Modern Essay Criticism of Tess of the D'Urbervilles

Gillian Beer appeared to have one of the shorter essays. It’s not that I was deliberately looking for a short review…okay maybe I was…but only because some of these essays are dense and hard to understand. So I read Beer’s “Descent and Sexual Selection: Women in Narrative.” Regardless of it being short, it was actually really interesting. Also, maybe because it was so short, but Beer doesn’t really talk about Hardy very much. It obviously applies to Tess and she does talk about it but that’s not what she quotes most. She’s not discussing Tess specifically. Instead Gillian is discussing social and evolutionary theories regarding the sexes.

She quotes mostly Darwin and it was totally fascinating! I never really realized that Darwin’s work might extend to people. I always thought he was studying animals and evolution in general but Gillian references works by Darwin which dealt with people and the quotations are awesome. It reminds me of another book I once read called “The Naked Ape” which was a zoologist’s study and observations of people as if they were animals.

Right off the bat, one of the most useful quotes or statements by the writer which I thought could be applied to Tess was this: “Succession and inheritance form the ‘hidden bond’ which knits all nature past and present together, just as succession and inheritance organize society and sustain hegemony” (446). This quote is in the first paragraph so maybe that’s why I liked it so much...I read the first paragraph three or four times before I finally focused enough to keep reading. I thought it was very interesting since we raised the idea several times of what was the point of mentioning the D’Urderville lineage connection to the Durbeyfields? Beer also said “variations in nature are not within the control of will; they are random and unwilled and may happen to advantage or disadvantage an individual and his progeny in any particular environment.” It’s all very interesting because I feel like both statements could’ve been connected and referenced in a discussion about Tess but that’s wasn’t Beer’s priority. Gillian Beer was more concerned with discussing Darwin’s theories on human social evolution in regards to male dominance and social classes.

She quotes Darwin saying “Civilised men are largely attracted by mental charms of women, by their wealth, and especially by their social position; for men rarely marry into a much lower rank.” She also calls Darwin out on claiming “that ‘in civilized nations women have free or almost free choice,’....in contrast to all other species, among humankind the male dominates choice.” I suppose I might just leave these quotes here. I feel like these easily apply to past discussions in class: Hardy’s insistence on his characters having or not having free will, etc. It also gives an interesting claim that men rarely married into a lower rank. We saw in Tess that this was actually an observed issue as Angel worried about marrying Tess.

Gillian’s essay discusses the process of sexual selection and the suffering of the female sex (menstruation) compared to the male sex. In writing about the struggles between the sexes and their rights and ambitions as characters, Beer refers to Hardy and George Eliot (I assume MiddleMarch because it fits the topic).

Overall, Gillian Beer’s essay covers the idea of social expectations of women and how their portrayed in narrative literature. She uses Darwin’s theory of evolution as a great assistant since the d’Urberville’s “’are extinct—as a county family…that is, gone down, gone under.’” The essay is short and full of golden nuggets of ideas. It’s likely that I didn’t even cover everything she discussed but it’s late and most of these essays are dense. This essay, however, is five pages and a quick read if you’re interested in checking  out all the Darwin theories which Beer refers to.

Tess of the d'Urbervilles - Contemporary Criticisms

It's interesting that we are often led to discuss the reception of Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Ubervilles. Nowadays, people who read this book have strong opinions which place them on certain ends of the spectrum. You either hate it or you love it. Maybe you love the book but you hate Tess. It's interesting to me that people should form such strong opinions on a classic character like that. Therefore I expected the contemporary criticisms of this novel to likely be negative. Imagine my surprise that by the first couple of reviews I encountered some of the best examples of praise that we've read so far of the novel's we've blogged about.

There isn't really a better way to discuss the aforementioned praise other than to just pick out the specific quotes.

"Mr. Hardy's new novel is in many respects the finest work which he has yet produced, and its superiority is largely due to a profound moral earnestness which has not always been conspicuous in his writing." -- Clementina Black from The Illustrated London News (January 9, 1892)

"Mr. Hardy has written one of his most powerful novels, perhaps the most powerful which he ever wrote, to illustrate his conviction that not only is there no Providence guiding individual men and women in the right way, but that, in many cases at least, there is something like a malign fate which draws them out of the right way into the wrong way." -- R.H. Hutton from The Spectator (January 23, 1892)

"...all things taken into account, 'Tess of the D'Ubervilles' is well in front of Mr. Hardy's previous work, and is destined...to rank high among the achievements of Victorian novelists." -- From The Athenaeum (January 9, 1892)

That's just a few of them. They all had specific points, but they either ended or began with these noteworthy words and that's what stood out to me. This acceptance and praise of Hardy's novel is not lightly given, in my opinion. It seems several of those who claim it to be a great work, also lament that it is not the typical novel a reader expects. Therefore, it's left to be questioned, is Tess of the D'Urbervilles great and reknowned for it's greatness or it's oddness (strangeness, difference, etc)? The writer from The Pall Mall Gazette (December 31, 1891) is one of those who prominently compared Tess to Hardy's other works. He doesn't dislike Hardy's new novel. He only aims to inform the readers that those who take home Tess "for his delectation over the Christmas fire, thinking perhaps to have another Far from the Madding Crowd, may well feel a little shaken as the gay pastoral comedy of the opening chapters is shifted by degrees into the sombre trapping of the tragic muse." This critic isn't the only one who said something like this. Clementina Black said something similar as she discusses the conventional reader and their expectations which Hardy challenges with a break in the traditional pattern with an unhappy ending. However, there's so much talk about fate ("It was to be"). Should we have expected a happy ending after all the difficulties that Tess endured??

Modern Criticisms of Middlemarch

Of the recent criticism essays we could read, I liked Robert B. Heilman’s criticism called “Stealthy Convergence” in Middlemarch on page 618. I liked this essay or whatever you want to call it because it talks about Eliot’s use of an extensive character list as well. I really liked the last thing I blogged about because Henry James talked about how the characters were written and interacted with each other so that they projected the a great span of a community. Heilman’s article continues on this sort of path.

He discusses the technique which Eliot so perfectly referenced and utilized, called “stealthy convergence.” This technique allows for “interconnection among people who do not expect it.” What’s great about what Heilman has to say is that through this convergence, Eliot connects various characters whose stories might not directly relate but in reality, with such a small community, they do. That is what she wants to show off about a rural town like Middlemarch. Everyone is connected.

Heilman took a very studies approach to it. What I said above is basically what I think we was trying to say most of the time. He doesn’t talk about the characters so much as the technique in which the story is written. He talks about the chronological tie which was the “oldest and simplest” sort of transition. And it is! Because Eliot and so many authors with large character lists follow a linear chronological path, it’s easy for the reader to understand the transitions between characters. And that’s what Eliot had to master (and according to Heilman, she did): flawless transitions. These transitions had to make sense and Heilman uses a film reference to accomplish his explanation of what Eliot and many others have done, which is panning: “proceeding panoramically from one to another of the neighboring components of groups or scenes.” Heilman praises Eliot saying “no other nineteenth-century novelist, as far as I have observed has hit upon this polished way of transferring us, if not insensibly at least without our feeling the graceless yank of an author’s derrick, from part to part.” Sure, some of us kind of got angsty when we had all those Dorothea-central chapters at the beginning and then it totally switched to Lydgate and co. and we’re left thinking, ‘hey I thought this book was going to be about Dorothea!’ But Heilman breaks it down for us and we realize, ‘o yeah, there was a transition from Dorothea to the Lydgate during the dinner party.’ Ultimately, Eliot creates a cross-over which we can easily follow. These characters do this and that incites a reaction from these characters, etc. and in the end we observe the epitome of a rural community which is a web of interconnected actions and reactions.

p.s. I also really appreciated Heilman’s mentioning of “The Dead Hand” and explaining it as “wills through which dead men seek power over the living.” The book title didn’t make sense until then.

Character Analysis by Henry James

The contemporary reviews of from the back of our copies of Middlemarch contain 
various articles which examine the book and George Eliot's techniques. But to be 
honest I only read a few. I didn't want to anymore. After reading Henry James' 
review titled, "George Eliot's Middlemarch," I didn't want to read anymore. I 
enjoyed it enough that I knew this what what I wanted to write about.

Right from when we started reading Middlemarch, we knew that it would get 
difficult to keep the characters straight. Sure, now that we've read most, if 
not all, of the book we know the characters better. We know the story. We know 
enough to say we notice the absence of a character and wonder when we'll come 
around to their part of the story again. And this is what Henry James talked 
about and that's what I appreciated most. With Mary Barton, there was 
discussion of who the main character really was. Henry James addressed this 
problem with an even greater character list!

James' review opens with the best line! "Middlemarch is at once one of the 
strongest and one of the weakest of English novels." James talks about Eliot's 
range of characters. He speaks best of Dorothea claiming she is the subject of 
the book "a young girl framed for a moral life than circumstance often affords, 
yearning for a motive for sustained spiritual effort and only wasting her ardor 
and soiling her wings against the meanness of opportunity." Dorothea is made out 
to have the "career of an obscure St. Theresa." However while James goes on to 
praise Dorothea as great and genuine creation, he laments that she is not the 
only character to be focused on. She is just a small part, just a part of an 
episode. Other people's relationships become the focus. But James can't help but 
go on about how Dorothea was too superb a heroine to be wasted" especially when 
she loses facetime to the likes of Fred Vincy. But if it's Lydgate, it's 
different. Because Lydgate is a hero as much as Dorothea is...while Ladislaw is 
only a "beautiful attempt." James seems to only wish that Lydgate and Dorothea 
interacted more often because being brought into contact suggests a "wealth of 
dramatic possibility between them." But James acknowledges that if they had, the 
character of Rosamond would've been lost.

Basically, what was awesome about Henry James' review is the way he analyzes 
every character. To truly summarize and analyze the review is merely to copy and 
paste it into the blog. Because what James is really all about is analyzing the 
way the characters interact and the role they play in each other's character 
development. This allows for Eliot's psychological presentation into society.

James claims "the author has desired to be strictly real and to adhere to the 
facts of the common lot..." and had thus presented us with human drama. With 
characters like Dorothea and Lydgate, do you agree?

"Cuz this here is real!!" -- George Eliot (I swear she said it...ok, maybe I'm paraphrasing)

Among the selections from the “Backgrounds” section of George Eliot’s Middlemarch, there are letters from the author to others, as well as chapter excerpts. I didn’t necessarily choose to examine on of each but two selections particularly stood out.

SNL "Scared Straight" This here is real! Know what I'm sayin!?

George Eliot’s excerpt, From Amos Barton: Chapter V, is just that: a simple excerpt. I found it very useful to have access to something like this as it better helps us recognize Eliot’s style. Based on the information I discovered when researching this author for my presentation, I learned that one of unique things Eliot did in her writing was step into the narrative and disrupt it with her own insights and casting judgment upon characters, situations, and society. In this excerpt from her short story, Eliot does just that. All that she really does here in this selection is say Rev. Amos Barton is an ordinary guy and if you can’t deal with that then read one of the other books the newspaper is promoting because…”THIS HERE! THIS HERE IS REAL!!” (pardon my SNL-quoting-turrets).

This excerpt, while it represents Eliot’s affinity for interjecting “on behalf of a man who was so very far from remarkable,” also presents itself as an example of the realism Eliot is known for. Amos Barton is a realist character; “unmistakably commonplace.” She argues that men in real life are not so extraordinary but simply human. “Yet these commonplace people…have their unspoken sorrows, and their sacred joys; … is there not a pathos in their very insignificance…?” Eliot suggests that through realism, we shall experience the  human soul.

The other selection that intrigued me was George Eliot’s Letter to Sara Sophia Hennell (Foleshill, 9 October 1843). I find it interesting that we are made to read more of Eliot’s writings. Wouldn’t it be beneficial to see letters to the famous author so as we might get a glimpse into what her writing inspires within others? Instead, it’s like we get to hear more about Eliot’s opinions and outlook on life and society as if we aren’t already reading about it through Middlemarch. Not that I’m really complaining…it’s an interesting perspective to read about. Especially after having researched George Eliot’s history, I found this letter interesting as it reflected realizations she had growing up. What I found most notable was Eliot’s regard with individual beliefs and the pressure of society. She grew up a pious young lady until she met freethinkers, philosophers, theologists, etc…people who opened her eyes and caused doubts within herself. These doubts led to her revealing to her father that she no longer supported the Christian religion. This created a great rift in their relationship. From this sort of experience, I wonder, if she came to this conclusion: “The results of nonconformity in a family are just an epitome of what happens on a larger scale in the world.” I believe it is these sort of philosophies—is that what I should call them?—which drive Eliot to be a great realist writer; to present these ideas to the public through a tolerable but realist narrative. While she does write pious characters such as Dorothea, Eliot’s is determined to be the realist she will be known for. She asks: “…how are we to do anything toward the advancement of mankind? Are we to go on cherishing superstitions out of fear that seems inconsistent with any faith in a Supreme Being?” She answers that instead we me must be good and do good, moral deeds.

Modern Criticism of Mary Barton

I just want to open with my silly frustration at the fact that the modern reviews of Mary Barton are longer than most of 19^th century reviews. Why? Why is that?! Because it’s an older book now there’s suddenly so much more to say?? Or is it because there’s more space to fill in the papers with book reviews nowadays? Grrr! Haha!

So because of the lengthy reviews, I chose to only discuss one of them instead of two or three. John Lucas seemed to have several things to say about Mary Barton and other reviewer’s opinions. The criticism I chose to focus on was Lucas’ discussion of [Carson’s Murder and the Inadequacy of Hope in Mary Barton]. In this selection, Lucas looks at Gaskell’s work in neither a positive or negative light. I assume he didn’t ‘take sides’ because he was writing in the 1960s and Gaskell’s portrayal of the British upper and lower class has influence on his personal life, unlike those reviewers back then who were likely to be condemning Gaskell because they were the mill-owners she wrote ill of. Therefore his analysis of Mary Barton is as objective as a modern critic might expect to be. He speaks well of Gaskell and her novel, except when it comes to her motivations in writing Carson’s murder. He acknowledges her political agenda in referencing liberalism but he does not condemn her for it. Instead he says, “Mary Barton is a remarkable novel because it so powerfully suggests the guilt at which all liberalism must eventually connive, and which therefore requires Mrs. Gaskell to put it behind her with a resoluteness for which few liberals would feel the need: …” (501-502). Thus Lucas approaches a topic of which we’re familiar with discussing: Gaskell’s sense of resolution and presentation of social solutions.

Now I could reiterate that question here and ask you, if Gaskell provided viable solutions to the social problems present in her novel. But it’s a bit of an open-ended question, isn’t it? Because Mary Barton was a novel focused on a group of individuals and their experiences within the system. Who can fault that description? It’s basically the bare bones of several novels, isn’t it? Therefore, I propose we assert that John Barton and Carson Jr. and Sr. are meant to be representations of both ends of the spectrum. Gaskell sets them up for the best and worst circumstances; the best being Carson Sr.’s forgiveness and reform, and Barton’s death rather than imprisonment; the worst being Harry Carson’s murder. Still…they are characters in a unique story, “even if Carson’s reform is genuine it is a purely individual matter, whereas one side of Mrs. Gaskell certainly hopes it will emerge as a general recommendation” (504).

I’m sure we can agree that Mary Barton took an interesting turn when Harry Carson was murdered. Suddenly it wasn’t a social problem novel so much as a murder mystery. Did Gaskell always intend for this plot/genre shift? Or was Harry Carson’s murder and the following investigation a cop out after realizing the hopelessness of everyone’s situation? Lucas thinks “There can be little doubt that Mrs. Gaskell always intended the murder to happen” (502). Okay. I suppose I can get on board with that. It makes sense that a hopeless situation escalate to murder…in this context (!) with the pressure of Chartist unions upon you. But Lucas has a point that Gaskell looks to the murder to make her way out of the complex web of industry life she’s portrayed. What’s great about Lucas’ review is that he both agrees and disagrees with fellow critics. Where one critic says the murder was too dramatic and was used as a fall back for Gaskell, Lucas asserts a sort of representative point of view which fits the story better as a “dramatisation of the fear of violence which was widespread among the upper and middle classes at the time” (502). Then it seems that Gaskell is hoping to follow a pattern: “class antagonism producing a violence from which springs reconciliation” (503). That’s a totally logical pattern. But does it only work in books or movies?

John Barton dies and Mr. Carson forgives him; his “forgiveness and vow of reform seem to represent a triumph for the best hopes of liberalism” (503). Perhaps that was Gaskell’s intention. If she can’t propose specific solutions, she can at least provide hope. However, according to Lucas’ review, it’s not enough.

Gaskell, Elizabeth. Mary Barton. Ed Thomas Recchio: A Norton Critical Edition. New York: W. W. Norton, 2008. Print.

Contemporary Reviews of Mary Barton: Summary and Analysis

I decided to look at three reviews: an unsigned review from the Manchester Literary Times (1848), John Forster’s review from the Examiner (1848) and a piece from Manchester in 1844: Its Present Condition and Future Prospects by Leon M. Faucher (obviously published in 1844). I figured a few reviews were bound to be similar in discussing Mary Barton. That’s why I decided to include Faucher’s review. Unlike the first two reviews, which spoke well of the novel and its anonymous author, Faucher seemed instead to use Mary Barton as a platform on which to write his own political/economical/social commentary of England’s society and industry. “When the evils connected with its industry were first brought to light, efforts were made to divert public attention from the subject and…the existence of these evils was denied.” The only way one might even deduce that Mary Barton had anything to do with Faucher’s ‘review’ is because it can be seen as an example of breaking through the delusion and exposing said evils of industry in manufacturing towns. The anonymous and Forster’s review, like I previously said, were favorable and more focused on the story of Mary Barton, how it was told, and who could’ve possibly written it. They recognized Gaskell’s goal as Forster claims, “fiction may be allowed to enter where philosophy cannot well find its way.” And that is why some reviewers, like Forster recommended Mary Barton.

I suppose for my analysis I’m choosing to focus on the idea of Gaskell’s anonymity when she first published this novel. As we learned from our classmate’s presentation on Elizabeth Gaskell, as a first-time novelist, she published Mary Barton anonymously in case the novel was received poorly. If anything, her standing as a debut author is recognized as the unsigned reviewer from the Manchester Literary Times claims “the writer [is] new to the world of literature.” While there were mixed reviews, Forster’s and the unsigned review were positive and spoke well of the author. Quite a few reviewers attempted to determine the identity of the author. The unsigned reviewer instead notes the “evidence of much higher capacity on the part of the author” but seems unsure as to the gender—which was likely to be a deciding factor on how Mary Barton was received. Henry Fothergill Chorley is among said reviewers, in assuming the author is a “(he?)”. Forster makes the opposite conclusion: “Unquestionably the book is a woman’s.” He claims to have deduced this fact through casual remarks and how the characters of women and children are dealt with. He also makes guesses at Gaskell’s identity by assuming she is “more than ordinarily familiar” with towns like Manchester and the workpeople social class. Forster was open-minded to a female author as she wielded a great power with the sympathies, something a female writer might be better at. While both reviewers, Forster and the unsigned reviewer, seemed preoccupied with determining the identity of the author, they did not allow it to cloud their judgment as they reviewed her novel. And while Forster was keen to assert that the book was not made to be a political novel, it definitely seemed to be an important social matter in determining the gender of the writer who would dare—in the best of ways—to publish a novel which touched so boldly on the current social issues between the middle and working class.

Gaskell, Elizabeth. Mary Barton. Ed Thomas Recchio: A Norton Critical Edition. New York: W. W. Norton, 2008. Print.