Elizabeth ‘The Reaper’ Gaskell
Rather like the end of Jurassic Park, when the survivors are leaving the island in a helicopter, dirt-streaked and bruised but glad to be alive, or the end of Independence Day, or any Die Hard film, I presume the characters in all of Elizabeth Gaskell’s novels take a head count after the final line, and congratulate themselves on surviving.
I used to think Dickens killed a lot of people, but the Brontës killed more than him, especially Emily. We only have one novel to go on, but I reckon if there had been more, she would never have stinted on the deaths. George Eliot was also not averse to bumping people off, and Hardy also has quite an impressive body count, but the more Gaskell I read, the more I’m amazed anyone gets out of one of her books alive.
As with a lot of writers, there was an element of therapy in it for her. She had two still born babies, and a son who died of Scarlet fever at nine months old. Prior to that, her mother had died when she was young, as did many of her siblings, and her father sent her away to be cared for by her aunt, Hannah Lumb. He didn’t her back when he remarried and had two further children, and although she was close to her brother, he went away to sea at twelve, and was later lost. Elizabeth was lucky in that Aunt Hannah was very good to her, and gave her a secure and loving home in Knutsford, surrounded by spinster ladies and gentle country distractions, all very similar to ‘Cranford’.
I am currently reading ‘Mary Barton’, her first book, I can’t help by think any time someone coughs, has a headache, or feels remotely weak, they are marked for death. If someone survives an accident or fever in a Gaskell novel, I feel like celebrating that they get to live another day. Which I’m guessing is pretty close to what it was like to be alive for many during Victorian times.
The mills of Mary Barton’s dismal world. Don’t drink the water.
Lucy
Sarah
This really made me laugh! My favourite Gaskell is Wives and Daughters, where the body count is quite low, but it is unfinished, and ends with someone asking for their shawl…. an ominous sign!
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Definitely, chills can be fatal! 😉 I have no idea how Roger survived Africa, things are hard enough for a Gaskell character in countries that don’t have poisonous insects and lions.
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I like some Elizabeth Gaskel. Mary Barton was so depressing I didn’t finish reading it.
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I’m about halfway through and wishing there was a helpline I could call.’If you been affected by any of the issues in this book, please call our freephone number, trained Victorian novelists are standing by’ 😉
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🙂 🙂 🙂
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Hilarious! I am never going to be able to read Gaskell again without grinning.
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Maybe turn it into a drinking/chocolate eating game, a shot or sweetie every time someone dies 😉
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Talk about being born in the wrong era, Lucy. Imagine the fortunes you could have amassed from embalming, with all those Victorian bodies dropping like flies. Well, if they ever invent a tardis….
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And the rich people paid a fortune for their funerals, I could have cashed in! My great,great aunt (I think it’s 2 greats) was alive at the turn of the century, and known to attend funerals of people she didn’t know, dressed in full mourning, simply because she liked at funerals. She raised more than a few eyebrows when she took her kids along. She’d have loved me.
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If heavy metal had existed, then I guess there wouldn’t have been any need for ‘death metal’, but ‘life metal’ instead. The black leather and denim would have been replaced with hospital greens and masks.
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It’s cool to think Florence Nightingale was the Lemmy/James Hetfield/Alice Cooper of her time 😉
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You’re so right! Incidentally, it ties in to one of my (many) theories of the genius of Jane Austen. She was so radical as a writer that she can keep characters alive – even Jane, who gets a bad cold at the start of Pride and Prejudice, then gets better. It’s crazy!
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I’m nearing the end of Mansfield Park and if I remember rightly, no one has died ‘on-camera’ as it were, we’ve had the death of Mrs Norris’ husband, who was of advanced years, and Fanny’s little sister Mary, who has a sad passage about who the child will bequeath her knife to, but that’s it! There’s a frail aunt, long sea voyages, her brother in the navy, and so far no one prominent has fallen prey to death, yay for Jane! 😀
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I remember now being slightly taken aback by a Trollope novel in which one of the characters says, en passant, of her baby, ‘if it lives’ it’ll be the next duke of whatever.
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