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!

Of course there's also a class element. I guess from society's perspective, since they could never marry, the only thing a man like Bellingham would want from a girl like Ruth is sex. And so if she gives that to him, the expectation is that it would be in return for money in some way.

Bellingham really is a total waste of space isn’t he?! Not only just ditching Ruth when he knows she has nowhere to go, but then not even doing it himself and just leaving it to his mother! Poor Ruth.

Bellingham is an extremely shallow man.
He really doesn't care about Ruth and can only think of her as an annoyance. They are an odious pair, B. and his mother, but thankfully there is Thurston Benson; a guardian angel if there ever was one.

Is it also that the other 2 ladies we read about were married? Marriage provided a shield of respectability and protected against having illegitimate children?

That is a good point @JamesGiantPledge1. Extra marital affairs were acceptable but sex before marriage was not.

Which is interesting as we now feel the other way. A fast about turn in our morality assessment.

I guess the difference is that now you can (and should) get a divorce if you want to have an affair, whereas then it was much more difficult.

Oh Ruth! What will you do now? Cast aside by a man who has had his fun and now wishes he'd never met you.

I think we can see how Mr B came about: no doubt Mummy's Money has bought him out of plenty of trouble before now. Telling him not to blame himself, she feels sure the nasty woman is mostly to blame for leading him astray. And that note! 'Reminding' Ruth that she would bear her guilt and the guilt of any future man she should trap, like she trapped Mr B.

Hurrah Mr Benson is back! Hopefully he can help her get back on her feet again.

I don't think they were exactly acceptable though? There used to be a perception in the late 20th C that the French tolerated affairs to the point they were completely normal. Maybe a total myth, but a kind of sophisticated alternative morality where you remained in a happy marriage but both partners had affairs. There's a kind of equality and fairness in that.

I don't think that's what was happening in the 19th C though. The woman would always be judged more harshly and have more to lose.

The difference is, if you aren't married, and marriage is your only hope of a guaranteed income, you are literally ruined if you have sex, because no man will marry you. So the stakes are so much higher.

I think chapter 8 shows us more about the relationship between B and his mother. It really is an unhealthy relationship between the two of them. She pits herself against Ruth in her son's mind, asking if he thinks it desirable that his mother should be under the same roof as the 'degraded girl'. She tenaciously nags at him but seems to know how far she can push before he might stand up to her. (We are told that B will rally against his mother's authority only when he was 'roused into passion').She does not care one iota for Ruth. She seeks only to save her golden boy from the situation he has found himself in. It is like she cannot accept that he had had any choice in the affair because if she were to accept that he was responsible for seducing Ruth then he would not be the golden boy anymore.

He seems to be a man-child. Sometimes he appears to be quite responsible and accepts that Ruth was an innocent and that there is nothing in Ruth's character that should be criticised. He defends Ruth against his mother's accusations regarding her character but then he also finds it tiresome that his mother is nagging at him, and so he wishes the whole sorry affair to be over. It is like he is a divided self.

I really liked Gaskell's observation that B associates his feelings of annoyance and anger with Ruth herself, as if it is Ruth that is causing him to feel these emotions. What's clever is that Gaskell makes this point immediately after telling us that B had been mulling over various plans, suggesting that B might have been considering doing right by Ruth in some way; that is, until his mother had come on the scene.

You're right of course @BishyBarnyBee , acceptable was the wrong word to use. People might turn a blind eye, but you would no longer be welcome in certain company.

@Tarahumara yes, it's just more Victorian hypocrisy, isn't it? Basically, if you had wealth and power you could do as you wished - as Mrs G makes very clear by showing us how the Bellinghams use their money to get away with apalling behaviour and are considered moral, whereas Ruth, deeply moral and with no money, has no choice but to go along with her own ruin.

And of course, abuse of wealth and power did not die out with the Victorians!

Chapter 9
In which Benson fights for Ruth's soul and she obeys him for her mother's sake. Benson and his gentle Welsh landlady provide a place of safety, but it seems Ruth's distress may prove fatal.

While the bustling, gentle Mrs Hughes takes care of Benson, Ruth stares out at the violent storm rushing on in the direction taken by the Bs. The storm and her state of mind entwine - the moon shines with hope, there is a brief silver lining, then utter blackness. Benson sees that she is thinking of running again and begs her in God's name to stay. But in her despair, she feels she has forfeited her connection with God. A small inner voice inspires Benson to call upon Ruth's mother's name. She cannot defy this, but her spirit crumples as she gives up all hope and becomes utterly still and subdued.

Ruth allows Mrs H to put her to bed and Benson passes a troubled night tormented by his desire to help her. In the morning Mrs H finds her lying as if dead, pulse weak and limbs heavy. Benson goes for the doctor and Mrs H does what she can to make Ruth comfortable. We see they are truly loving and virtuous people who are glad of the opportunity to help an unfortunate stranger.

So not all moral Victorians are like the Bs!
The example of kindness and compassion is attractive-. This and showing Ruth as so young and so distressed is Mrs G making us feel on the side of the fallen!

I did not envisage a sexual relationship between Ruth and Mr B either but looking back they obviously have. Very pleased that Mr Benson has come across her path again as can’t imagine what would have happened to her. Mr B really did get her poor thing. She is just so utterly broken by the deeds of this man. I bet he has ran to his mother time and time again to get him out of his scrapes.

Have any of you seen this version of Tess? I might go when it's at the Lowry in Manchester, but there is also a livestreaming on Friday 16th Feb, bookable through the Lowry.

It sounds a bit off the wall but very interesting:

Classic literature and circus collide in Tess; a groundbreaking adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s classic novel Tess of the D’Urbervilles.
Against a backdrop of projections, the cast wield wooden planks, climb shifting walls and move through ropes and swathes of linen to evoke the vast landscapes and interior worlds of Hardy’s Wessex.
Female relationships, sexual desire, consent, privilege and poverty; themes which resonate now as much as ever. See Tess as Hardy intended; strong, heroic and powerful.

Tess - Ockham's Razor | What's on | The Lowry

Sounds interesting!

Chapter 10
In which Mr Benson appeals to Mrs Bellingham's good nature, but she feels her Christian Duty is more than fulfilled with a 50/- note and directions to the Penitentiary.

We see that Mr Benson's good character is respected even by the pragmatic and materialistic Mrs Mason, though he has rarely spent a shilling in her inn. He takes her advice and sends an appeal to Mrs Bellingham to send her maid to help the barely conscious Ruth, or to tell Ruth's friends to come and care for her.

Mrs B confirms that her maid, stiff with virtue, would not dream of caring for this creature. She learns that Mr B is unaware that Ruth was given £50 to leave Bellingham alone. The maid explains that Ruth's only "friend" - the dressmaker Mrs Mason - has washed her hands of Ruth, and we hear that gossip has described Ruth as a forward creature who boasted of her own beauty, strived to get her good looks seen and admired, and ensnared B at the County Ball.

Mrs B reaffirms that the only possible course for the friendless Ruth is to take the £50 and procure admission to the Fordham Penitentiary, where she may be led to an honest life. She urges the maid to say nothing to B, who must remain unaware of this potential annoyance.

A short chapter but another brutal one! The spirituality of Benson at the start contrasts with the ruthless (see what I did there!) self interest of Mrs B. We are reminded again of how harshly the world judges Ruth, and how others are using her to assert their own moral high ground. Again, we see a mother ignoring her son's character defects and channeling their discomfort into blaming another woman. Looking very bleak for Ruth at the moment.

I tried to find out more about penitentiaries and came across this which I found fascinating, especially as I know Dickenson Road well.

Fallen Women; St Mary's Home | Rusholme & Victoria Park Archive (rusholmearchive.org)

The author suggests that the unsmiling women may offer confirmation that this is likely to be the penitentiary, and includes this quote from a 1996 historian, Susan Munn:

“In Victorian Britain, a female penitentiary was not a penal institution for the punishment of crime, but a charitable enterprise entered voluntarily by members of an outcast group, popularly known as 'fallen women.' Many fallen women were prostitutes, but the category also encompassed groups other than sexual deviants: female thieves, tramps, alcoholics, and those who were described as feeble-minded were also considered fallen, and it was seen as appropriate to rehabilitate them alongside streetwalkers. Penitentiaries were intended as transformative institutions, where female outcasts of many kinds could be changed into 'honest' women, a conversion which incorporated both a spiritual change from sinner to penitent, and an equally important social shift from dissolute and deviant female to respectable woman. The penitentiary, despite its penal overtones, was a therapeutic community which was not experienced as unbearably punitive. As well as reforming prostitutes, Anglican penitentiaries in Victorian Britain offered shelter to the survivors of incest and sexual violence, women fleeing abusive relationships, and female alcoholics.”

There is something about the turn of events in the last few chapters that has me a bit... itchy. I think it's the shift of the weight of responsibility for Ruth's outcome, from Mr B to his mother.

Mr B's role in Ruth's life has almost become ignored and now we are pitting woman against woman.

In fact, so far, almost all the judgement of Ruth has come from other women...

That's so interesting @BishyBarnyBee about the penitentiaries- thank you for sharing.

Good point @TheWriteStuff, Mr B is coming across as a bit whiny and petulant while his mum seems to be painted as the evil villain. Annoying! He's the one in the wrong here!

Yes. That's an interesting point, TheWriteStuff that most of the judgement that Ruth faces is from other women, so far. Mr B seems happy for his mother to clean up his 'mess'. He is ill, but we get the feeling that she is the one in charge. She is awful indeed.

Thank you for that Bishy. I wonder if penitentiaries really were charitable and 'therapeutic'. The Magdalene Launderies in Ireland were also meant to be charitable but the nuns were cruel to the women. It was very brutal and punitive and the women led miserable lives.

Spelling correction: Magdalen.

Great points @@FuzzyCaoraDhubh @TheWriteStuff @Tarahumara. It's the women who condemn Ruth. Even in the boarding house, the gentleman was amused/titillated by Ruth and his wife was disgusted by her.

I'm thinking that this is not, after all, primarily a feminist book, even though Gaskell is unequivocally on Ruth's side. It's mostly about class and power, with a strong emphasis on analysing what it means to be a true Christian. That makes sense from Gaskell, a Unitarian minister's wife with a passion for social justice. She is on the side of poor women and opposed to hypocrisy, but she has no illusions about female solidarity or the innate moral superiority of women. And she is not arguing for women to be allowed to express their sexuality but criticising the men who force women to "give in" to male desire.

I tracked down the full paper and it's fascinating. It does seem to be a different ethos to the very punitive Magdalen system, though the evidence quoted is from official records so we're only getting the sister's perspectives. But the women were there voluntarily and could leave at any point.

Mumm quotes the founder of the Church Penitentiary Association asking: "And whose fault is it that the poor are so poor, that the severe toils of our women are so under-paid, that all the wretched shirt-makers and needlewomen are drudging away their lives, and often for very bread yield themselves to sin, after long resistance?"

One experienced penitentiary manager cautioned against making the regime too overtly religious: "many would gladly enter if they knew that they would find a quiet home, where they might rest and think, instead of a semi-prison...let them be admitted . . . simply as inmates of a Home, requiring of them only quiet behaviour, obedience, and work, and leaving them perfectly free as regards religion, and entirely free to go away if they dislike the place."

I also love that Penitentiary workers divided the women into the "weak" (little trouble, obedient, fell in with religious influences, and seemed like successes) and the "strong" (chose a life of vice, gave "endless trouble," were disobedient and defiant, but had in them "the raw material of better things.")

The weak might appear to be saved but were likely to succumb to bad influences as easily as they had to good, whereas if the sisters could win over the troublesome strong, the change was likely to be permanent!

NOTWORSETHANOTHERGIRLS.pdf (open.ac.uk)