“Hem Me Round Everywhere”:Cotton In The Industrial Network In North And South

In North and South,Elizabeth Gaskell,a preeminent Victorian “social-problem novelist”,portrays the plight of workers and social problems as a result of the growing cotton industry.This thesis examines the agency of cotton as a “thing” in the industrial network.It contends that Gaskell consciously adds a new ethical order to her writing of things,foregrounding the middle class’ s responsibilities and obligations in the face of social turbulence,with a view to alleviate the labor unrest at home and promote market expansion abroad.This thesis views cotton as an “actant” and investigates how its “thingness” affects human behavior in an industrial network and forges emotional connections.Cotton was instrumental in constructing social order as a mobile “thing” within the pillar industry in a specific historical period.Chapter one focuses on the cotton city Milton.Cotton significantly changes the urban layout;the densely populated city results in public space encroaching upon personal space and the Byssinoisis shows cotton’s influence penetrating from the outside inward.The heroine’s emotional acceptance of Milton reflects the urgency of middle class intervening in social issues when facing a rapidly industrializing society.The second chapter examines labor relations within cotton factories,where male weavers and Irish weavers were taking away the dominance in the job market from female and native weavers.Cotton is becoming a subject that“optimizes” labor’s economic benefits instead of an object to be processed.Chapter three explores the overseas “trajectory” of cotton.The West Indies and the port of Le Havre,as nodes of cotton cultivation and im/exportation,are linked to Frederick’s tragedy and Thornton’s business crisis.These nodes on the cotton network incorporate the competitive overseas cotton market into the narrative while somehow betray the imperial expansionist intentions.Through interpreting cotton’s “translation” of the industrial network in North and South,this thesis provides insight into Gaskell’s deep concern for the situation of industrial society.The industrialization from a house-made material to a world commodity has made a metonymic understanding possible for cotton,the vehicle that collects power relations in the industrial network to connect the class and the world in the flourishing textile industry.The “representation” and “metamorphosis” of cotton provide an entry point for imagining order,understanding industrial relations,and exposing the logical process within the industrial network.