Brief Headnote to Mary Barton: See NA, p 320
Reading Tips: Write out brief chapter summaries for each chapter, perhaps in the novel on each chapter front page. Also, make a character list: note pages when each character is introduced and those pages that reveal key characterization details.
As you read, be sure to consult the endnotes at the back of the novel. Read the critical introduction after you finish the novel. Don't forget the background information to the Victorian Age in the NA.
For the following questions, have notes and mark key chapters, key passages,
and key quotations. Of course, you will have your observations and
interpretations too.
1.) What is the function of the Elizabeth Gaskell's Preface? How does
she connect to readers? How does she forecast how readers should read
the novel? What issues or points does she highlight that readers
should pay attention to? Note that the Preface was written after the novel
was finished - in Penguin, see footnote #1, A Note on the Novel,
pp. xxxi-xxxiii, and the critical introduction, pp. xvi-xviii.
2.) Consider the two main tracks of the novel: 1.) Working and living
conditions of the mill workers (poverty and death) as well as the relationship between masters
and workers (Chartism and trade unions) and 2.) Mary Barton's love for Jem Wilson and his trial
for the murder of Harry Carson, who is really murdered by John Barton.
How does the novel treat each of these plot/character/theme tracks?
How are these tracks connected and related?
3.) Assess the characters in the novel. How might you group them? The Bartons and Wilsons | Job Legh and Margaret - Will | The Carsons || Other characters?
4. ) Mary Barton is in part a mystery/detective story. How does this genre
blend with the novel's two main thrusts (see question 2 above).
5.) How are we supposed to think about John Barton's murder of Harry Carson
and his subsequent repentenace? Are we led to feel empathy and
sympathy for him? Or do we feel he gets what he deserves? And what do you as a
reader think of John Barton? Are Mary and Jem right to protect him and
not turn him over to the law? Does he deserve Mr. Carson forgiveness?
See chapter 37 and the critical introduction.
6.) In addition to poverty and death, what other key issues are presented in
the novel? What about the law and legal system (Jem's trial), disability
(Margaret's blindness), prostitution (Esther), enviromentalism (rural vs
city/Manchester mills), and empire (Liverpool - trade)?
7.) How should readers think about the narrator, who comments directly to
them/us in
the narrative? For example, consider pages 26, 57-60, 84-86, chapter
15, page 379. See the critical introduction.
8.) What should readers make of the conclusion: Mary and Will's marriage and
life in Canada and the death of Esther? Is this a happy, conventional
ending? Does it leave room for hope and optimism? Is it too
convenient, predictable? Does it leave unanswered questions about the labor
issues of the 1840s?
9.) What is the function of the chapter epigraphs and the songs within the text?