Mary Barton is all about the difficulties confronting the working class in Manchester in the 1840s in "a period of industrial unrest and extreme deprivation". There is much that one could say about this (and much that I shall say if I write essays on it) but this is more a reader's opinion than a literature student's. If the two can be separated.

The story is about a mill-worker, John Barton, his daughter Mary and their friends (the Wilson family, and Job Legh and his granddaughter Margaret.) John is a self-sacrificing man, prepared to give his last mouthful to help a dying acquaintance. But he is no stranger to death, starvation, disappointment, unemployment and poverty, and doesn't have the affluence to alleviate the suffering around him as he would like. Grieving for the loss of his wife and son, and disillusioned about the plight of the working class, he becomes involved with Trade Unionism and the Chartist's petition to Parliament for political representation.
Mary works as a seamstress and is flattered when she attracts the attention of Henry Carson, the son of a wealthy mill-owner. She hopes her beauty will be a passage to the middle class and an easier life. However, a "brutal murder forces her to confront her true feelings and allegiances".

Gaskell paints a vivid, finely detailed and depressing account of Manchester 19th century life - the suffering and hardships, the prevalence of illness and death, and the class conflict between masters and workers. As a portrayal of how life was for these people alone, it's powerful and fascinating. But much of this is shown, not in sweeping scenes, through the lives of three (or so) families, and more specifically, through the lives of the Bartons. Mary Barton is a mystery and a romance; it's about a murder, a court case and courtship. Some sections of it are surprisingly suspenseful. Mary proves herself to be a strong, admirable heroine with a lot of agency (and goes to considerable lengths to prove an alibi to protect another).
The story is moving, thought-provoking, and wonderfully written - I enjoyed her prose, her intelligent use of language and her insight.

At times Gaskell at times occupies an awkward position in her relationship with the working class - being incredibly sympathetic towards them and yet at times scared of what they may do - but she's not didactic. Mary Barton appears to want to highlight problems rather than propose solutions, but the solutions Gaskell does present (and she never pretends that they are easy or all-encompassing) are interesting - concerning the need to forgive and have compassion, and how suffering can be a universal experience people can relate to. I think it walks successfully line between being true to Gaskell's beliefs without becoming "preachy"... although I'm not exactly unbiased. I admired her characters' fortitude, their resilience and humility.
(I feel I'm not doing the best job of adequately articulating all of this...)

It's not all perfect. There are moments when Mary reminded me very much of Margaret Hale (of North and South, not Mary's friend Margaret), whether through her actions or how she is described. There are a scene (or two) which I have to admit didn't surprise me. Gaskell also proves to have a lack of originality when it comes to names and I giggled when I got to the references to a "Molly Gibson". There are issues with the ending, but (wearing my Lit student hat) these relate to the problems of giving a happy ending to a realist novel about a wider social problem which cannot be so easily solved.
There's also no Mr Thornton, but as I said to someone, "You can't have everything".  In themes,  Mary Barton goes hand-in-hand with North and South - they both explore the conflict between "masters and men", the difficulties of life in mill-towns and the plight of the working class. As well they focus much more on factory people than factories themselves - Gaskell is more interested in the domestic than exactly what goes on inside the factory gates.
Mary Barton hasn't usurped North and South's place as first in my affections, but it is nevertheless a wonderful novel, one I'm really glad I read. ( )

I have mixed feelings about this book. Some bits were really thrilling and exciting - particularly the murder trial and Mary's efforts to track down the alibi to try and clear an innocent man's name. However, the rest of it surrounding felt quite pedestrian and plodding, despite the large number of deaths due to poverty and starvation in the first few chapters. More could have been made of the worker's strike, and the injustices etc. But the central story is still enjoyable. ( )

Mary Barton is the story of a working class girl in the town of Manchester, during the Industrial era. It details the struggles of the poor and their troubles with the Masters. Her father is embittered by these hardships and Mary's life changes drastically through the actions of her father and those around her- especially those of her two lovers. One is the son of one of the Masters, and the other is her childhood friend Jem Wilson...which one will eventually prove to be true and win her heart?

My Thoughts:

(beware spoilers below, I tried to avoid naming names but there are spoilers there)

Despite Mrs. Gaskell's Unitarianism, I loved how the Bible was used in this story. Most of the time in stories, characters that have flaws somehow miraculously change on their own for the better towards the end of the story. I personally believe this is humanism running rampant in literature. Instead- in Mary Barton, one man refuses to forgive his son's murderer who begged for mercy, goes home, and is convicted by through his reading a passage about forgiveness. He arrives back at the murderer's house in time to tell the man he forgives him, just before he [the murderer] passes away. He changed through being convicted through God's Word. In North & South, (which is complimented by this book quite a bit), Margaret Hale learns that not only to will, but to pray, was something necessary to be truly heroic. This isn't exactly something you'll see in too many books these days- characters learning not only that they need to depend on Someone bigger then them, but learning that Someone is the Lord Himself. In Mary Barton, a man admits that when he was young he wanted to learn about the Lord and have his questions about the Bible answered, but no one could help him, and when he was older he saw the hypocrisy in the world and gave up trying to live to the Bible's standards because it didn't make sense. I find this particurlarly sad- his whole later life and actions, his whole hatred for a world that didn't make sense, were effected by not being able to get his questions answered and being confused.

As I stated earlier, I believe that Mary Barton compliments North & South greatly. In North & South, we see the Masters and the Mastered, the Employers and the Employees. These two sides are at odds and there is much trouble. Both sides of the stories have equal amounts of time. In Mary Barton, the poor are the more central theme, with the actions of the Masters seen for the most part through Mary's eyes and the eyes of the poorer people in Manchester. I've always found the poor in stories like these fascinating, the struggle for food and shelter, the need for work, the very struggle to survive contrasts my life greatly and is very interesting. The setting of Mary Barton expands on the poorer side of things in North & South, whilst North & South gives a good picture of both sides of things- from the Masters to the Poor. Both are very good books and I wholeheartidly recommend them.

Mrs. Gaskell is one of my favourite authors since I discovered her about a year ago through recommendations from those on NarniaWeb. My first book of hers that I read was North & South, consquently, the first book I read on my computer, meaning, I downloaded the text from Project Gutenburg. After that came Wives & Daughters, then Cranford, My Lady Ludlow, and Dr. Harrison's Confessions. Now, finally, Mary Barton, which is the first one I've read of hers that I actually read in book form. (Albeit it that I now have N&S, W&D and Cranford in book form). She is truly an author to check out. ( )

Not as good as North and South or Wives and Daughters; the conflicts between workers and masters was a bit trite and the poems at the beginning of the chapters were not that good and it was not as well written as a Hardy or Trollope novel, by any means. ( )

http://hansel25.livejournal.com/19213... ( )