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

[BishyBarnyBee]

Following the very successful Madame Bovary readalong, we have decided to explore another woman who refused to be bound by contemporary mores.
So shocking at the time, two of Gaskell's friends burnt their copies.

"Elizabeth Gaskell's Ruth (1853) was the first mainstream novel to make a fallen woman its eponymous heroine. It is a remarkable story of love, of the sanctuary and tyranny of the family, and of the consequences of lies and deception, one that lays bare Victorian hypocrisy and sexual double-standards. Shocking to contemporary readers, its radical utopian vision of a pure woman faithfully presented predates Hardy's Tess by nearly forty years."

We will aim for two chapters a week - a weekend chapter and a mid week chapter. If I have time, I'll try and do a ChatGPT chapter summary, but anyone else is welcome to jump in if I haven't got there first.

We start 1st Jan, so if you are up for a bit of Victorian passion, guilt, regret and redemption, sign up here!

To me, this feels like a 'quiet book'. Tess is much more knowingly dramatic?

Is it because it's reverting to the first name you used in this thread @AgualusasLover ? I know it does that automatically now. Generally I must say I find very it helpful if I've name changed for a thread, it stops me accidentally later posting under my regular name.
Separately I agree, Ruth is so lonely that any speck of affection is enough. And of course, she went off with Bellingham after having been turned off by Mrs mason.

I've been!
I went to a wedding in North Wales a few years ago, we made a weekend of it and I told my dp that it was the one place that I wanted to visit.

I love the legend although love is the wrong word because it's so tragic.

I've had a busy week so had read chapter 4 but not had time to post anything and then read chapters 5, 6 and 7 today (reading a chapter then popping in here to read the summary and comments before going back to read the next chapter).

I'd missed the intrusive I in chapter 4 but after having it pointed out, I couldn't help seeing it in chapter 5. I enjoyed the discussion about the device.

The contrast between the superficiality of Bellingham and the deeper character of Ruth is shown again. We saw it when they visited her old home and she saw the kind old man who had sat her on his knee when she was a child but Bellingham saw a rough labourer.
This time, Ruth judges Benson by his intelligence and his character while Bellingham judges him by his physical appearance and lack of social status.

I hope we see more of Benson and that he turns out to be a good friend to Ruth. She desperately needs one.

Incidentally, I was interested in the mention of the name foxglove deriving from folk's glove and possibly having a link to superstitions about fairy folk.

I felt desperately sorry for Ruth with the slights and cruel comments that she's received over the last few chapters. And the poor girl just accepts them and thinks that she must deserve them. She's younger than my own dd and does make me feel very protective towards her.

PS waving to @ShabanahFazal We were chatting on zoom this evening so I'm outing myself in here so you know who I am in RL.

@cariadlet well done finding your way back! I've found it really hard on previous readalongs because once you lose the rhythm of it, it's a challenge to get properly back into it.

Several times I have ended up just lurking because I felt bad about dropping away, though I have always enjoyed the threads and finished the books.

Any one else who's fallen behind or is lurking, feel free to just read the chapter summaries and rejoin or chip in at any point - perfect attendance is not a requirement!

Yes, @cariadlet - I want more Benson and more Old Thomas. Though I know nothing of the story, so am unsure we'll get either!

I think I know what you mean about Ruth seeming flat, She started as the only apprentice with a bit of life and resistance left in her, and B was attracted by her spirited reaction to being patronised by Miss Duncombe.

Then her desire for diversion from the drudgery of the sewing room, and her need for affection and company after the death of her parents and the departure of Jenny, leave her very vulnerable to Mr B's attentions.

We don't get any sense of her yearning for love/romance/sex in the way Madame Bovary does, and she is very clearly shown as falling into sin rather than choosing sin. She has been brought up to be a good girl and her need to please/obey Mr D fights her need to be pure and protect her reputation. And we see with her inability to push past the innkeeper that she is completely unable to find agency in the face of her elders/betters.

I think Gaskell is keen to make the quite heavy handed point that Ruth is an innocent and B is totally responsible for her fall - so Ruth comes across as just a bit wet by modern standards!

Ruth is a less complex character than Anna K or Emma B. I found these two very intriguing. I feel intensely sorry for Ruth as a victim of circumstances (Mr. B!) and being so young and coming from a sheltered background doesn't help at all. I really like the last paragraph in your post, Bishy.

I have a confession. I've read the book. I think I got used to reading a chapter a day from the other read alongs. I feel I needed to read more to get a sense of the book. It's a quiet book in a way, as Piggy said. I'll say no more. I feel I've spoiled things for myself but I'll read along and comment carefully. I have been enjoying everyone's observations very much.

@FuzzyCaoraDhubh That might partly be my issue too. I have fallen off all the Dickens readalongs but I did manage A Woman in White, but I think that is because I saved all the chapter and read them once a month. I'm going to read both chapters together and see whether that helps. I'll be here until the end irrespective.

Yes @StColumbofNavron What I do with Dickens is read the installment before the end of the month so that I have a run of a few chapters and that seems to work. The Woman in White was a reread for me so it was different.

I think Ruth is more a victim of circumstances than Anna K or Emma B because of the specific incident of Mrs Mason happening to spot Ruth and Mr B together on their walk, leading her to throw Ruth out and into Mr B's arms. If that hadn't happened, who knows the direction things would have taken? Probably Mr B would have got bored of Ruth after a while (without anything untoward happening between them). This comes on top of the earlier coincidence of them bumping into each other when the little boy nearly drowned, so soon after their first meeting at the dance. To me, this is a weakness of the book, because it seems that Ruth's downfall relies too much on random chance events, rather than a natural progression based on the personalities and situations of the characters.

Having said that, I'm really enjoying the book! The above criticism hasn't spoilt it for me.

Interesting post, @StColumbofNavron / @AgualusasLover ! And great responses too.

I agree, there is very little sexual chemistry in this novel so far. Bellingham is a very unsatisfactory hero, despite his grand moment of pulling the child out of the lake! In some ways he doesn't even seem particularly attracted to Ruth; he's so often petulant and impatient with her. And Ruth is too innocent to acknowledge any sexual feelings. I keep wondering how and when the actual sex is going to take place - yes, Ruth loves Bellingham, but sex doesn't even seem to be on her radar. ???

I suspect it was far easier for a male writer of the period to depict a female character with active sexual desires than it was for a woman writer. The topic was presumably still quite taboo for a female author to write about. The Bronte sisters seem more daring to me than Gaskell when it comes to acknowledging female sexual desire, but maybe they are an exception?

(These thoughts are partly brought to you by my experience of reading pre-modern women writers, who often bend over backward to insist that their stories and poems are chaste. Even if they're writing love literature, they tend to insist that their aim is to deter women from falling into the trap of love! Religion and love for God are safer topics. There are a few exceptions, like the French Renaissance poet Louise Labé, but in her own lifetime she was denigrated as a slut and a whore.)

I can see many feminist aspects to Gaskell's novel so far, but I wonder if she's going to join the ranks of early women writers who are ambivalent about female sexual desire.

Those thoughts about the role played by chance in Ruth's downfall are also very perceptive, @Tarahumara !

I agree that this isn't one of Gaskell's best novels, probably why it's less known. But I feel like she's doing a good job of making her political point, that girls like Ruth 'fall' largely not because of sexual desire, but because they have so little in their lives.

Yes, point taken. Maybe I'm being restrictive, wanting Gaskell to look at extramarital sex through the lens of female desire, when in fact she wants to make a point about social conditions and female vulnerability.

Great points @cassandre . I assume she is now his mistress and the sex is going on but I doubt we’ll be party to any outright referral to it.

I’m not fighting the name issue 😃

Oh gosh @StColumbofNavron I think you're right, they're already sleeping together and I missed it! I feel a bit daft/naive now 😂I guess I was waiting for Gaskell to spell it out to me in words of one syllable.

But honestly Ruth seems so pure, I couldn't get my head round the idea that he had seduced her already.

Looking back, I guess the end of Ch 4 is the decisive moment, when they go off to London together. That makes Mrs Mason's rejection of Ruth all the more awful. And the fact that Ruth almost decides not to go with Bellingham but is deterred by sight of the landlord in the doorway and the cup of tea that hasn't yet been paid for.

I'm kind of revising my idea of the last couple of chapters now!

The idea of them sleeping together crept up on me too as a slow realisation, I must admit.

We are no longer in France, chère cassandre :)* *

Ah Fuzzy, ce n'est que trop vrai! 😂

He would have abandoned Ruth long ago if she had refused to sleep with him.

I think she sees herself as fallen which, added to her natural diffidence, makes her accepting of the harsh judgement of others.

That makes sense, cariadlet.

Coming after reading War and Peace and Madame Bovary, and given how shocking this was when it was written, I was expecting Ruth to be more sexual/sensual as well. She clearly really loves him but has just gone along with what he wants and perhaps not even really understood that this is the thing that people are scandalised about - if you don't know the facts of life, and can be sacked for being seen holding hands with a man, your understanding of what is happening to you could be very limited. Again, it's like modern grooming when quite young children just go along with their abusers and feel they are at fault, not the abuser.

There is some interesting context in the Penguin introduction. In 1850, Gaskell wrote to Dickens about a young girl she wished to help emigrate. She had been seduced by a surgeon and forced into a life of crime. While she was ill in prison, the prison doctor attended her, but "He proved to be her seducer, the girl fainted. and the surgeon was overwhelmed by her situation."

So this was very much a campaigning novel about the abuse of poor, innocent women by rich powerful men who got away scot free, and precisely because of that, Ruth is not allowed to have a shred of sexuality or even agency,

Which is on the one hand a little disappointing because I think we might have been hoping for a passionate heroine, but on the other hand - yeah for the campaigning Mrs Gaskell putting a sexist and classist society firmly to rights!

Chapter 8
In which B is shown to be weak in body and weak in character, Ruth is abandoned, and only Benson's vulnerability can cut through her despair and make her accept his help.

B is peevish and querulous in recovery, half-heartedly defending Ruth but allowing his mother to find a "handsome" solution. Ruth chases their departing carriage over wave after wave of ever-rising hills, but finally accepts he is gone. Exhausted, she throws herself on the ling (heather) wishing to die, but in a kind of meditative state, remembers the letter and decides to return in case there is a message from him.

Many families are out in the pleasant summer evening and she hides in a pasture field to let them saunter past, but is discovered by a gang of children who pester her with the only English they know: "Gi' me a halfpenny".

Benson investigates the rumpus and his compassionate gaze makes her sob that "He has left me!". She cries herself to exhaustion, then suddenly leaps up and runs. He tries to follow but trips, and her innate goodness calls her back, realising he needs help. He leans on her as he returns to his lodgings, and she enters the safety of the room behind the shop, looking as if the shadow of death is upon her.

Re-reading my first post on the thread, I wrote that "we have decided to explore another woman who refused to be bound by contemporary mores."

Well, I got that wrong, didn't I?. Although perhaps it was her relative high spirits and refusal to be bound by the first level of contemporary mores (thou shalt not talk to a man) that got her into trouble in the first place, this is not the tale of a passionate rebel against Victorian sexual prudery. Bless her...

It's interesting - I was really surprised at the extent to which it was made clear that Anna's affair (& Emma's too to some extent) would have been acceptable if carried out discreetly. I'd been expecting something much more like Ruth, perhaps because I knew how this book had been received at the time. I don't know if the difference was down to different attitudes in English society, or because it's written by a woman?