15
CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED STUDIES
The emphasis on the importance of nurturance, sympathy and interpersonal relationships to alleviate the class conflict in North and South are commonly interpreted as
preserving feminine values rather than subversive toward patriarchy. Nevertheless, recently there are some critics who start to re-
evaluate the novel‘s emphasis on the nurturance from different perspective. The emphasis on feminine values is no longer seen as the celebration of
feminine values whereby women are oppressed by patriarchy. The highlighted feminine values in the novel are seen instead as the subversion toward patriarchal dominance which is
done by challenging patriarchal dualistic thinking on gender identity and separate sphere, and criticizing patriarchal construction of motherhood and the gender biased ethical values of
justice in public sphere, as well as the restriction of ethical values attributed to the feminine qualities like caring, compassion and sympathy in the private sphere.
Literary critic who takes maternal stance as the point of departure and sees that maternal stance as subversive is Patsy Stoneman. In Elizabeth Gaskell 2006, Stoneman sees
that Gaskell‘s concept of motherhood is not necessarily conservative and female. She states that Gaskell‘s motherhood involves, ―maternal imperatives to preserve life and educate the
young as autonomous and social beings require an energy and attentive intelligence which makes it a political force.‖
12
Thus, Gaskell‘s concept of motherhood in her work is no longer characterized with passivity, subservience, selflessness, and conformity, but as activity that
involves what Ruddick calls maternal thinking that requires thoughtful practice, dedication and courage. Deanna L. Davie
s‘ in ―Feminist Critics and Literary Mothers: Daughters Reading Elizabeth Gaskell‖ 1992 also holds similar view to Stoneman that the concept of
12
Stoneman, p.137.
16
motherhood in Gaskell‘s novel is not necessarily conservative. According to her, the concept of motherhood in Gaskell‘s novels is metaphorical concept that can be extended far beyond
the boundaries of mother-child relationship and beyond the private and public.
13
Hence motherhood becomes social rather than biological category. As social category motherhood
can be applied beyond private sphere into public sphere. It is in this aspect that the concept of motherhood in the novel is subversive toward patriarchal notion of motherhood as a restricted
practice in private sphere. Davies realizes that the abstraction of the concept of motherhood as social category
beyond private realm tends to produce utopian account because it neglects the real details of the mothering process. However, Davies argues that
Gaskell‘s metaphorical mothering does not neglect the real details of the mothering process because
Gaskell‘s metaphorical mothering allows the heroine to break down and become infantile for a while in order to
regain their strength.
14
Davie s‘ argument helps the writer to come to the recognition that
Gaskell‘s subversiveness on the patriarchal concept of motherhood is not merely by extending it to social category, but also by deconstructing the concept of self-sacrifice and self-less
embodied in the Victorian concept of motherhood. Besides challenging the traditional patriarchal notion of motherhood, the
subversiveness of the novel can also be seen in the aspect that the novel challenges the patriarchal gender dualism that leads to gender inequality and separation of public sphere as
masculine domain from private sphere as feminine domain. In her analysis on North and South, Stoneman leads the analysi
s to shows how Gaskell‘s depiction of feminine qualities in Margaret and masculine qualities in Thornton are not innate, but socially constructed and how
both of them challenge the ideological lies that polarize the gender identity. This can be seen in the aspect that despite being described
as a ―hard man‖ in the novel, Thornton is not lack of
13
Davies, p.513.
14
Davies, p.528.
17
maternal affection or longing to give comfort. Different from Stoneman, John Kucich in ―Transgression and Sexual Difference in Elizabeth Gaskell‘s Novels‖ 1990 denies that
Gaskell attempts to strengt hen women and soften‖ men as subversion toward patriarchal
hege mony. He states that, ―thematic of sexual liberation…simply reinstates the Victorian cult
of domesticity, in which a compassionate femininity is affirmed as an active principle of social rede
mption and as an improving influence on overly aggressive men.‖
15
He sees that Gaskell attempts to strengthen women and soften‖ men and ―such a program of
amelioration fits quite comfortably with traditional notions about the separation of spheres‖.
16
Kucich states that critics tend to fall into the trap by beginning their criticism with the assumption of sexual change, in their attempts to describe Gaskell as subversive.
17
Kucich also argues that sexual disorder is understood as pathological by Gaskell, rather than
liberation.
18
This research takes different stance from Kucich. Gaskell‘s depiction of her characters with ambivalent and transgressive sexual characteristics, for instance the feminine
Mr. Hale and Higgins or the aggressive Margaret, should not to be seen as a pathology that has to be remedied, but as liberation from the dominance of patriarchal gender ideology and
the impoverishment of humanity due to the prevalent ideology of separate sphere. Depiction of transgressive sexual characteristics in the novel shows that there is no natural correlation
between sexuality and gender identity. Both sex and gender are not something innate but socially constructed. The depiction of transgressive characters might be construed as a
critique that human beings should not be hindered to embrace preferable human traits and be fully human just because of their sexual anatomy and gender roles assigned to them. Here,
patriarchal ideology of gender identity that has been used to create gender inequality and the
15
Kucich, John. Transgression and Sexual Difference in Elizabeth Gaskells Novels. Texas Studies in Literature and Language 32.2 Late Nineteenth-Century English and American Literature Summer, 1990: pp.188-189. JSTOR. Web. 23
Mar. 2015.
16
Kucich, p.189.
17
Kucich, p.189.
18
Kucich, p.196.
18
ideology of separate sphere that has impoverished public sphere from caring values are challenged in the novel. By defying and deconstructing patriarchal ideology of gender and
separate sphere, the subjectivity and agency of Margaret in the public sphere are empowered to promote the application of ethics of care in the public sphere which eventually will be
practiced by Thornton to alleviate the industrial conflict. In this way, the employment of transgressive sexual characteristics in
the novel‘s characters is liberation, not pathology as proposed by Kucich.
The crossing of gender, sphere and class boundaries has been a remarkable feature of the subversiveness of North and South. The crossing of gender, sphere and class boundaries in
the advocacy of social mothering in the novel is prompted by the characters‘ encounter with the death. Death affirms a shared humanity that connects individual despite their gender and
class identity. As argued by Mary Elizabeth Hotz in ―Taught by Death What Life Should Be:
Elizabeth Gaskell‘s Representation of Death in ‗North and South‘‖ 2000 the notion of death is very important in Gaskell‘s novel that the representation of the working class death can be
an opportunity for the masters, ―to fathom the causes of death among the poor, to seek remedies for their cure and to affirm local kinship networks and communities as entities that
negotiate class collaboration.‖
19
Individual contact with death can foster understanding and sympathy of human condition that transcends class hierarchy and provoke action to improve
human life degraded by industrialization. Hotz claims that it is through constant confronting with working-class
‘ death that the masters can pursue their interest through collaboration rather than conflict with the working class.
20
In the analysis of the novel Hotz shows that it is through the exposure to the her dying working class friend Bessy that provides the
opportunity for Margaret to realize the harshness of working world of Milton and sympathize with the working class. The contact with the death encourages Margaret to cross the
19
Hotz, Mary Elizabeth. Taught By Death What Life Should Be: Elizabeth Gaskell’s Representation of Death in ―North and
South‖. Studies in the Novel 32.2, Death in the Novel Summer, 2000, p. 168. JSTOR. Web. March, 23, 2015.
20
Hotz, p. 169.
19
boundaries of private sphere into public sphere and empowers her to advocate social reform and alleviate industrial
conflict. As shown by Hotz, it is through Margaret‘s encounter with the dying Bessy that Margaret is impelled to intervene in the strike. Hotz argues that in this
strike scene it can be seen how ―Gaskell restructures womens identity by depicting Margarets intense sympathy for the workers and her use of bodily power to enter the public arena and
contribute to new definitions of class relations.‖
21
In the strike scene Margaret positions herself between the laborers and Thornton. Rejecting being confined by Victorian ideology of
women placement in the home, Margaret exerts her power to mediate the conflict between the master and the workers. Margaret argues against the use of violence, but she fails to appease
the mob . She eventually protects Thornton from the laborers‘ attack with her own body. It is
only through becoming an assaulted woman that she can break up the riot. In Hotz‘s opinion it
is clear that through this riot scene, the notion of women‘s works involve using ones own
body as a political action to enter the public and political arena.
22
Hotz‘s argument helps the writer to realize the importance of the notion of human corporeality in Gaskell‘s novel. As
mentioned before, Margaret starts to perform social mothering when she encounters the death of the working class. Moreover, it is with her body that she breaks up the riot. The emphasis
on the death and violation of Margaret‘s body can be understood as the novel proposal that
humans can only be an ethical subject when they acknowledge their corporeal vulnerability and permeability. It is due to humans‘ corporeal vulnerability that humans need the
nurturance from each other. It is due to humans‘ permeability that they can identify others‘
vulnerability. It is through the encounter with humans‘ corporeal vulnerability that humans‘
ethical caring responsibility can be aroused. Here, it is posited in the novel that the acknowledgement on the permeable and vulnerable corporeal subjectivity is needed to nurture
relationality, interdependence and sympathetic caring relations between individuals. In other
21
Hotz, p. 177.
22
Hotz, p. 178.
20
words, corporeality becomes the basic paradigm for cultivating social mothering and ethics of care
in Gaskell‘s North and South. Politicization of caring values as public ethics through the advocacy of social
mothering in the novel does not only suggest revalorization of human corporeality that has been denigrated in patriarchal ideology, but also a radical challenge to patriarchal dualistic
thinking that underlies the ideology of separate sphere, such as the binary of publicprivate and politicalpersonal. To challenge this dichotomy, the romance and social industrial
problem are featured in parallel. The romantic elements, such as marriage between Margaret and Thornton as the ending of the novel, are seen as evading the social problem question of
social class-struggle and offering personal solutions to class conflicts. Marxist critic Raymond Williams appreciates Gaskell
‘s industrial novel as ―the most vivid descriptions of life in an unsettled industrial society‖
23
, but he criticizes the dominance of the romantic elements in the closure of the novel as the diversion from what Gaskell has set out to examine.
24
The mixing of the genre is seen as artistic failure. John Lucas considers the love story as one of
extraneous factors.
25
Here, the marriage is considered by them as the worst romantic diversion from industrial theme. Many feminist critics also disapprove the ending of the novel. For
them the union into marriage refers to Margaret‘s surrender under the domination of patriarchal marriage. Pearl L. Brown in
―From Elizabeth Gaskell‘s Mary Barton to Her North and South: Progress or Decline for Women?
‖ 2000 holds a similar view that the marriage plot in the novel affirm
s Margaret‘s dependency on men. Brown argues that the novel shows the flaw of domestic ideology and the difficulties for the women to exercise any moral
influence when their domestic sphere is so isolated from the public sphere of the men.
26
Instead of depicting the cooperation between classes and gender or the interaction between
23
Williams, Raymond. Culture and Society 1780-1950. New York: Anchor Books, 1960, p. 94.
24
Williams, p. 98-99.
25
Stoneman, p. 45.
26
Brown, Pearl L. From Elizabeth Gaskell’s Mary Barton to Her North and South: Progress or Decline for Women?.
Victorian Literature and Culture, 28.2 2000: p. 351. JSTOR. March 23, 2015.
21
public and private sphere, Brown claims that the novel depicts how each character is isolated due to industrialization and the absence of genuine solidarity within class.
27
Besides that Brown also notices how the private sphere is becoming more isolated and women become
more dependent on men. In Brown‘s opinion Margaret‘s legacy from Mr. Bell and her
marriage to Thornton in the novel affirm Margaret‘s dependency to male.
28
Different from Brown, this research proposes different argument that the marriage
does not affirm Margaret‘s dependency on Thornton, because the marriage takes place only after Margaret has some
power over Thornton which is grounded in the economic alliance. This economic alliance is established when Margaret offers a loan to save Thornton from bankruptcy. The economic
alliance which is transformed into matrimonial alliance turns Margaret into Thornton‘s
powerful partner and gives her power to transform industrial relations. The marriage must be seen as the metaphor for the reconciliation between gender and class based on ethics of care.
Dorice Williams Elliott in ―The Female Visitor and the Marriage of Classes in Gaskell‘s
North and South‖ 1994 holds similar view that the marriage becomes a metaphor for newly constructed social sphere that links the separation of public and private sphere which is
grounded in mutual understanding, caring, affection and cooperation.
29
In relation with the concept of social mothering, marriage can be seen as a rite to establish long-term commitment
to practice social mothering and ethics of care to overcome gender and class division. In North and South, neither the metaphor of marriage between Margaret and Thornton or Master
and Workers is characterized as complete victory on the one side or as complete submission on the other. Hence, the symbolic marriage establishes common ground where gender and
class difference can be managed openly, tolerantly and democratically. This research shares Elliott
‘s view which sees that though the marriage solution does not totally eliminate the class
27
Brown, p. 353.
28
Brown, p. 349.
29
Elliott, Dorice Williams.The Female Visitor and the Marriage of Classes in Gaskells North and South. Nineteenth-Century Literature 49.1 June, 1994: p.49. JSTOR. Web. 23 Mar. 2015, p.49.
22
conflicts, it is for sure that the class conflicts will become more respectable as it is managed within ethical and sympathetic interpersonal caring relationship.
Offering marriage as the closure of the novel might be interpreted as a refusal to give any definite solution to the social problem addressed in the novel because it is depicted in the
end of the story that the marriage does not eliminate industrial conflict. Here, the dynamic dialogue between genders and classes continue without being intervened by the imposed
resolutions from the authoritative authorial voice. Rosemarie Bodenheimer in ―North and
South: A Permanent State of Change ‖ 1979 defends this irresolute ending not as the
weakness of the novel but as the strength of the novel because for Bodenheimer North and South is a novel about irrevocable change.
30
In Bodenheimer‘s opinion North and South is not really organized as a system of contrast, nor is it exactly a social-problem novel with a clear
vision of industrial issue and cry for solution.
31
North and South is constantly questioning the dynamics of authority-dependence and depicting the centrality of change in human
experience. Bodenheimer also shows how the consistency and openness of the narrator to depict the change without judgment and falling into authoritative or didactic role.
32
Bodenheimer‘s criticism gives new light in seeing Gaskell‘s textual strategy in North and South
. Writer comes to recognition that Gaskell‘s textual strategy in North and South embodies the characteristics of female writing that denies any authoritative voice, rigid
polarization and conclusive closure, which are generally found in phallic writing. The novel‘s
subversiveness can also be analyzed in the level of textual strategy which can be seen as her challenge toward male
literary tradition. As proposed by Bodenheimer that Gaskell‘s North and South is not organized as a system of contrast, but a state of permanent change, this
research assumes that the novel must be grounded in dialogical interaction rather than
30
Bodenheimer, Rosemarie. North and South: A Permanent State of Change. Nineteenth-Century Fiction 34.3 Dec., 1979: p. 282. JSTOR. Web. 23 Mar. 2015.
31
Bodenheimer, p. 281.
32
Bodenheimer, p. 285.
23
dialectical interaction. Therefore, it will be fruitful to analyze the story within the frame of Bakhtinian approach.
The application of Bakhtinian approach to Gaskell‘s North and South has been done by Cates Baldridge in The Dialogics in Dissent in the English Novel 1994 in which he
focuses on the double- voicing of Gaskell‘s Mary Barton and North and South. Baldridge
applies Bakhtinian approach to see how Gaskell uses dialogism to destabilize the hegemonic of capitalist discourse. In other words, Baldridge approaches the work only from one axes of
class-economic issue without paying adequate attention to gender issue. Different from Baldridge‘s approach, this research attempts to explore the subversiveness of novel‘s
dialogism to destabilize patriarchal and capitalist discourse. From the related studies that have been reviewed above, it can be seen that the studies
approach the novel only from one axis, whether it is from gender or class perspective only. The unified analysis of gender and class issue with dialogical approach in the North and South
so far has not been done yet. Accordingly, the originality of this research is located in the unified analysis of gender and class issue in the novel and the analysis on the dialogic
structure used by the author to challenge the patriarchal and capitalist discourse on gender identity, separation of sphere, motherhood and prevalence of rights-based ethics of justice in
public sphere. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
24
CHAPTER III REVIEW OF RELATED THEORIES