New Year, New Fallen Woman: Elizabeth Gaskell's Ruth Readalong

The description of Ruth as a child in a woman's body struck me because it is almost exactly the same as Hardy describes Tess: he says she looks like a woman but is really a child.

However, I think Tess had a bit more wordliness about her? I seem to recall her being wary of Alex right from the off?

Oh, that might be it!

I've just gone down a complete rabbit hole, reading about the history of the age of consent.
I knew it had been raised from 13 to 16 at sometime during the Victorian era but thought that was solely for reasons of child protection.

But there was also a desire to control girls. Class prejudice seems to have played a part, with the perception that working class girls were less innocent and more likely to "fall" at a younger age.
There was talk of girls who were under 16 but looked older and could be the seductresses rather than the seduced.

I found this article fascinating - and more recent calls for the age of consent to be lowered as the age of the onset of puberty is becoming lower to be very concerning.

www.historyandpolicy.org/policy-papers/papers/the-legacy-of-1885-girls-and-the-age-of-sexual-consent

@PigPiggywaspushed The other novel with a controlling mother (or mother figure) that springs to mind to me is Emma. Frank is at the beck and call of his aunt, Mrs Churchill.

I enjoyed the filling in of the background in this chapter. Bellingham a spoiled boy who had grown up learning how to manipulate, Ruth with good reason to be totally unstreetwise. In the previous chapter I wondered whether Ruth even had the option of saying no to Bellingham's pursuit of her, given their respective social positions, and it appears that she did but was too naive.

Red flags at every turn!

In this chapter, it says, "She should be 16 in another month".

It shocked me when I read that sentence. I knew that Ruth was young but imagined her as being about 18. I hadn't realised that Bellingham was setting out to seduce a child.
No wonder she's vulnerable to his attentions and it does make the image of a lonely, orphaned girl in the workshop even more poignant.

I feel a little more sympathy towards Mrs Mason after reading this chapter. She's unnecessarily harsh towards her apprentices but finding herself a widow with several children of her own to provide for can't have been easy.

PS I'm loving your summaries @BishyBarnyBee

I read this in the insomniac hours of 3am!

I find Bellingham interesting because he's a cad but he is a bit more complex.

I am tryign to remember which otehr novels of this period have this controlling mother narrative. I am sure one of the readalongs did - probably a Dickens? Hopefully someone knows. I recall horrific visits to a really unsympathetically drawn older lady. Not Tess; Alec's mother is a bit different. But similar.

One thing bishy : isn't Ruth 15?

Reading this straight after Crime & Punishment and really enjoying the contrast - a much easier, though less intellectually stimulating read. I’m already about a third of the way through as it’s such a page turner, but I won’t spoil anything! I read Mary Barton and North & South decades ago but this is the first of GE’s lesser known novels that I’ve tackled.

I’ve always been fascinated by the theme of the ‘fallen woman’ in Victorian art and literature so it’s interesting to compare Ruth to Gaskell’s own Esther in Mary Barton (a minor character there), George Eliot’s Hetty Sorrel in Adam Bede and of course Hardy’s Tess. Interesting that Ruth is a free spirit, a child of nature like Tess and that through her Gaskell insists - like her friends the Brontë - on the Romantic idea of the spiritually healing power of Nature.

I too love all the social commentary, and especially the more complex, socially ambiguous characters like Mrs Mason, who isn’t painted as a complete villain, but has her own personal struggles that explain her hard-headedness. I like the detail showing she can’t afford to know too much about her workers’ private circumstances, because her conscience might then compel her into duty-bound but financially costly action. Gaskell is so good on the social psychology of our moral choices, and on older women.

Yes, that was immediate thought too - is she going to be a Helen Burns? Thankfully not, as it turns out - she’s older and not mawkishly religious for a start. She seems to represent the solidarity and sisterhood between a number of these working class girls, and to act as a surrogate mother to Ruth (maybe just the first in the novel….? Though there’s a parallel in that with Jane Eyre, as Miss Temple at Lowood plays that role too.

Hi - first timer and book lover here!

Hoping to comment on a read along thread for Elizabeth Gaskell’s novel Ruth, which I started when someone shared it on Twitter. And that someone will help if I get stuck or miss the latest update on that. I’m actually about 1/3 of the way through it now.

Thanks!

I'm enjoying it too. Two things struck me

• Bellingham wasn't at all interested in the welfare of the boy beyond saving him. Doesn't bode well for Ruth.
• His comments regarding the house show that he is of the opinion that the poor living conditions are due to a personal failure rather than poverty per se. I was going to say "Victorian opinion" but there are plenty of people who still think this way.

Damn! Posted accidentally and can't edit on my phone.

Meant to say that it would have been difficult just to survive let alone keep the place clean and tidy. She would have been struggling both physically and financially.

That totally makes sense.

At the ball, he initially ignored Ruth. Her function was to mend his partner's ball gown and he didn't look past her function.

He only really noticed her after he caught her smile. He wouldn't have taken any interest in her if she hadn't been young and pretty but she was also of a station which allowed him to take an interest in her.

She's working class but "respectable" w.c. as shown by her trade and her dress.

The old woman belongs to an even lower station and doesn't have anything which he would consider an inducement for him to treat her with respect.

In his privileged position, he would have no concept of how difficult it would be for an old woman in poor health to feed herself and her grandson and keep a roof over their heads in those days before benefits and labour saving devices.

I also hadn’t picked up on some of the nuances. So thank you.

What struck me is the lack of social manners Bellingham displays towards the grandmother. It’s ok for him to say that they live like pigs. But I’m guessing he would say he had much better manners than her. It’s just she’s not worthy of him using them. If that makes sense.

I'm really enjoying Ruth. I think it will be one of my top reads of 2024. Thanks to everyone so far for the interesting comments. The crossover between this book and 'Nicholas Nickleby' is timely. The description of the daily grind of the lives of seamstresses and servants highlights how hard life was for those who didn't live privileged lives. I feel Ruth is very close to becoming destitute and her innocence and naivety makes me feel alarmed for her. A sense of dread is right, cariadlet.

I read chapter 2 this morning and loved it. I've enjoyed reading everyone's comments and have shared many of the same thoughts and feelings.

Already, there's a sense of dread, knowing that Ruth's youth and innocence will lead her to make some disastrous decisions. I want to tell her to LTB!

I hadn't picked up on the symbolism of the flower without a scent so thank you for pointing that out.

The only thing I have to add is that I thought MG was very good at pointing out how people misinterpret the meaning of each other's words because they don't know what the other is thinking.

There were a couple of conversations between Ruth and Henry Bellingham where that happened, largely because HB's privilege means that he has no understanding of the reality of Ruth's life and, on Ruth's part, because of her naivety.

The word ruth also has the same origins as sorrow and rue - and an old meaning of misery/sorrow.

Caught up

i am also finding the comments of other posters very interesting, at this rate of reading i can go back to parts of the chapter once i have read the comments and pick up on more of the nuance. I probably would miss most of these left to my own devices 😀

I've just caught up finally! Thank you @BishyBarnyBee for the fabulous summaries, and everyone else for the thought-provoking comments.

@Piggywaspushed , I also noticed the coincidence of both this read-along and the Nicholas Nickleby read-along featuring the theme of oppressed seamstresses! In Nickleby there are a few comic touches, however (with Mr Mantalini and Miss Knag), but here the tone is much more relentlessly sombre.

I was also thinking of how the two 'fallen women' read-alongs that some of us did last year (Anna Karenina and Madame Bovary), followed by this one, are taking us lower and lower down the social ladder. First we get aristocratic Anna, then bourgeois Emma, and now Ruth the working woman. There are already elements that remind me of Emma Bovary, such as the scene of the grand ball. Both Emma and Ruth marvel at a world they aren't part of. But Emma is quite materially comfortable and just wants more excitement and thrill, whereas Ruth is even more on the margins: it's not just love and romance she lacks, but basic physical essentials like enough food and sleep.

I'm interested in Ruth's biblical name. Ruth in the Old Testament is characterised by her loyalty and her altruistic care for others. And she's also a hard worker. In the Book of Ruth, the heroine is rewarded by getting to marry the owner of the field where she's gleaning wheat, but I don't think our Ruth will be so lucky with Bellingham!

I had almost forgotten how clever and sly the women writers of that period were. I do remember picking up Jane Austen for the first time and being surprised at how much I laughed. I hadn't expected that.

Very much enjoying the book so far and all of your comments. Reading at this pace enables you to look at the language, symbolism etc.. more closely

Clever that EG can enable us to see Bellingham through Ruth's eyes but also for what he really is.

I found Bellingham's lack of understanding of Ruth's life interesting. Not understanding how difficult it would be for her to meet him again and to check up on the boy. Plus asking if she went on walks- as if she would have the time/energy for walking for pleasure!