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Kirsty of Scavenger’s Hoard returns to the show, where we discuss Elizabeth Gaskell’s Victorian social novel North and South.
Beta-read by Charles Dickens, this novel and its 2006 BBC adaptation prompt a full-blown discussion of unions, worker’s rights, and Richard Armitage’s furrowed brow. Join us in waxing poetic on these class-crossed lovers.
READING
- NORTH AND SOUTH, by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
- Elizabeth Gaskell: Why was the Cranford author considered so ‘fearful’? — Rumeana Jahangir, BBC
- Elizabeth Gaskell: Charlotte Brontë’s unlikely defender against prurient gossip — Nell Stevens, The Guardian
- Elizabeth Gaskell
- Mancunian Accent (YouTube)
RECS
- FINGERSMITH, by Sarah Waters
- THE HANDMAIDEN (Ah-ga-ssi) (2016)
- The Secret Garden (1993)
- Jane Eyre (2011)
- Downton Abbey (2010-2015)
CLOSING SOUNDS
- Passing Steam Traction Engine 1.wav by mike_stranks
- Ravel Gaspard de la nuit Ondine by Vladimir_Oppenheim
LINKS
Kirsty/Scavenger’s Hoard
Nat/AshesforFoxes
Erin/Holocroning
Shi/Ohtze
METAMASHINA 
I really enjoyed this discussion. One thing that I thought about while listening is that the function of these narratives in which the “heart and hands” learn to work together is to instruct women to perform another civilizing function. The “Angel in the House” instructs men (by example and subtle persuasion) to demonstrate the compassion and stewardship necessary to make the family unit cohesive. Narratives in which the woman teaches a man to be a compassionate capitalist replicate this relationship, with the woman teaching the man to be a “good father” to his workers. These narratives show the woman rechanneling her potential to critique the entire structure of patriarchal capitalist relations into the project of improving one particular individual; shifting the source of laborers’ (both industrial and domestic) dissatisfaction from an exploitative system to one bad actor.
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