Page 174 - DENG402_HISTORY_OF_ENGLISH_LITERATURE

Unit 22: The Nineteenth Century (Reflection of Changes in the English Society Due to Industrial Revolution in the .........

Self Assessment Notes

Fill in the blanks:
1. During the ...................., the social structure of society changed dramatically.
2. This unprecedented .................... and .................... was another social change that occurred
during the Industrial Revolution.
3. Charles Dickens wrote the novel during the early period of the .................... .
4. .................... is set in the middle part of the Victorian era.
5. .................... was written before many of these problems had begun to be resolved and
when there was less call for optimism.

22.4 Origin and Rising of Merchant Class

Margaret represents part of a new generation which has grown up, if not in the presence of the
rising merchant class, then at least with the cognizance that it exists. While her parents lived
through the transition from aristocratic to industrial society and as part of the initial change are
too close to make adjustments, Margaret has been born into the strange blend of the two which is
her view of her time. True, her first-hand experience does not come until she moves to the North,
but at least superficially she has been raised with an understanding of her society. She has been
born into a more concrete world, and is more able to make adjustments to preserve the integrity
of some aspects of her parent’s way of life. She is equipped to handle the insubordination of her
social inferior and able to assert her dominance. Therefore she can preserve the social structure
that her ancestors relied upon, and she is able to realize, with Dixon, the comforts of this order. But
to do so she does not have to sacrifice the foundation of that order itself, as her parents have, in
order to retain an inferior feeling of security which comes from the superficial possession of a
servant. Gaskell’s conclusion is that while there is much turmoil inherent to the process of switching
from one type of society to another, it can and will be done in such a way that both the working
class that serves the aristocracy and the aristocracy will be supplicated. Dixon remains with the
Hales because she knows that her way of life with them is better than the industrial alternative, the
factory. She responds in a positive manner to Margaret’s renewal of discipline because he knows
that only through this control can her position be maintained.
Gaskell uses the imagery of the “threatening storm” to remind the reader of the unease created by
challenges to stability in people’s lives, to indicate that the reaffirmation of the employer-servant
status will involve both struggle and a washing away of some old habits, and to allude to the
dangers which are part of social change. That the storm becomes a part of Margaret’s emotions,
and correspondingly of her very being, is representative of the incorporation of the change
represented by the rise of the merchant class and all of its ramifications for the consciousness of the
generation that is born into this period.
Charles Dickens looks, in the following two passages from The Pickwick Papers, at the same theme
that is taken up twenty years later by Gaskell:
At these words, Mr Job Trotter inserted an end of the pink handkerchief into the corner of each eye,
one after the other, and began to weep copiously.
As the coach rolls swiftly past the fields and orchards which skirt the road, groups of women and
children, piling the fruit in sieves, or gathering the scattered ears of corn, pause for an instant from
their labour, and shading the sun-burnt face with a still browner hand, gaze upon the passengers
with curious eyes, while some stout urchin, too small to work, but too mischievous to be left at
home, scrambles over the side of the basket in which he has been deposited for security, and kicks
and screams with delight. The reaper stops in his work, and stands with folded arms, looking at the
vehicle as it whirls past; and the rough cart horses bestow a sleepy glance upon the smart coach
team, which says, as plainly as a horse’s glance can, ‘It’s all very fine to look at, but slow going,
over a heavy field, is better than warm work like that, upon a dusty road, after all.’
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