The article highlights the critical disclaims of Elizabeth Gaskell’s ‘Mary Barton’ and its ‘irrelevant’ subplots, subplots Stoneman expresses present the maternal relationship between a child and father, the latter of whom emits a feminine tenderness consequent of the harsh middle class environment.
Mary Barton determines morale in correspondence with class, reflecting upon the invasion of the industrial revolution within rural surroundings. Stoneman explores how these events affect the working class whom have adopted predominantly female roles, such as infant care, and their middle class counterparts whose privilege and fortune allows them to maintain a ‘masculine morality’[1]. The idea that morals are determined by social position suggests …show more content…
Willey argues that while Tennyson is influenced by science, it is in the conduct of a modern poet, not an aspiring philosopher who recognises that ‘faith is not a matter of rational demonstration; if it were so it would cease to be faith’.[5] Religious doubt as a result of scientific discovery is a common theme among Victorian novels and the article can easily be applied to other works of fiction such as Mary Shelley’ ‘Frankenstein’. In comparison to Tennyson, Shelly’s views on religion were unclear, both her father, William Godwin, and husband, Percy Shelley, were atheist, the later having been expelled from college for his pamphlet ‘The Necessity of Atheism’, yet Shelley’s inspiration for the novel, presented in the authors introduction to the 1831 edition of Frankenstein, displays a doubt of faith. ‘I saw—with shut eyes, but acute mental vision—I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life and stir with an uneasy, half-vital motion. Frightful must it be, for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavour to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world.’[6] A ‘powerful engine’ implies scientific advancement, which itself is terrifying, but the thought that science will develop to the point of creating artificial life is ‘supremely frightful’ and no doubt devastating on those who believe God as the only ‘Creator of the
Mary Barton determines morale in correspondence with class, reflecting upon the invasion of the industrial revolution within rural surroundings. Stoneman explores how these events affect the working class whom have adopted predominantly female roles, such as infant care, and their middle class counterparts whose privilege and fortune allows them to maintain a ‘masculine morality’[1]. The idea that morals are determined by social position suggests …show more content…
Willey argues that while Tennyson is influenced by science, it is in the conduct of a modern poet, not an aspiring philosopher who recognises that ‘faith is not a matter of rational demonstration; if it were so it would cease to be faith’.[5] Religious doubt as a result of scientific discovery is a common theme among Victorian novels and the article can easily be applied to other works of fiction such as Mary Shelley’ ‘Frankenstein’. In comparison to Tennyson, Shelly’s views on religion were unclear, both her father, William Godwin, and husband, Percy Shelley, were atheist, the later having been expelled from college for his pamphlet ‘The Necessity of Atheism’, yet Shelley’s inspiration for the novel, presented in the authors introduction to the 1831 edition of Frankenstein, displays a doubt of faith. ‘I saw—with shut eyes, but acute mental vision—I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life and stir with an uneasy, half-vital motion. Frightful must it be, for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavour to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world.’[6] A ‘powerful engine’ implies scientific advancement, which itself is terrifying, but the thought that science will develop to the point of creating artificial life is ‘supremely frightful’ and no doubt devastating on those who believe God as the only ‘Creator of the