“The Condition Of England” In Elizabeth Gaskell’s Works

Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell(1810-1865)is a notable Victorian novelist,philanthropist and biographer.Most of her novels and short stories deal with her contemporary problems of the working-class,termed by Thomas Carlyle as “the condition of England”.The present thesis scrutinizes “the condition of England” in Elizabeth Gaskell’s works,and evaluates her solutions to these problems.This thesis is divided into five chapters.Chapter One is a brief introduction to Elizabeth Gaskell’s life and writings,followed by a literature review home and abroad.Chapter Two explores the origin and meaning of the term “the condition of England” and then focuses on the condition of the working class in Manchester,which Elizabeth Gaskell witnessed as an observant writer.Chapter Three explores how Elizabeth Gaskell utilizes her writing,especially periodical short stories,to expose the social problems of her time.Elizabeth Gaskell’s works reveal her criticism of “the condition of England” and her sympathy for the working-class.Based on her works,Chapter Three analyzes the experience of mobility and dislocation in North and South,physical diseases in North and South and Ruth as well as psychotics and the mentally challenged in “The Well of Pen-Morfa” and “Half a Life-Time Ago”,fallen women in “Lizzie Leigh”,“The Old Nurse’s Story” and Ruth and children issues in My Lady Ludlow,A Dark Night’s Work and The Moorland Cottage.Chapter Four evaluates Elizabeth Gaskell’s two major solutions to “the condition of England”,that is,education and working.Elizabeth Gaskell advocates the redemptive power of education and working.Chapter Five summarizes the description of the “the condition of England” in Elizabeth Gaskell’s works and points out the limitation of her idealized solution to the social problems of Victorian Age.