The story of Ruth is rather different from Pasley’s story as set out in the letter to Dickens, although Ruth is a similar age to Pasley when the novel opens and an orphan. Like Pasley she is apprenticed as a seamstress. However in the novel Ruth is sent to the local Huntsman’s Ball to mend dresses, where she meets Henry Bellingham, a wealthy young man of 23, who persuades Ruth to meet him secretly. She falls in love with him, has a baby and from then on is a ‘fallen woman’ shunned by all apart from a kindly minister. Thurston Benson, and his sister, Faith, take her in. At the end of the novel Ruth redeems herself by nursing the sick, including her seducer, Bellingham, from whom she catches the disease and dies…
There is nothing in Ruth that seems controversial or shocking today apart from the cruelty of society. But the first responses to her novel were every bit as bad as Elizabeth had feared. Old friends wrote to her expressing sorrow and regret that she could have written such a book, Bell’s Library in London withdrew it as unsuitable for family reading, one magazine applauded the author for her courage but criticised the novel for its ‘warped morality,’ and two men in her husband’s congregation burned the first volume while a third forbade his wife from reading it.
In fact, the Gaskells themselves did not want their daughters to read it. But why? The subject matter seems very toned down compared to Pasley’s story. Ruth is not raped by a doctor, she doesn’t go into a workhouse or end up in prison. She spends most of the novel atoning for her misdeeds and trying to redeem herself before dying. Even at the time Charlotte Bronte objected to this ending. After reading the book she protested, ‘why must Ruth die at the end? Why are we to shut up the book weeping?’
Why indeed? Ruth demonstrates none of the fiery protest of Charlotte’s heroine, Jane Eyre. She seems to be modelled on an ideal of femininity that we no longer have. Ruth is one of those books that demonstrates just how far gender politics have changed – in the UK at least.
The circumstances in which Elizabeth wrote Ruth are rather different from those in which she wrote her first novel, Mary Barton. Elizabeth wrote Mary Barton privately following the death of her son in 1845. Her husband had suggested it as a way of overcoming her grief. She then published it anonymously although the news of her identity soon broke. So by the time she wrote Ruth she was well known, and aware of her readership, its criticism and its expectations – especially, perhaps, the views of her husband’s congregation in his Cross St Chapel, Manchester. Many of her letters say how worried she is about the reception of the book and how she wishes the publication could be put off.
Ruth has sometimes been called the first novel to feature a ‘fallen woman’ as heroine, but this isn’t strictly speaking, true. Before Ruth there was Moll Flanders for instance, published in 1722. Daniel Defoe’s heroine is an orphan who quickly learns how to exploit men in order to survive before finally repenting in Newgate Prison. Interestingly though, this book was banned for ‘lewdness and indecency’ so it’s probable that few Victorians would have read it. There is also Clarissa by Samuel Richardson, published in 1748. One of the longest novels in the English language is 1000+ pages consist almost entirely of the virtuous heroine Clarissa trying to fend off the attentions of the villain, Lovelace. After Lovelace drugs and rapes her, Clarissa stops eating, becomes ill and dies – thereby maintaining her virtue. Then there is Nancy in Oliver Twist, compassionate, brave and martyred at the end by Bill Sykes. However Nancy’s character and plot trajectory is very different from Ruth’s. Ruth isn’t a prostitute, she doesn’t work on the streets or for a gang but tries only to redeem herself in the eyes of God and society.
When I first read Oliver Twist, I didn’t realise that Nancy was a prostitute, brought up to ‘the life’ having worked for Fagin since she was five years old. And perhaps this gives us a clue as to why the novel Ruth is so different from Pasley’s story. Words such as prostitution, rape and even pregnancy weren’t used in the Victorian novel. I once heard in a lecture in fact, that the first English language novel to use the word ‘pregnant’ was The Awakening by Kate Chopin published in 1899. And the response to this novel with its portrayal of female sexuality was vitriolic. Most bookstores and libraries wouldn’t stock it and Chopin’s publishers dropped her despite the fact she was under contract. She never published another novel.
In Ruth, although the heroine has a baby outside marriage, the word ‘pregnant’ isn’t used. When Faith breaks the news to her brother that Ruth is expecting a child she says ‘Why Thurston, there is something so shocking the matter that I cannot tell you!’
It’s probable that words such as ‘prostitute’, ‘rape’, ‘abortion’ weren’t used either. Imagine trying to write a novel about such social issues when you can’t use the words!
Evidently the readership has changed a good deal since the 19th century.
Although has it, really? Do we not now hear about authors being ‘cancelled’ on social media or dropped by publishers if their work is seen to be controversial or offensive in some way. Many editors ‘advise’ their authors on content and representation. Is this a good or a bad thing?
I can only say that the circumlocution in Ruth, Elizabeth’s awareness of her readership and possible self-censorship don’t necessarily make Ruth a better novel…
