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!

Chapter 3
In which the family histories of Ruth and Mr B are unveiled, Mr B plays a long game and the collective voice of Mumsnet shouts nooooooooo!

Mr B is an only child of 23, spoiled by his wayward mother who uses her money to control him. They care for each other but their character flaws define the relationship. She resents his small acts of disrespect but ignores his bigger deficiencies. He goes along with her plan to marry him off, but feels nothing until he meets Ruth, who awakens a passion that he does not quite understand.

Ruth's mother was a respectable orphan who married an older farmer, then fell ill. He never recovered from her sudden death and died penniless a few years later. He left his now worthless estate to a local businessman who did his duty by finding Ruth her apprenticeship.

We see how Ruth's loving disposition, the loss of her mother and the departure of Jenny, leaves Ruth a sitting duck for Mr B. The author's careful set up of the unsupervised and lonely Sundays provides motivation and opportunity, and Mr B's patient strategy hooks Ruth in with only the tiniest reservations. It is weeks before he manipulates her longing to see her old home into the plan to spend the full day together. Ruth's delighted anticipation is tempered by a slight unease, but Mrs G makes clear that this 16 year old with "the grace and loveliness of womanhood (and) the naivete, simplicity and innocence of an intelligent child" has no idea of the potential repercussions of the plan.

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?

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 said last time I wasn't going to always post my thoughts first, but you all found so much I hadn't thought of, I think it's fine for me to get started with a few immediate reactions, knowing the rest of you will be along to deepen and illuminate the discussion. It's been an absolute delight, thanks so much everyone who's contributed so far.

First thoughts:
The description of her as almost a child in a woman's body made me feel slightly sick - this is grooming, and l would feel as uneasy about a 23 year old and a 16 year old now, even though the social consequences are so much less serious today.

I love the way Gaskell builds her characters and plots so carefully. To me, it makes my last two readalongs (War and Peace and Madame Bovary) seem quite superficial, especially in the characters of the women. Not read Crime and Punishment but felt a little defensive of Mrs G when @ShabanahFazal said this was not as intellectually stimulating, I'm finding it most thought provoking.

The set up of the lonely Sundays is utterly bleak and convincing, but I couldn't understand why Ruth sat there staring out of the window - she has to go put for afternoon church, surely she would enjoy a long walk then? But Mrs Mason not asking questions because she did not want to hear the answers was well observed and also sets up the freedom Ruth needs to get into trouble in a life that is otherwise so tightly controlled.

Thought the wealthy Maltster suddenly finding himself with a worthless estate and a ward he'd never met was quite funny, and enjoyed the way this chapter answered our previous questions about what had happened to her parents, who was her guardian, and why did he begrudge her a warm shawl?

Mr B terrifies Ruth by threatening to ruin Mrs Mason, then makes her indebted to him by magnanimously agreeing not to, and when she says she won't say anything next time, reprimands her that they must not have secrets. Red flags everywhere and eerily predictive of the Red Pill strategies to seduce women by undermining their self confidence.

I think I assumed she turned 16 during this chapter, but might have got the sequence wrong.
Just checked, and shockingly, the age of consent was 12 at the time, went to 13 in 1875 and 16 in 1885. Obviously that was irrelevant when sex outside marriage was ruinous for a woman. Though of course not for a man.

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!

@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'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

@cariadlet love a historical rabbit hole, thanks for that one!

Oh, that might be it!

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?

The other thing that I found interesting was the phrases use dthen that seem to have stuck forever: a couple of things sounded quite modern. Like 'falling in love'.

I would love to join you ... rather late! I was on the Anna Karenina readalong last year, but didn't contribute much. I mostly just enjoyed the comments and the wonderful summaries and used the thread to keep me on track.

I have read a couple of Elizabeth Gaskell's novels many many years ago, but not this one, so looking forward to something new.

Thank you @BishyBarnyBee ! I'm enjoying your summaries very much.

I was thinking of Vronsky and his mother from 'Anna Karenina'. She also doted on him, although he suited himself. I was comparing Vronsky to Bellingham. Vronsky was self-absorbed and immature and determined to get his own way and pursue Anna. The big difference is that Anna was a married woman and knew her own mind. It remains to be seen, but I suspect Bellingham is a cruel man, which I wouldn't say about Vronsky.

Really enjoying reading everyone's comments here. I do like how much more of an understanding we get about Ruth as compared to Anna & Emma in the previous read alongs. EG makes it really hard for the reader not to empathise with her - making sure that her 'fall' can't be dismissed as a fault of character.

Obviously, this is written as an 'issues' novel, and reflects EG's social conscience and mission to inform. But it's still a great & engaging read.

Someone asked upthread whether it was published as a serial. I don't know about Ruth specifically, but most of EG's books were serialised first. I read an excellent biog of EG some years back & one of the main things I remember was an awful lot of writing to deadlines!

Alec is more obviously lascivious but Hardy's favourite word for Tess is passive. She gets carried along on the current . If anything, Tess always seems rather dim. And terribly manipulated.

I am reading an excellent book by Sarah Churchwell about the writing of Gatsby. She mentions the Bovary lipstick!

@Piggywaspushed you might be thinking of Mrs Clennam in Little Dorrit?

Excellent summary @BishyBarnyBee and really enjoying everyone’s comments. Nothing much to add except I noted Bellingham’s comparison of Ruth to a timid fawn that he’s got to tame. She is a bit of a deer caught in the headlights isn’t she?

Oh yes @ChessieFL Mrs Clennam! She was odious and very controlling.

Oh Mrs Clennam may well be it but the Emma one also rings a bell. I guess there were lots of controlling, embittered widows about.

Hmm, were widows any more likely to be controlling and bitter than anyone else, I wonder? Widows would be unusual - and quite threatening - as being a widow was one of the few ways a woman could have independent means. I'm sure there were lots of controlling and dominating men, but it would just be normal for them. Elizabeth Barret Browning's father comes to mind, though I must admit my main source in the musical Elizabeth which may not be reliable!

I thought this was an interesting comment too.

Getting close to an animal like that is a challenge. You don’t do it for a lasting bond either, you do it for the buzz of being allowed to share a moment with them. Tun the moment of trust is over and the bond breaks, if you aren’t prepared to maintain it.
All very ominous for Ruth, if he’s the sort of guy who gets a buzz from this temporary taming.

Lady Catherine de Bourgh in P&P is the ultimate in controlling mothers.

I have to say, I am really pleased that we have stuck with the 'fallen women' idea because I think having read the other two (plus Tess and others) it is really helpful to compare and contrast.

I know the idea of 15-16 and 23 and particularly the way he targets Ruth is unpalatable - and as far as I can see we are supposed to see him as a rake, it was really not that unusual and usually in these scenarios (the same with Natasha in W&P) in my head they present as more 18-19 but it doesnt take away from the exploitation.

It is funny how serendipitous the internet is (or more likely it is just tracking what I am looking at!) but today I came across a youtube video which talked a little about how Victorian girls working in millinery was a common trope to talk about fallen women. I had no idea before reading this thread.

@TheWriteStuff , I didn't know about Ruth's name meaning rue or sorrow. Thanks for that!

I'm greatly enjoying the comments: for instance, people commenting on how rude it is for Bellingham to lecture the grandmother on how her house should be cleaner. That seems like a classic example of mansplaining. I mean, has Bellingham, as a man and an upper-class person, EVER had to do any housecleaning himself? I seriously doubt it! I see Gaskell as scoring a point for women there.

It's also a kind of conservative political mindset as opposed to a lefty one. If your house is dirty, it's not because you're poor and have untreated rheumatism and a load of childcare responsibilities, it's because you should bloody get your act together and CLEAN. God it makes me so indignant!

@Buttalapasta That sounds another interesting rabbit hole. Do you have a link for the YouTube video?