Inequality In Elizabeth Gaskell's Mary Barton

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Recommended: The Industrial Revolution and the British economy

In the mid 1800’s, workers’ rights and conditions were still incredibly poor in comparison to today. The industrial revolution sparked a period of economic development in England and around the world that did not stop for the sake of kindness or humanity. Thousands of farmers and business people faced tough competition from newly created factories and industries that forced them to join the same forces that put them out of business in order to stay afloat. The experiences of people during this time are, to many, a great interest. In Elizabeth Gaskell’s fictional novel, “Mary Barton,” she narrates the difficult lives of millworkers and their families. Through use of imagery, idiom and metonymy, and contrast, Elizabeth Gaskell illustrated the …show more content…

Gaskell defined these inequalities through contrast. In the passage, Gaskell began and an ended with comparisons between the employer and the employee. In the second paragraph, she states directly that after an economic downturn, when “Large houses are still occupied, while spinners and weavers cottages stand empty […] the contrast is too great.” The employers continued to prosper while the employees suffered. Her starkly opposite descriptions of the wealth and the poor show lushness side by side with scarcity, and highlight the difference between the two. At the very end of the passage, to drive her point home, she wrote that while John Barton stood hopelessly outside of the meats shop, “out […] came Mrs. Hunter [the wife of the man who laid off Barton]! She crossed to her carriage, followed by the shopman loaded with purchases for a party.” That is to say, that while John Barton, an honorable, hardworking man, was considering stealing in order to save the life of his dying son, the wife of his former boss was buying appetizers for a party. The devastating difference displayed in the lives of these two people emphasized just how great the inequality between them really

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