departed Mr Kirkpatrick; or maybe was one of those people who are always going to be discontented with life (we've all met them).
Hyacinth was always selfish and manipulative. She tells of her first husband walking miles in the cold rain to buy her a muffin because she had expressed a desire for one. She matter-of-factly said that he caught a chill that eventually killed him. She told this story proudly as an illustration of how devoted to her he was.
I'm liking all these observations on the various characters. It shows how good Gaskell is at creating character, as they are so believable.
I think Preston is very well done, the obsequious manner when Molly and her father are his guests is spot on. Nothing he says is very untoward, but it's the sort of speech that would have me instinctively disliking him and avoiding him where possible. I've met guys like him.
The afterward by Greenwood raves about the character of Osborne, and how well Gaskell had drawn him. He does seem an honourable man, in that he marries Aimee, but also a rather feckless one. I'm assuming all his university bills weren't just for her upkeep.
As for Lady Harriet, I like her forthrightness and that unlike all the other women in the novel, marriage isn't something she is aiming for. However she can be brutally frank, and I wonder if having Hyacinth as a governess has been to the detriment of her character.
Molly I like, as you are supposed to. I think we can all relate to the embarrassment she feels in the first chapter when she is accidently left behind. The rescue by her father is a lovely scene.
I also like the way we get some strong clues to Hyacinth's character early on when she eats Molly's lunch and is amazingly impatient while sounding solicitous.
Hard to believe anyone would rave about the character of Osborne (except his poor mother of course). To me he's an obvious foil to Roger, with Osborne having all the external polish and shine and the belief that he's truly a great genius -- all of which Molly is initially dazzled by, before she even meets him. This seems to be just a set-up to contrast with Roger, the man of true quality -- actually brilliant in his (underrated) field, true and loyal to his family, kind to everyone. Roger's only flaw is that he briefly falls in love with the beautiful Cynthia when the devoted Molly is right in front of him, but he gets over that and learns to value Molly as the better partner of the two. Osborne, meanwhile, forms an inappropriate liason, has at least the decency to marry and support Aimee but not the decency to tell his father about it and openly acknowledge Aimee as his wife. I didn't think it was any big loss to the plot or the world when Osborne died.
Osborne is something of a stereotype, I agree, the son who is a disappointment and failure. He also plays a role in the connected themes of illness, neurasthenia and invalidism that come up so often in the novel. There is some suggestion his mother's idealising love has feminised him, he is passive, languid, languishing. Most of those seriously ill have heart disease, a poignant note since Gaskell was to die of heart failure before she could complete the book.
Women immobilised on couches or sickbeds in their homes or 'absent' due to unspecified invalidism present what I sometimes think of as a survival strategy for middle-class Victorian women (women working as servants or the wives of poor men wouldn't gain anything by invalidism). On the other hand, Lady Cumnor has successfully married off two of her daughters and now 'has the leisure to be an invalid'. For Mrs Hamley, we're told her illness may have begun as passive resistance to a husband who is a philistine and won't let her go up to concerts or cultural events in London. Invalidism allowed younger women to refuse sex with husbands and a reprieve from pregnancies, a chance to be alone, a way to avoid conflict in the household, time for reading or writing.
The sting in the tail is that invalidism in Wives & Daughters often develops into more serious illness that goes undiagnosed and the uses of invalidism are ambiguous. Osborne as invalid is feebler as a character and some believe him to be hypochondriac and a neurasthenic, but when Molly falls ill we come up against what might be called performative hysteria in women.
This was for me the most revealing and interesting episode in Molly's development: she is guileless, embodies the moral core of the novel as mentioned above in the thread and at a certain point, as an unmarried woman in love with her step-sister's fiance, Molly's emotional repression and grief over the death of her spiritual mother Mrs Hamley manifests as a psychic collapse. For an unmarried woman without prospects and not having a designated role caring for her ageing father (he has a wife), Molly has reached a crossroads without any future direction. The spinster Browning sisters offer no model for a single woman, Molly cannot go off to London and meet new men, she cannot travel or teach. The 'vivifying stimulant of hope' has gone and Molly falls ill. Her father fears she may become a permanent invalid. Her swooning and fainting fits show Molly stepping out of character -- not unlike the way contemporary women characters might have dissociative episodes or panic attacks to indicate the aftermath of trauma.
At the same time, illness makes Molly beautiful, thinner, more ethereal, more delicate and a refinement of her sturdy robust girl self. It's so problematic and I always find myself struggling with the eroticising of invalidism in Victorian authors (those preRaphaelite images!). Invalidism in Victorian novels can be subversive at times or self-defeating: here is is what transforms Molly and gets Roger the oblivious to notice her as more than a sister.
I really surprised myself by reading this book. My typical read is not very highbrow and this was definitely a lot more of an intense novel than I am accustomed to.
I found the first 100 pages or so somewhat turgid. There were so many words to describe not very much but at the same time, the details, the observations were exquisite. I noticed particularly the observation from Molly that Clare had not taken responsiblity for not waking Molly up. It reminded me of how cleverly people position themselves with half-truths to their own advantage. Something that I have been on the receiving end myself - not so much doing that but being slighted in the process. And how subtle and insiduous it all is but there is so little to hook onto as being "Unfair" that any protestation looks weak.
That said, I had huge sympathy for Clare. I felt she was someone who was walking a very unhappy life, deeply insecure. For me, I wondered if she had been able to find happiness in her marriage to Dr Gibson, perhaps she might have become a little bit softer with the resulting rippling effect towards Molly and others. I didn't really fathom where the rot for her set in, and perhaps nowadays, someone of her disposition would have access to more support that would enable her to find her niche in life, but choices were very limited. It seemed clear to me that she was very very scared, the way she latched onto the proposal as finding security, or her neurosis about what people might think of her. This neurosis was particularly strange as it stopped short of caring what her nearest and dearest thought of her.
Sorry not really addressed the very interesting and thought provoking questions, this is my first time in any sort of book group discussion - online or verbal so please bear / bare (?) with me as I feel my way round this process. And I am more of an internal person as a rule so need to find a way to reflect out my thoughts.
Most of those seriously ill have heart disease, a poignant note since Gaskell was to die of heart failure before she could complete the book.
Gaskell knew about aneurysm of the aorta because it ran in the family of Catherine Dickens, Charles' wife. One sister died of it when she was a teenager, and a brother when he was in his twenties. Two of the Dickens sons died of it when they were in their twenties.
No worries. There are so many themes in this book and angles to discuss it from so the questions are really just conversation starters. Glad you liked the book Helix.
It's really good to have you in the discussion @Helix and thank you for your interesting post. I'm aware I've been pretty dismissive of Clare/Hyacinth and you've made me wonder whether I've missed something.
As @Mili says, I take the suggested questions to be conversation starters but anyone can start a different conversation!
I'm glad you joined in this month @Helix, as your comments on Clare and that you have sympathy for her I found gave me a different view of her. Trying to make a living with limited choices, specially when the most obvious one for a woman in her position, teaching, isn't something she is naturally drawn to must have been hard. She is one of my favourite 'love to hate' characters in fiction so it's interesting to see someone giving her the benefit of the doubt.
I really noticed this time how many of the female characters were indisposed at one time or another. About the only one's who aren't are Cynthia and Lady Harriet. I do think Lady Cumnor was genuinely ill, as she doesn't seem to be someone who'd take to her sofa unnecessarily, but I assume Mrs Hamley found the sofa a good place to retreat from her husband, and then became really ill.
I do like the character of Mr Hamley. In lots of ways he is totally unsympathetic, but Gaskell tries to promote his good side, and his reaction to the death of Osborne is very moving. I did wonder if he was in the early stages of dementia. His unwarranted rages and his trying to teach his very small grandson to smoke seemed somewhat indicative of cognitive decline to me.
What do we make of the role of religion? It isn't mentioned much, though the Hamleys do go to church and Mr Hamley does seem to have a strict routine for Sundays. Being a Catholic or marrying one is obviously something beyond the pale (the same thing happens in North and South with Frederick, but Catholic stands for a whole bundle of prejudices rather than a theological position to be disagreed with. There is no mention, apart from the wedding, of any other church going as far as I can recall.
1. Did Dr. Gibson make a wise choice in marrying Hyacinth Kirkpatrick/Clare? Would staying single or marrying one of the other eligible village women have been a better choice?
Hard to answer. Marrying to provide a stepmother was a perfectly valid reason at the time, but was it for Dr. Gibson? If it was, then I do think Hyacinth was the best, due to her background, out of a limited number of choices. There's the usual Victorian reticence about other marital criteria, but Dr. Gibson appears the opposite of uxorious.
BTW, Thackeray wrote something to the effect that if people had to marry wisely, the world would be depopulated.
2. A lot of the plot points centred around secrets that various characters were keeping from their children, parents and fiancés. Do you feel this was mainly to create an interesting plot or reflective of real life at the time?
I think it's more for plot purposes. I did think the subtitle An Every-Day Story a little ironic, as the novel includes melodramatic subplots like the Osborne/Aimee one.
4. Did you find Molly or Cynthia to be the more engaging character?
As mentioned before, I agree with the Greenwood afterward that Cynthia is the most interesting character. Cynthia reminds me slightly of Tito Melema of George Eliot's Romola--not innately vicious, but without the strength of character to resist the easier course of action (besides the significant problems with Preston, some criticize her for being a flirt when it's just easier for her to be pleasant to everybody). However, besides, of course, Cynthia not committing any gross monstrosities as Tito does, she is completely self-aware of her weaknesses and warns Molly about them. Cynthia's understanding of Hyacinth's character and circumstances also makes her, despite occasional sauciness, more forebearing to her than other young women may have been under the same circumstances.
6. Does the book demonstrate that money cannot buy happiness or the things that matter in life?
Depends on the definition of "things that matter". For example, IMO there's no obvious indication that Cynthia's marriage won't be quite satisfactory.
7. The book is set in the 1820s and 1830s at a time of scientific discovery. Did you find it surprising that Roger is not considered to have a true profession despite his employment as a scientist/naturalist?
As others have said, Roger's field was considered by many at the time more of a hobby.
8. In the nineteenth century, some people believed that novels or certain types of novels could morally corrupt. Many more argued that novels were only okay if they portrayed and taught good morals. Given that Molly is encouraged by her father to read a ‘trashy novel’ when she is unwell, it seems Gaskell does not fully share this view. The relationship between Osborne and Aimee shows a successful relationship between a nobleman and a servant that ends in legitimate marriage and shared parenthood, whereas often these relationships ended with the woman being abandoned and sometimes left with a child they could not support. Could Gaskell be seen as tempting young working-class women to a moral ‘fall’ through this plotline?
To be honest, no--per above, I think that plot is removed enough from the reality of the time not to add to temptation.
Interestingly, though, enough women "fell" anyway. Part of the hostility toward women like Molly being suspected in secret note-exchanging was that they were acting like the servant class--who didn't have the leisure time to make calls, etc., and you know what they wound up doing. At least in London, one study of 1800s marriage records indicated that about two-thirds of the women were already pregnant.
9. In the concluding remarks http://www.online-literature.com/elizabeth_gaskell/wives_daughters/60/, Frederick Greenwood, editor of ‘The Cornhill’ magazine states, “you feel yourself caught out of an abominable wicked world, crawling with selfishness and reeking with base passions, into one where there is much weakness, many mistakes, sufferings long and bitter, but where it is possible for people to live calm and wholesome lives; and, what is more, you feel that this is at least as real a world as the other.” Does this suggest that as true to life as it may seem to modern readers, the novel is not a true reflection of life at the time or that it only reflects the world of a minority of society at the time?
Sorry if this is a dodge, but I think while it's not a reflection of all life, significant portions of it could have existed.
10. Any suggestions for how Gaskell may have written the ending, had she lived or how you would like the book to have ended?
I can't think of any important changes for what Greenwood indicated.
I'm in agreement with @Helix on feeling sympathy for Clare (Mrs Gibson) even though she is not written about with sympathy. One thing I liked about this book is the leisurely way Gaskell could build not just character but a full picture of village life, and I did feel the author was writing from a nostalgic backward glance at a simpler sweeter country life 30 years before: she permits herself a presence in the novel to comment on how fashions have changed and that people now read Tennyson rather than Mrs Hemans.
I dug around and found that Elizabeth Gaskell's own mother died just after Elizabeth's birth and she grew up, like Molly, motherless. Gaskell would become mother to four daughters (shades of Mrs Ramsey in To The Lighthouse) but she was critical of motherhood as an ideology. Most of the mothers in Wives and Daughters are absent: deceased, invalids, preoccupied with difficult marriages, or, like Clare Kirkpatrick, having to work to earn a living after being widowed. One theme I keep coming back to is the ambiguous tyranny of the Victorian family for women. How does a woman who is bound by social roles as a dutiful daughter, good wife, and nurturing self-sacrificing mother make time to write for publication?
I was re-reading part of the book today, and two things struck me.
The first was Cynthia saying to Molly, "I can't help trying to make everyone like me." She said this to explain why she was so friendly with Mr Coxe. I feel much greater sympathy for her after reading that.
The other thought I had was that being a son in a well-to-do family could involve problems that young men from lower-status families didn't have to deal with.
I thought of this when reading Osborne's ideas of how to raise money to support Aimee. His education was no help. The son of a shoemaker would learn to make shoes or would be apprenticed to a carpenter. By his mid-twenties he would be financially independent. I n the nineteenth century, many young men from wealthy families could achieve financial independence only by inheritance. I never thought I would have any sympathy for the rich.
I was much younger when I first read the book and had much more sympathy for Cynthia this time around, with the understanding that she was only 19 years old and only 15 when Preston targeted her as a lonely and neglected girl. If a (heterosexual) girl these days lost her father and was put in boarding schools or care situations by her mother as a teenager we would feel a lot of sympathy if in her mid teens to early twenties she sought out male attention and felt the need to make everyone like her and be over-friendly to strangers. We recognise these actions as normal for a child who has had those experiences. I also felt more forgiving of Osborne and Roger for their choices. They both were married and engaged very young. These days we wouldn't expect many men and women to make a lifelong commitment to a partner in their teens or early twenties. People who do and go on to have happy, life-long marriages are considered the exception and people can date and have casual relationships without besmirching their character for life.
Preston on the other hand, now that I have had to do training to recognise grooming of children and teens by predators, creeped me out even more. He was the one who targeted Cynthia, a vulnerable young girl both emotionally and financially (for her class). He used gifts of money to groom her and ensured he was her only friend. He groomed others to accept his close relationship with Cynthia was normal, even though some recognised Cynthia was too young for him. He formed a close relationship with her mother to get to the daughter. He also wanted to control Cynthia and ensure she did not have other relationships, while he felt free to pursue other women and girls. These days predators use photos and social media to groom and blackmail their victims. Preston used the letters the same way to try to force Cynthia to marry him. It seems likely there would have been sexual abuse in the relationship (though given ages of consent of the time it would not have been illegal then) and if found out most people would have blamed Cynthia for seducing Preston, as still happens to precocious teenagers today.
As to Roger and Africa, my grandparents were missionaries in Ethiopia in the 1950s and 60s and my dad was born and grew up there. So of course I was irked by the assumptions that 'Abyssinians' have no culture or interesting interpersonal relationships or ability to reason. It's quite funny but this past weekend I went away with some friends and we took a walk down to the beach through bush land in Australia. Three of my friends on the trip were from Africa (Cameroon and Nigeria) but mostly grew up in cities. So they were the ones bringing a speaker to play music in the bush, rather than having being taught like I was by my dad, who spent his first 6 years in a remote Ethipian village and holidays in Kenya on safari and sometimes in rural New South Wales, how to walk quietly so as not to disturb wildlife. I was the one teaching them about the dangers of the local snakes and blue ringed octupuses that might lurk in the bush and in rockpools. We even came across a venomous baby red bellied black snake that wouldn't get off the path and kept trying to bite us - the first venomous snake they had come across. It was all a bit ironic after reading about Roger's experiences in the book!
Although I must add that when I visited Ethiopia in 2010 and a something large crawled up my jean leg I absolutely freaked out. Partly because I am used to avoiding deadly Australian wildlife and partly because my mind immediately decided it might be a deadly scorpion. It turned out to be a large grasshopper!
The Preston/Cynthia situation is one that is recognisable today, specially as he was grooming her mother as well. Poor Hyacinth, she probably did think he was interested in her rather than her daughter. I was going to say the Osborne/Aimee relationship seems less likely and more the stuff of romantic fiction than real life. I'm glad Osborne did marry her, and even more glad that practical Roger made sure the whole thing was properly legal.
Interesting observations about Africa @Mili. Gaskell is very good at giving sympathy to Catholics and 'fallen' women unlike some other Victorian novelists such as Mrs Henry Wood, but seems to have fallen into stereotypical thinking over Roger and the people and places he was encountering there.
Although I must add that when I visited Ethiopia in 2010 and a something large crawled up my jean leg I absolutely freaked out. Partly because I am used to avoiding deadly Australian wildlife and partly because my mind immediately decided it might be a deadly scorpion. It turned out to be a large grasshopper!
@Mili I identify with this! When I was in the UK a few years ago, a friend asked why I was picking up shoes or slippers and tapping them upside down before putting them on, something I was taught to do as a small child in Zimbabwe, even though most creepy-crawlies were lizards or cicadas rather than scorpions.
'Africa' was exoticised and made out to be a kind of blank canvas in much 19th-century literature, not unlike the way in which planets like Mars were invented as utopian or dystopian parallel universes and fanciful locations for early science fiction. I also wondered how much Gaskell knew about the ancient cultures and Coptic Church in Ethiopia: for her purposes in Wives and Daughters, I suspect she simply wanted a romantic, relatively unexplored and dangerous location in which to place Roger away from the village. Not a great choice but so little was understood of Orientalism or colonial prejudice back then. On a trip some years ago to Addis Ababa, a couple of us went in search of Arthur Rimbaud's museum in Harar where the former poet worked as a coffee merchant and gun runner. Rimbaud's Abyssinia would have been so foreign and remote even in the 1880s that most French people could scarcely have imagined it.
I've started watching the miniseries now and I dislike Osborne much less in the flesh (well, video-flesh) than I did on the page. I think it's nice that the series shows a few moments of warmth and intimacy between Osborne and Aimee, since it makes that relationship seem so much more real and believable.
The casting is just superb -- everybody is pretty much perfect for their roles, I think.
Poor Hyacinth, she probably did think he was interested in her rather than her daughter.
I thought The Secret might be that Preston did have an affair with Hyacinth and Cynthia knew about it.
(Equally improbable, but I also thought Cynthia and Preston might already be married--though even Becky Sharp, under those circumstances, refrained from accepting another proposal.)
I've been trying to find the mini-series to re-watch but it's not on the BBC or Netflix at the moment as far as I can see. Those of you that have watched it, what did you think of the ending? I remember my mother in law and I discussing it. I remember not liking it, but I'd like to see the series again to see if I've changed my opinion in the intervening years.
As for setting up a zoom, I think I've failed on that one. We're going to be moving very soon and I think I need most of my spare time to sorting stuff out and thinking about packing.
I have a link to watch it but it's not ... entirely legal. One of those sites where people put up videos that they don't necessarily have the rights to. It was also available on DVD at my local library though so I could have watched it legally.
As for setting up a zoom, I think I've failed on that one. We're going to be moving very soon and I think I need most of my spare time to sorting stuff out and thinking about packing.
No worries Sarasa. Maybe we can have one for next months book.
I like the ending of the miniseries, but think Gaskell would have written a better one! The socially distanced proposal made me laugh. Molly goes off to Africa in the miniseries, but in the book outline Roger finished his contract in Africa and then got a job at a university in England. The miniseries didn't show the futures of the other characters and I would like to know how Gaskell envisioned them all ending up. Did Cynthia stay faithful to Henderson? Had she chosen the right match for her this time? The book summary says Dr. Gibson maintained some happiness by visiting Molly a lot, but it doesn't sound like he and Hyacinth were ever going to have a happy marriage. And what happened to Preston in the long run, or Lady Harriet? We will never know
Comments
I think fathers in those days thought girls shouldn't be given that kind of information
Moo, the hiding of the note was aggravating, as were the keeping of some of the other secrets. I guess it was the first time Dr. Gibson realised Molly was growing up, but he still felt she needed to be protected as a child.
One aspect I kept coming back to was the characters off-stage who suddenly 'arrive' in the fiction and demand attention. Cynthia is mentioned a number of times as mysterious, tricky, 'a little leetle wilful' in her mother's words. The reasons why this young girl has been exiled to France for her schooling and left there for vacations are not clear and Mrs Gibson the mother (and new stepmother) has evidently not shown much maternal solicitude. Cynthia for me overtook Molly as a central character and that would have been a problem for Gaskell as author. Cynthia's charm and mysteriousness is evident at once as is her contempt and dismissiveness of her mother, the former Clare Kirkpatrick. That Cynthia has a more lax morality than Molly is suggested but with extenuating circumstances -- Cynthia has not been raised as protectively and with the Scotch integrity Milly has had from her father.
I found the tensions around mother-daughter conflict more interesting than the disappointing marriage Dr Gibson has made, something he realises almost at once after proposing and hearing that this marriage had been suggested to Hyacinth Clare. Molly has good reason to distrust and even dislike her new stepmother and regret the closeness she had with her father, but Mrs Gibson has not treated Molly as badly as her own daughter Cynthia. I found some echoes of Middlemarch (Lydgate and Rosemary Vincy) in Dr Gibson's very evident regret and impatience with the fool of a woman he has married.
There's less sympathy for Mrs Gibson as a former governess than might have been expected. The character of Miss Eyre, a shop-keeper's daughter become ladylike governess, is sketchy and just a nod to the great governess figure in Jane Eyre. Servants are treated badly (Bethia sent away, Betty fired, the cook who resigns because as a Methodist she won't do 'Papist' French cooking) and Gaskell's sympathy is obvious. But when it comes to Clare, who has had a hard life in many ways and longs for comfort and a home of her own, Gaskell is quite unsparing.
Another character who begins offstage and then plays a significant role even though her character is undeveloped, is Aimee, the secret wife of Osborne Hamley and herself a French Roman Catholic nursery maid. Throughout the novel there are constant ironic and comic allusions to the corrupt, decadent, unsuitable influence of France and the French (anticipating the great later novels of Henry James such as The Europeans) and I was amused to hear Elizabeth Gaskell wrote most of the fiction while staying in Paris! Aimee and her child will displace both Roger and Molly from living at Hamley Hall. Would they go away to colonial Africa, designated as a place of scientific and exploratory interest ? I'm less sure about that.
I think it's clear the author wants us to consider this a poor choice, and there is not much sympathy for Clare in the novel -- a little, for the poverty she has endured, but this is largely undercut by the portrait of her as a silly, shallow woman who uses everyone in the service of her own comfort and advancement. The marriage seems to make things worse for both Dr. Gibson (who doesn't seem to enjoy being married to her much at all) and for Molly, whose new "mother figure" is definitely problematic.
As a 21st century woman I found myself bristling at a lot of the decisions Dr. Gibson was making on Molly's behalf without consulting her -- like assuming that having a stepmother would be necessarily in her best interests, or even keeping Mr. Coxe's letter from her in the first place. But of course that's very my much modern perspective, and in the thinking of the time he was well within his rights to do so, though it still would have been nice to at least discuss the idea of his remarriage with Molly, as it was allegedly for her benefit, before going ahead and doing it.
I think secret-keeping is mainly a plot device, as it is in many novels, but that said it's one that works well in any era, as people do keep secrets from the ones they love, and those secrets can often have unforeseen consequences.
I loved Molly, as we are meant to, I think, but I also liked Cynthia quite a lot and empathized with her situation re Mr. Preston. I thought the direction of the novel was that Cynthia was going to be a terrible stepsister and make Molly's life miserable, but I actually loved the close sister-like bond that developed between them despite how different they were.
I'd love to hear from a British person on this -- does it still matter that your family, like the Hamleys, has been on the same piece of land for centuries, even if they don't have a lot of money? Is there still prestige in having a good "bloodline"? I don't think that kind of thing matters at all here in Canada, even though the ancestors of most English Canadians are only about 200 years (more in some places) out from Britain. There's a class system here for sure but it's all about money; how you made your money or who your family is doesn't seem to carry much weight. There are old merchant families here in NL where I live whose current generations are still big names in local business and politics, but that seems to be more around their ancestors having made a lot of money many years ago, rather than being associated with landed nobility.
I found it interesting and a bit amusing that Roger's work in natural sciences, at which he was clearly a bit of a genius, was treated by his family as a quirky hobby and not evidence of real brilliance like his brother's (apparently not very good?) poetry. It's definitely a reflection of what people of his background and class would have seen as legitimate areas of scholarship, but the acclaim Roger finds in the wider world shows that he's living at a time when all that is changing.
Where did everyone else's copy end? Mine ends with a possible declaration of love between Roger and Molly, but Roger then heading off to Africa again with the hint that maybe they'll be together when he gets back. I assume this is the original, unfinished ending? There was no afterword in the version I read, as there seems to be in some, suggesting what the author might have intended for the ending. Would love to know what other people have read. Seems to me she clearly intended to have Molly and Roger end up together, but this being a 19th century novel it seems just a possible that one of them dies of something before they can get back together, so I felt like I had to write my own happy ending for them.
I have several more thoughts on this book but those will do for now ...
"We know that Roger Hamley will marry Molly, and that is what we are most concerned about... Had the writer lived, she would have sent her hero back to Africa forthwith... He returned... found it difficult after all to tell Molly how much he hoped she loved him; and might have blundered if he had not thought of beginning by showing her the flower that was plucked from the nosegay. How charmingly that scene would have been drawn, had Mrs Gaskell lived to depict it, we can only imagine...
"Roger and Molly are married... [he] has no need to draw upon the little fortune which is to go to poor Osborne's boy, for he becomes professor at some great scientific institution and wins his way in the world handsomely...
"...Of what was to happen to Cynthia after her marriage the author was not heard to say much... One little anecdote, however, was told of her by Mrs Gaskell... One day, when Cynthia and her husband were on a visit to Hollingford, Mr Henderson learned for the first time, through an innocent casual remark of Mr Gibson's, that the famous traveller, Roger Hamley, was known to the family. Cynthia had never happened to mention it."
I haven't seen the miniseries but I believe they ended it slightly differently but in a satisfying way. Maybe someone can enlighten us?
It just occurs to me to wonder, as Roger didn't see Molly face to face before he left for Africa and was away for quite a while, why he didn't write to her - either before he went or while he was away? Am I missing something?
I think Roger chose not to write in a romantic fashion as he thought Molly would think him fickle to love her so quickly after loving Cynthia and might not believe his love was sincere. He was only going for another 5 months. The afterword says that when he came back he chickened out on proposing again as he was worried Molly couldn't love him because he love Cynthia first, but that he eventually showed Molly her flower that he kept and the resulting conversation became a proposal when he realised Molly loved him too. So sad we can't read it in Gaskell's words!
The main change in the ending of the miniseries is mentioned in the plot summary section in the article on the book on Wikipedia if you want to compare endings. I'm happy to discuss here if nobody is worried about spoilers!
1. Did Dr. Gibson make a wise choice in marrying Hyacinth Kirkpatrick/Clare? Would staying single or marrying one of the other eligible village women have been a better choice?
Frankly, no. While I can understand Dr Gibson’s desire to protect Molly, and perhaps his concern that a woman might be more able to introduce Molly to ‘society’, he made a bad choice in Hyacinth Kirkpatrick. This is mainly because she was so shallow and manipulative. On the other hand there don’t seem to have been other suitable women in the small circle where he was looking. So probably better to have stayed single.
4. Did you find Molly or Cynthia to be the more engaging character?
Molly is the more attractive character, though I can see that some might find her anaemic. We had the same issue, I remember, with Fanny Price last year – she’s the ‘moral centre of the novel’, but is not exciting. Moral clarity, goodness, is hard to represent effectively, though I think Gaskell does a pretty good job. Cynthia is difficult, hides things, is self-centred, but as we learn more about her childhood her actions seem rather more explicable. And she seems to genuinely like Molly; their friendship seems sincere on both sides.
5. Does the concept of ‘honourable blood’ still exist among people of British ancestry? Do these attitudes to heredity differ between those of British ancestry in the United Kingdom and people of British ancestry elsewhere in the world?
Being of English origin, I think I understand the distinction Gaskell is making about ‘old blood’ and the more recent titles given to industrialists and the like. It’s about status derived from land as against the status of more recent money. In fact the Hamley family don’t seem to have formal titles, ‘nobility’ isn’t quite the right word for the landed squirocracy, lord of the manor ‘since before the Romans’ (pg 35 in my edition -Wordsworth Classics). He’s ‘Squire’ rather than a knight.
In Australia anyway (can’t answer for USA and Canada) such distinctions would not matter – but it tended to be 4th or errant sons of the old, landed families who ended up here, and whether they were able to maintain any social status largely depended on their own adjustments and abilities. And of course there was always potential for those not quite so noble to play up their blue blood – if they could find anyone to take them seriously!
7. The book is set in the 1820s and 1830s at a time of scientific discovery. Did you find it surprising that Roger is not considered to have a true profession despite his employment as a scientist/naturalist?
The problem Roger has is that in the 1830s there was no real professional employment as ‘scientist’. He had done maths at Cambridge; natural sciences weren’t taught till the 1850s, when various other institutions also started teaching ‘science’ (dissenting academies etc). And anyway being a university fellow is restricted to the celibate (till at least the 1860s - varied by college). The scientific discoveries were undertaken by either the wealthy who didn’t need extra income, Anglican clergy in undemanding parishes, industrialists (as in the Lunar Society), but employment as ‘scientist’ was rare if not unknown. Benefactors of various sorts put up money for expeditions – but it’s contract work and not permanent employment. I recently read a biography of Humboldt (by Andrea Wulf, very good) and he had the same problem; he spent frustrating years as a courtier (and doing scientific work on the side) because there was no real income in professional science. So Roger is embarking on an insecure enterprise, needing patronage, though things were to improve considerably in the 1850s and 60s.
To get back to the second point about secrets. I think it is partly a plot device. There needs to be a good reason for Mr Gibson to marry again for instance. However all the secrets do seem to come out of the characters' personalities rather than just there to move the story along. This is in contrast to some other Victorian novels I've read, The Heir of Redclyffe for instance where keeping a secret doesn't seem a plausible or sensible thing to do. In W&D Mr Gibson has very strong moral principles that lead him to think his daughter needs to be 'protected.' Hyacinth Kirkpatrick just wants a comfortable life and will do whatever is needed to achieve that. Cynthia is similar, though the situation with Mr Preston seems all too plausible. In modern times I don't think he'd be pressing for marriage though. Hyacinth Clare/Kirkpatrick/Gibson is one of my favourite characters in literature. I love the way Elizabeth Gaskell makes her so plausibly horrible. Cynthia I liked, and she's one of those people whose company I would have enjoyed, though I would never have trusted her an inch. I think the relationship between her and Molly was well done.
The honourable blood question is an interesting one. I'm thoroughly English (with a tiny bit of Welsh) for as many generations back as family members have researched. I don't think it's a concept that has much meaning for me, but then I was bought up by a die-hard republican. From what I can see from my occasional dips into the Daily Mail it is something that some people find important.
I read somewhere that Gaskell was influenced by Darwin's story when writing the character of Roger. It is obvious that Mr Gibson is interested in such maters, his joy and being able to go to London to discuss them. Lord Hollingford is presumably an accurate portrait of the sort of wealthy man interested in science who doesn't worry too much about class distinctions when it comes to advancing scientific knowledge. It's amazing to think that science wasn't taught at university at the time, and that the route to becoming a doctor was still pretty much as it had been in the middle ages.
Gaskell might have had second thoughts about her planned ending, in that she was a careful pragmatic author, not much romantic gothic here. It struck me too that in the 19th century, Africa was not an expatriate destination in the same way France or Italy might have been. Expeditions to the wilderness of Ethiopia would have lasted only several months and those on the expedition would need to return home to England to write up and publish findings, begin preparing for another expedition. It is unlikely that Roger and Molly would 'settle' in Africa because they would have to live in the rough-and-ready Cape Colony and unless Roger were to be employed by a colonial administrative body, life would not be easy. What would happen when and if Molly had children? She would be unlikely to live in London and might return home to her village and family home or live at Hambley Hall.
How would Roger be able to contribute to the Hambley estate finances depleted by Osborne? The character of Aimee might have needed a rethink to show her as a capable manager and fit to belong as a Hambley, even though not of 'honourable blood'. It's worth noting that the sketchy character of Aimee the working-class French interloper undercuts all earlier opinions on 'breeding' or lineage, attitudes that would now be considered laughable. Aimee will become mistress of ancient Hambley Hall and her son will inherit the estate. This is a very clever novel in setting out a certain bourgeois Victorian morality and apparent established family values only for them to be thrown into question by plot reversals.
This observation isn't just hindsight from the 21st century, at least I hope not -- I think Gaskell titled her fiction Wives and Daughters because she wanted to foreground the contradictions of women's lives subjugated by fathers and husbands, and limited marital choices. The Scotch integrity and moral code Molly has learned from her father isn't enough to help her as an adult woman faced with Cynthia's ambiguous lax morality, the sly stalker Mr Preston, her loss of reputation or her own dealings with a difficult step-mother or disappointment in love: she has to stand up to her father a demand he respect her autonomy and silence.
Reading Molly and Cynthia in tandem made me think of Virginia Woolf 50 years later writing about needing to kill the 'Angel in the House' and how perfectly Molly personifies that selfless ministering put-upon Angel of the House for Roger and his family. While Cynthia may not ever make a happy marriage and cause heartache wherever she goes, she has a sense of herself and her own potential beyond the roles available to her at that time.
I think the 'educated women' of that day did not receive what I would consider education. I have the impression that it produced women who were self-satisfied and arrogant.
Molly's father gave her the free-run of his library. She educated herself.
I'm interested in what @MaryLouise says about Cynthia being aware of her potential which went beyond the roles available to her as she was still clearly keen to make a marriage of some sort and unless I'm missing something she doesn't come out of the story as positively as Molly.
I've made the point, here and I think on the general reading thread, that a contemporary novelist can capture the details and attitudes of the era the way a historical novelist writing decades or centuries later can never quite get, no matter how detailed their research. But I also think there's an area where the historical novelist has an advantage, because Victorian (and Regency) novelists had to write within the restrictions of what was acceptable to publish, which meant a fair degree of dodging around the issue of sex.
Clearly, people have been having sex outside of soceitally-approved heterosexual marriages throughout history, including in 1800s England, but you rarely ever get a hint of that in novels of the time (and if you do, it's a character whose virtue has been so irredeemably tarnished that she has to end up dead at the end of the novel). If a respectable young girl who has any hope of semi-redemption at the end of the novel gets into any sort of "scandal," it can never involve her actually having sex.
So you get situations like Cynthia & Mr. Preston. It seems pretty obvious to me that in a real-life situation of that era, the actual scandal would be that Mr. Preston coerced or outright forced this impressionable young girl into a sexual relationship, then blackmailed her by threatening to reveal it. But Cynthia can't be tarnished by actual sex, so instead the "scandal" is a secret engagement. The "scandal" for Osborne and Aimee is also, of course, a secret marriage, rather than Osborne just sleeping with the girl and getting her pregnant --which, given the commonality of children born out of wedlock in that era (and all eras!) was more likely what would really have happened.
I'm thinking also of Lydia Bennet and George Wickham in Pride and Prejudice, where the implication is that, although Lydia runs away with George thinking they are about to be married, they do in fact stay together (and presumably have sex) without being married, and Lydia's reputation is only saved by Darcy forcing Wickham to marry her. That's about as risque as it gets, I think, for a respectable young lady of that era -- I don't think the novel is ever explicit about the fact that L&G are sleeping together, but they likely are, however it has to be done under the cover of an elopement that she presumes will lead to a secret marriage. Am I remembering that right?
Anyway, the point of the Pride & Prejudice diversion is just to say that I think it's common for 19th c novelists to use elopements and secret engagements as a stand-in for illicit sex -- something that's scandalous enough to be shocking, but not so scandalous that the character cannot be redeemed and still make a proper marriage, as Cynthia does.
Are there any respectable female characters in 19th century novels who have sex outside of marriage and still get a happily-ever-after ending? I can't think of any. And that prudishness around allowing characters to have actual sexual relationships gives some of these storylines an air of unreality, to me.
(Hope to have time to answer the questions by this weekend.)
Once she is married, we are assured that she stops falling for other men. Also Lydia maintains the 'reputation' secured by marriage by staying faithful to Wickham (though it's doubtful he returned the favour).
It's also clear that Mrs Clay is the mistress of Walter Elliot and likely to finagle him into marrying her.
So it seems illicit sex is ok as long as you end up married (Maria's big mistake).
The village knows that someone like Preston is a sexual pest, what we'd call a serial predator. They might not know what he did to Cynthia, but they know someone like Molly shouldn't be meeting alone with him, There a scene where Preston invites Molly out into the garden with him and Lady Harriet smacks him down very fast. She herself has refused to accompany Mr Preston into the garden and she then says to Molly in a plain-spoken but coded speech:
"But, at any rate, you are not to go out walking with that man. I've an instinctive aversion to him; not entirely instinctive either; it has some foundation in fact; and I desire you don't allow him ever to get intimate with you. He's a very clever land-agent, and does his duty by papa, and I don't choose to be taken up for libel; but remember what I say!"
That 'foundation' is what we'd now think of as a whisper campaign, women warning one another to avoid dangerous men. It can be read as Lady Harriet's peremptory arrogant manner as an aristocrat, contemptuous of her father's land agent, but the word 'intimate', often so innocuous at the time carries a sexual freight here. This man will take advantage of you, he will not marry you, he is bad news and some of us know he has treated other woman badly. Harriet has seen Preston at work, she may herself be exempt from threat because she has advantages of birth and rank, but she watched her former governess and the young Cynthia responding to Preston. And perhaps others. Harriet knows what happens to unprotected, naive women and (picking up on what @Firenze mentioned) that Preston will wriggle out of any marriage agreement or make a wife's life hell.
Molly is the exception (racking my brains to think of some flaws) and arguably one-dimensional and a bit uninteresting because of that. I think it's uplifting to reflect that she's the only character who remains constant in her loves. She loves her father deeply despite his shortcomings. She loves Cynthia even though she sees her faults. Her love for Roger is constant. I find it wholesome and reassuring (yes, call me an idealistic romantic!).
Hyacinth was always selfish and manipulative. She tells of her first husband walking miles in the cold rain to buy her a muffin because she had expressed a desire for one. She matter-of-factly said that he caught a chill that eventually killed him. She told this story proudly as an illustration of how devoted to her he was.
I think Preston is very well done, the obsequious manner when Molly and her father are his guests is spot on. Nothing he says is very untoward, but it's the sort of speech that would have me instinctively disliking him and avoiding him where possible. I've met guys like him.
The afterward by Greenwood raves about the character of Osborne, and how well Gaskell had drawn him. He does seem an honourable man, in that he marries Aimee, but also a rather feckless one. I'm assuming all his university bills weren't just for her upkeep.
As for Lady Harriet, I like her forthrightness and that unlike all the other women in the novel, marriage isn't something she is aiming for. However she can be brutally frank, and I wonder if having Hyacinth as a governess has been to the detriment of her character.
Molly I like, as you are supposed to. I think we can all relate to the embarrassment she feels in the first chapter when she is accidently left behind. The rescue by her father is a lovely scene.
I also like the way we get some strong clues to Hyacinth's character early on when she eats Molly's lunch and is amazingly impatient while sounding solicitous.
Women immobilised on couches or sickbeds in their homes or 'absent' due to unspecified invalidism present what I sometimes think of as a survival strategy for middle-class Victorian women (women working as servants or the wives of poor men wouldn't gain anything by invalidism). On the other hand, Lady Cumnor has successfully married off two of her daughters and now 'has the leisure to be an invalid'. For Mrs Hamley, we're told her illness may have begun as passive resistance to a husband who is a philistine and won't let her go up to concerts or cultural events in London. Invalidism allowed younger women to refuse sex with husbands and a reprieve from pregnancies, a chance to be alone, a way to avoid conflict in the household, time for reading or writing.
The sting in the tail is that invalidism in Wives & Daughters often develops into more serious illness that goes undiagnosed and the uses of invalidism are ambiguous. Osborne as invalid is feebler as a character and some believe him to be hypochondriac and a neurasthenic, but when Molly falls ill we come up against what might be called performative hysteria in women.
This was for me the most revealing and interesting episode in Molly's development: she is guileless, embodies the moral core of the novel as mentioned above in the thread and at a certain point, as an unmarried woman in love with her step-sister's fiance, Molly's emotional repression and grief over the death of her spiritual mother Mrs Hamley manifests as a psychic collapse. For an unmarried woman without prospects and not having a designated role caring for her ageing father (he has a wife), Molly has reached a crossroads without any future direction. The spinster Browning sisters offer no model for a single woman, Molly cannot go off to London and meet new men, she cannot travel or teach. The 'vivifying stimulant of hope' has gone and Molly falls ill. Her father fears she may become a permanent invalid. Her swooning and fainting fits show Molly stepping out of character -- not unlike the way contemporary women characters might have dissociative episodes or panic attacks to indicate the aftermath of trauma.
At the same time, illness makes Molly beautiful, thinner, more ethereal, more delicate and a refinement of her sturdy robust girl self. It's so problematic and I always find myself struggling with the eroticising of invalidism in Victorian authors (those preRaphaelite images!). Invalidism in Victorian novels can be subversive at times or self-defeating: here is is what transforms Molly and gets Roger the oblivious to notice her as more than a sister.
I found the first 100 pages or so somewhat turgid. There were so many words to describe not very much but at the same time, the details, the observations were exquisite. I noticed particularly the observation from Molly that Clare had not taken responsiblity for not waking Molly up. It reminded me of how cleverly people position themselves with half-truths to their own advantage. Something that I have been on the receiving end myself - not so much doing that but being slighted in the process. And how subtle and insiduous it all is but there is so little to hook onto as being "Unfair" that any protestation looks weak.
That said, I had huge sympathy for Clare. I felt she was someone who was walking a very unhappy life, deeply insecure. For me, I wondered if she had been able to find happiness in her marriage to Dr Gibson, perhaps she might have become a little bit softer with the resulting rippling effect towards Molly and others. I didn't really fathom where the rot for her set in, and perhaps nowadays, someone of her disposition would have access to more support that would enable her to find her niche in life, but choices were very limited. It seemed clear to me that she was very very scared, the way she latched onto the proposal as finding security, or her neurosis about what people might think of her. This neurosis was particularly strange as it stopped short of caring what her nearest and dearest thought of her.
Sorry not really addressed the very interesting and thought provoking questions, this is my first time in any sort of book group discussion - online or verbal so please bear / bare (?) with me as I feel my way round this process. And I am more of an internal person as a rule so need to find a way to reflect out my thoughts.
As @Mili says, I take the suggested questions to be conversation starters but anyone can start a different conversation!
I really noticed this time how many of the female characters were indisposed at one time or another. About the only one's who aren't are Cynthia and Lady Harriet. I do think Lady Cumnor was genuinely ill, as she doesn't seem to be someone who'd take to her sofa unnecessarily, but I assume Mrs Hamley found the sofa a good place to retreat from her husband, and then became really ill.
I do like the character of Mr Hamley. In lots of ways he is totally unsympathetic, but Gaskell tries to promote his good side, and his reaction to the death of Osborne is very moving. I did wonder if he was in the early stages of dementia. His unwarranted rages and his trying to teach his very small grandson to smoke seemed somewhat indicative of cognitive decline to me.
What do we make of the role of religion? It isn't mentioned much, though the Hamleys do go to church and Mr Hamley does seem to have a strict routine for Sundays. Being a Catholic or marrying one is obviously something beyond the pale (the same thing happens in North and South with Frederick, but Catholic stands for a whole bundle of prejudices rather than a theological position to be disagreed with. There is no mention, apart from the wedding, of any other church going as far as I can recall.
Hard to answer. Marrying to provide a stepmother was a perfectly valid reason at the time, but was it for Dr. Gibson? If it was, then I do think Hyacinth was the best, due to her background, out of a limited number of choices. There's the usual Victorian reticence about other marital criteria, but Dr. Gibson appears the opposite of uxorious.
BTW, Thackeray wrote something to the effect that if people had to marry wisely, the world would be depopulated.
2. A lot of the plot points centred around secrets that various characters were keeping from their children, parents and fiancés. Do you feel this was mainly to create an interesting plot or reflective of real life at the time?
I think it's more for plot purposes. I did think the subtitle An Every-Day Story a little ironic, as the novel includes melodramatic subplots like the Osborne/Aimee one.
4. Did you find Molly or Cynthia to be the more engaging character?
As mentioned before, I agree with the Greenwood afterward that Cynthia is the most interesting character. Cynthia reminds me slightly of Tito Melema of George Eliot's Romola--not innately vicious, but without the strength of character to resist the easier course of action (besides the significant problems with Preston, some criticize her for being a flirt when it's just easier for her to be pleasant to everybody). However, besides, of course, Cynthia not committing any gross monstrosities as Tito does, she is completely self-aware of her weaknesses and warns Molly about them. Cynthia's understanding of Hyacinth's character and circumstances also makes her, despite occasional sauciness, more forebearing to her than other young women may have been under the same circumstances.
6. Does the book demonstrate that money cannot buy happiness or the things that matter in life?
Depends on the definition of "things that matter". For example, IMO there's no obvious indication that Cynthia's marriage won't be quite satisfactory.
7. The book is set in the 1820s and 1830s at a time of scientific discovery. Did you find it surprising that Roger is not considered to have a true profession despite his employment as a scientist/naturalist?
As others have said, Roger's field was considered by many at the time more of a hobby.
8. In the nineteenth century, some people believed that novels or certain types of novels could morally corrupt. Many more argued that novels were only okay if they portrayed and taught good morals. Given that Molly is encouraged by her father to read a ‘trashy novel’ when she is unwell, it seems Gaskell does not fully share this view. The relationship between Osborne and Aimee shows a successful relationship between a nobleman and a servant that ends in legitimate marriage and shared parenthood, whereas often these relationships ended with the woman being abandoned and sometimes left with a child they could not support. Could Gaskell be seen as tempting young working-class women to a moral ‘fall’ through this plotline?
To be honest, no--per above, I think that plot is removed enough from the reality of the time not to add to temptation.
Interestingly, though, enough women "fell" anyway. Part of the hostility toward women like Molly being suspected in secret note-exchanging was that they were acting like the servant class--who didn't have the leisure time to make calls, etc., and you know what they wound up doing. At least in London, one study of 1800s marriage records indicated that about two-thirds of the women were already pregnant.
9. In the concluding remarks http://www.online-literature.com/elizabeth_gaskell/wives_daughters/60/, Frederick Greenwood, editor of ‘The Cornhill’ magazine states, “you feel yourself caught out of an abominable wicked world, crawling with selfishness and reeking with base passions, into one where there is much weakness, many mistakes, sufferings long and bitter, but where it is possible for people to live calm and wholesome lives; and, what is more, you feel that this is at least as real a world as the other.” Does this suggest that as true to life as it may seem to modern readers, the novel is not a true reflection of life at the time or that it only reflects the world of a minority of society at the time?
Sorry if this is a dodge, but I think while it's not a reflection of all life, significant portions of it could have existed.
10. Any suggestions for how Gaskell may have written the ending, had she lived or how you would like the book to have ended?
I can't think of any important changes for what Greenwood indicated.
I dug around and found that Elizabeth Gaskell's own mother died just after Elizabeth's birth and she grew up, like Molly, motherless. Gaskell would become mother to four daughters (shades of Mrs Ramsey in To The Lighthouse) but she was critical of motherhood as an ideology. Most of the mothers in Wives and Daughters are absent: deceased, invalids, preoccupied with difficult marriages, or, like Clare Kirkpatrick, having to work to earn a living after being widowed. One theme I keep coming back to is the ambiguous tyranny of the Victorian family for women. How does a woman who is bound by social roles as a dutiful daughter, good wife, and nurturing self-sacrificing mother make time to write for publication?
The first was Cynthia saying to Molly, "I can't help trying to make everyone like me." She said this to explain why she was so friendly with Mr Coxe. I feel much greater sympathy for her after reading that.
The other thought I had was that being a son in a well-to-do family could involve problems that young men from lower-status families didn't have to deal with.
I thought of this when reading Osborne's ideas of how to raise money to support Aimee. His education was no help. The son of a shoemaker would learn to make shoes or would be apprenticed to a carpenter. By his mid-twenties he would be financially independent. I n the nineteenth century, many young men from wealthy families could achieve financial independence only by inheritance. I never thought I would have any sympathy for the rich.
Preston on the other hand, now that I have had to do training to recognise grooming of children and teens by predators, creeped me out even more. He was the one who targeted Cynthia, a vulnerable young girl both emotionally and financially (for her class). He used gifts of money to groom her and ensured he was her only friend. He groomed others to accept his close relationship with Cynthia was normal, even though some recognised Cynthia was too young for him. He formed a close relationship with her mother to get to the daughter. He also wanted to control Cynthia and ensure she did not have other relationships, while he felt free to pursue other women and girls. These days predators use photos and social media to groom and blackmail their victims. Preston used the letters the same way to try to force Cynthia to marry him. It seems likely there would have been sexual abuse in the relationship (though given ages of consent of the time it would not have been illegal then) and if found out most people would have blamed Cynthia for seducing Preston, as still happens to precocious teenagers today.
Interesting observations about Africa @Mili. Gaskell is very good at giving sympathy to Catholics and 'fallen' women unlike some other Victorian novelists such as Mrs Henry Wood, but seems to have fallen into stereotypical thinking over Roger and the people and places he was encountering there.
@Mili I identify with this! When I was in the UK a few years ago, a friend asked why I was picking up shoes or slippers and tapping them upside down before putting them on, something I was taught to do as a small child in Zimbabwe, even though most creepy-crawlies were lizards or cicadas rather than scorpions.
'Africa' was exoticised and made out to be a kind of blank canvas in much 19th-century literature, not unlike the way in which planets like Mars were invented as utopian or dystopian parallel universes and fanciful locations for early science fiction. I also wondered how much Gaskell knew about the ancient cultures and Coptic Church in Ethiopia: for her purposes in Wives and Daughters, I suspect she simply wanted a romantic, relatively unexplored and dangerous location in which to place Roger away from the village. Not a great choice but so little was understood of Orientalism or colonial prejudice back then. On a trip some years ago to Addis Ababa, a couple of us went in search of Arthur Rimbaud's museum in Harar where the former poet worked as a coffee merchant and gun runner. Rimbaud's Abyssinia would have been so foreign and remote even in the 1880s that most French people could scarcely have imagined it.
The casting is just superb -- everybody is pretty much perfect for their roles, I think.
(Equally improbable, but I also thought Cynthia and Preston might already be married--though even Becky Sharp, under those circumstances, refrained from accepting another proposal.)
As for setting up a zoom, I think I've failed on that one. We're going to be moving very soon and I think I need most of my spare time to sorting stuff out and thinking about packing.
No worries Sarasa. Maybe we can have one for next months book.
I like the ending of the miniseries, but think Gaskell would have written a better one! The socially distanced proposal made me laugh. Molly goes off to Africa in the miniseries, but in the book outline Roger finished his contract in Africa and then got a job at a university in England. The miniseries didn't show the futures of the other characters and I would like to know how Gaskell envisioned them all ending up. Did Cynthia stay faithful to Henderson? Had she chosen the right match for her this time? The book summary says Dr. Gibson maintained some happiness by visiting Molly a lot, but it doesn't sound like he and Hyacinth were ever going to have a happy marriage. And what happened to Preston in the long run, or Lady Harriet? We will never know