Anyone care to discuss, or read and discuss, 'Sylvia's Lovers' by Elizabeth Gaskell?

Hello, everyone, and to Citizenjoyce, whom I've met in the feminist group, when, steam coming out of my ears, I was holding forth about some of my favourite topics...

I recently re-read Elizabeth Gaskell's 'Sylvia's Lovers'. I find it fascinating how differently people interpret it. I am surprised, too, that 'Wives and Daughters' is so much more popular; I don't know why, quite...

Is anyone interested in reading it? It is a fine melodrama
(parts of it made me laugh, though she called it, 'the saddest story I ever wrote'.). It's set in the whaling town of 'Monkshaven' (Whitby in Yorkshire, England) during the time of the French Revolutionary Wars.

Some see it as a romantic story.I don't see it as a romantic story, though it involves a love triangle. I don't want to write a spoiler here, but it does seem to be about how infatuation leads to disillusionment...

Of course, Elizabeth Gaskell also being a devout minister's wife, it is also about Christian duty and its conflict with passion (although I have never been sure how far as a Victorian she acknowledges sexual passion in women).

It also fascinates me because I frankly didn't find either of the two males symapthetic. One is a cardboard hero, the sort who has no endearing weaknesses, and one is a mass of weaknesses. The story would be even better had he been made more attractive as a man. They are almost two sides of the same full person, it's fascinating.

Anyone care to go in for this (looks about hopefully).

MaryLou

Me, me! I just found it on an audio book. It may take me awhile to get through it, as I have some family things going on, but I'd be happy to hash this one out at some point.

Wonderful, nohrt4me2!
I'm delighted to find someone, do get back to me, even if there is a delay.
It is fascinating, the superficial depiction of Charley Kinraid, commented on by critc J Winnifrith. As E Gaskell was an experienced novelist by then, it cannot be by accident that she always makes things ambiguous about his questionable history, until...But I mustn't write a spoiler.
MaryLou

OK, I'm starting this today, and hope to rip through it by next week!

I already have both Mary Barton and Ruth on my short list, but it does sound tempting....

Nohrt3me2 and Elizabeth,

Sorry for my delay in replying, trouble once more with pc.

Oh, good, Nohrt, I do hope you do. For sure it's three volumes..Hope to hear from you soon...

Elizabeth. I think Sylvia's Lovers was more interesting than either of those, for all the murder mystery in Mary Barton. I liked the melodrama in it, I suppose...I do hope you join us!

MaryLou

OK, I'm about halfway through, and my first impression is that, like North and South, "Sylvia's Lovers" is an attempt to capture a time and place in the not-so-distant past (for Gaskell) during which a community is faced with some sort of moral dilemma.

In "N&S," the people of Milton have to confront labor and economic problems in a town whose mainstay is the cotton mill.

In "Sylvia's Lovers," a seacoast town is confronted with having to resist the Royal Navy's press gangs in the Napoleonic wars.

The love stories offer a focus for the narrative and help personalize the woes of the community. But the tension between the lovers in "N&S" comes from the tensions in the larger community. This seems to be emerging in "Sylvia's Lovers." Philip seems to be a worthier man than the fickle Charlie. But Philip is also a priss who would not buck the unfair laws of the press gang. Charlie, on the other hand, is something of a local hero for fighting them.

More to come as I work through the novel.

One of the things I dislike about Gaskell is her use of northern dialect. It's very distracting. I'm also audiobooking it, and the book has multiple readers, some of whom are just dreadful at the dialect. One reader made it sound like Italian.

So glad you are halfway through, Nort4me2.

Lol about Italian sounding Yorksire dialect . Gaskell seemed to have a bit of an obsession about it...

Yes, the Press Gang was brutal; Interestingly, the local community, as Gaskell says in the beginning, had contradictory views about it without realising, as while they hated the gangs, they liked the navel officers, and entertained them in their homes, while they must have known that during the Revolutionary Wars navel officers all had to rely upon the press gangs for a large number of their men, and so collude in its actitvities.

Sylvia seems to share this morally contradictory view later, but I don't want to write a spoiler...

Sylvia's hero worship of Charley Kinraid of course, starts when he resists the press gang and as you say, becomes a local hero. I thought it was clever of Gaskell in making him so badly injured that they 'kick him aside' thinking he is dead after the Fight on the Good Fortune, or he would have been tried and hanged for shooting dead the two press gang members. The fact that the press gang were exceeding their remit wouldn't have troubled t he justices too much...But again, I don't want to write a spoiler, if you are only halfway through , and I'm not sure you have come to Daniel's trial?

Phillip is humourless and a prig. Unfortunately, he doesn't seem to know how to have fun. While one feels sorry for him in his obsession with with the disgusted Sylvia, these qualities hardly endear him to the reader.

It's nice to have someone with whom to discuss the story.

MaryLou

OK, I'm done. Once I got through Daniel's hanging, it was a page-turner (or a disk turner, cuz I listened to the audio while I sat there knitting obsessively like Madame LaFarge watching the whole sad chain of events unfold).

1. What do you make of the religious commentary in the book? Gaskell, if I recall, was wife and daughter of Unitarian ministers, which made her friendly to various dissenters, I think, but she treats Alice Rose's notions about the elect and places in the Bible (she thinks they're in Heaven) with gentle humor, if not condescension.

2. Sylvia strikes me as an awful lot like Tess in Tess of the D'Urbervilles, a kind of Natural Woman or "Pure Woman," as in Hardy's subtitle of "Tess"--she loves the outdoors, growing things, has a knack for taking care of animals, etc. It's when Sylvia's passion and love are tamped down, and she is forced to live indoors that tragedy occurs. Sylvia feels obliged to marry Philip out of duty as Tess takes up with Alec for the same reason. Death ensues (though this is more melodramatically dragged out in Hardy's novel than Gaskell's).

Also, like Tess, I don't see Sylvia as a real character. She is kind of a Force that drives events around her without any real understanding of herself or other people (though her natural goodness allows her to forgive Philip), though through her others wrestle with their own demons--Hester with her secret love for Philip, Mrs. Rose with her strictness, even Kinraid overcomes his own self-involvement to some extent.

3. Philip. His obsession with Sylvia is, at heart, selfish. In several passages, we see him failing to really grieve over Daniel's fate b/c it gives him an opportunity to ingratiate himself with Sylvia's mother (ack! now I'm hearing that awful Dr. Hook song in my head! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPrixYOTNHw Don't listen unless you want a hellacious earbug in your head.)

In the beginning, Philip feels a sense of entitlement to her, almost a mercantile attitude--he paid for her by taking care of her family, and now he owns her. By modern standards, his disfigurement and self-denial may seem a little mawkish. But I think I see them as metaphors for real contrition and symbols of the sins he has been guilty of in ignoring Sylvia in his desire to possess her. And, of course, he comes to love her enough to let her go.

What mars the book slightly for me is that Sylvia persuades herself that Philip's earlier love was not obsessive, but constant and true. Maybe that's OK, though, in that I don't think Sylvia ever fools herself into thinking that she is in love with Philip. Her change of heart allows her merely to pity and forgive him in the end.

4. What do you make of the last chapter? It seems really rushed, but there's a clear indication that the townspeople have no idea what really happened in the hut on Philip's last night. People say she was hard-hearted, and she apparently dies young. Not sure what to make of that.

5. Finally, I'm struck by the way that Victorian novelists had an innate sense of how psychological shocks and stress affected the body. Doctors are constantly urging rest and refreshment on people. In these few weeks' break I've had between summer and fall term, I realize how crazy modern life is, and how restorative R&R is. I wonder how many of our modern maladies are worsened by stress. Don't you just long, sometimes, to have a kindly nurse force a cordial into your hand after a hard day? Sometimes "toughing it out" is overrated.

Well, I DO GO ON! Thanks for suggesting this book! Maybe you could pick out of there what piques your interest--or something else altogether, and we could discuss one thread at a time?

Hi, nort3me2, you got through it quickly!

On your points of interest:-

1. I believe Gaskell's husband was a Unitarian. Unitarians were enlightened and may have believed in a God of love rather than wrath ? Alice Rose struck me as being a horror, and Sylvia treated her more kindly than she deserved - I suppose becuase she was a nasty replacement mother. Hester didn't seem to pick up on AR's views abut predestination, being more charitable.

2. That is a fascinating interpretation of Sylvia! I will have to give that a lot of thought...She is rather like a force of nature, raw and untamed. Perhaps she does 'draw people out of themselves' by being so?
Her physical attractions draw men to her, but I don't think any of them know her well or even want to, she's too intense. She combines Kinraid's sensuality (in so far as Gaskell dared to portray that) with Philip's single mindedness.

I thought she would nor have become so obsessed with Kinraid if she had been able to go to sea and have adventures herself - it was his bravery (resisting the press gang) and his fascinating stories that attracted her to him. Women at that time had to live vicariously through men. Sylvia seems the sort of woman who enjoys being active, physical, and she is brave.

I find it hard to believe that as a pretty girl she wouldn't have been pursued by more dashing sailors when living so near a port - even if she did lead a retired life on the farm and was shy. T hat she should only meet one seemed improbable, though I suppose necessary for t he plot.

3. Philip! He is a rather dismal character . For sure he has many good points, but his priggishness makes his treachery t he more shocking. I found it purely awful that he could deceive Sylivia so.
Gaskell does provide some excuse in making him get more and more evidence of Kinraid's fickleness just after his impressment - the sailors talking in the Newcastle pub, Bessy Corney mourning for Kinraid as a lost sweetheart, etc, while he already knows of Annie Coulson's story, but it doesn't really excuse Philip from such an underhand action. He even keeps on going to church! Of course, it is meant to be a great sin.
All his sins are meant to stem from his worshipping Sylvia as an idol, t herefore breaking the first commandment, according to the critic Sharps.

I did feel for him when he was starving and going to lie on the straw pallet and he remembers past evenings at Haytersbank Farm:- '...and the dead were alive, and Kinraid, t he Specksioneer, had never come to trouble the gentle peace'.

I th ink Gaskell's sexual reticence meant that we don't know if Sylvia found Philip positively unattractive - which would be purely awful - or if he 'just didn't do anything for her'.

I don't see why Gaskell had to make him so physically unappealing. After all, Mary can't see Jem's charms for ages in 'Mar y Barton' though the reader can.

I agree that what she feels for him may feel like love to her at the time but isn't the right sort of love for a wife to feel for a husband. I suppose that, and the fact that Sylvia might find it h ard to keep on feeling utter forgiveness for him that makes Gaskell kill him off - that and her odd conviction(for a Christian) that characters meet to some extent payment in this world for their wrongdoings.

4. For sure the last chapter is rushed. In fact, I think the last volume is rushed after the unnecessary diversion at that St Sepulchre place. Gaskell was hurrying to complete the novel, I think, and had gone past her deadline. Sylvia's infatuation with Kinraid and mourning for him takes up a lot of space, while her disillusionment with Kinraid is dealt with in a very short space.
For sure Sylvia isn't meant to be cerebral, but we don't get much insight into her 'softening towards Philip', t hough it is quite clever of Gaskell the way she makes the one lead to the other, and Philip to become a the hero he dreamed of being to impress Sylvia, t hough sadly not in the way he wished when he enlisted. T he coincidences in the rescues at Acre and at Monskhaven are rather laughable.

Poor Sylvia, when having heard of Kinraid's marrying another women, she feels betrayed (after all, when pr oposing he says he has resolved to m arry her or nobody) and says to Alice and Hester that she's 'Speaking as a woman who's been let down by men as she trusted and has no help for it' and is obviosly bitter with both Philip and Kinraid.

She is supposed t hen to realise that Philip would never have married somone else so quickly, and this is meant to make her start realising his good qualities.

I thought the distortion of Sylvia's story horribly typical - woman are often judged unfairly. T he people just seem to know somehow that Philip is back an d has been starving, and assume Sylvia must have known of his return! No doubt she doesn't speak out in her own defence to anyone. There is a forerunner to that when she refuses to justify her actions to Alice and Hester. She dies early - largely it seems, of remorse - and only Kester speaks up for her while he lives.

As I said in my initial post, I found Kinraid and Philip to be too much opposing characters - almost as though Gaskell had sat down and written traits on either side of a line - sociable/withdrawn, cheerful/serious, char ming but fickkle/gauche but sincere, etc.

Kinraid is somewhat of a male 'Mary Jane'. I thought, supposedly irresistible to women, heroic, macho, brave, a cardboard character without any endearing weaknesses, whereas Philip is a walking mass of weaknesses, whom nobody fancies but poor Hester. It is as if together they would make a full character.

I was puzzled about Kinraid. The critic Graham Handley suggests that he is important for his effect on Sylvia and Philip rather than a fully realised character. We don't get to know him well (have you noticed how we think of him as 'Kinraid' ,not as Charley?) We never find out what motivates him or how far the rumours about his caddish treatment of other women is true . Because Coulson has no reason to lie I suppose we may assume that his story about his sister and the girlfriend after that is true.

I t hought Kinraid's marrying the heiress - a girl who will complement his new social position as an navel officer - only eight months after his dramatic parting wit h Sylvia and the fact that he seems to have forgotten his old feelings for her very easily with his new distractions downright insulting.

Some defend Kinraid by saying he was faithful to Sylvia for three years, but I think Sydney Smith - with whom he is meant to be imprisoned in France- was in prison for a couple of years, so presumably Kinraid is meant to be too,and before that Kinraid was trapped at sea as an impressed man, so he didn't exactly have much oppor tunity not to be faithful in
those three years, if you see what I mean.

There seem to be little hints that he is meant to be slightly duplicitious - he seems to have spoken to Clarinda Kinraid about knowing Sylvia in the old days when staying with the Corneys, but not told her the real story of their relationship and Sylvia says he is too 'fause' to do that. If he agreed (by letter)to his new wife coming to see Sylvia, now that is rather insensitive!

No critic ever seems to have picked up on how, having killed off two press gang members in t he fight on the Good Fortune. he later goes on, as a Captain, to rely on the pr ess gangs to supply a lar ge number of his men. Nobody, including Sylvia, criticises him for this moral contradiction, but it seems to show opportunism.

Perhaps he is meant t o be evidence of the 'Oh, make them join the forces' arguement about violent young men?!

I have always been puzzled by another contradiction regarding him too. Gaskell seemed to believe in a moralistic way in punishing her characters for wrongdoings. If Kinraid has been guilty of breaking girls hearts, etc, and Gaskell opposed violent opposition to the press gangs (she comes out and says so when descr ibing the riots after Daniel's arrest) I suppose she must have t hought Kinraid did wrong to shoot the press gang members dead during the fight on t he 'Good For tune' and yet Kinraid's fate is a happy one, in contrast to the gloomy fates of Sylvia and Philip.

Can th is be because she unconsciusly identified him - and all sailor characters in her novels, ie Will Wilson in Mary Barton, with her brother who went missing at sea, so she couldn't be harsh to him?

I did t hink up a way of summing up this book in a sentence (you know th e way you are supposed to be able to do i t for any book): -

'Philip worships Sylvia, and finds dishonour; Sylvia worships Kinraid, and finds disillusionment; Kinraid worships himself, and finds a wife who agrees with him and a brilliant career in the Royal Navy.'

How cynical of me...

Re: Stress, I so agree, and it is so odd a Victorian saw this. I think that it is a primary factor in health. I also think modern living makes us all stressed with hurry, noise, chemicals, pollution etc and not being able to 'stand and stare'.

My daughter is calling me off the pc, will be back soon, to talk of your suggestions re more reading...

My goodness, sorry, you must be astounded, I have gone on and on and on...

MaryLou

.

4. "Philip worships Sylvia, and finds dishonour; Sylvia worships Kinraid, and finds disillusionment; Kinraid worships himself, and finds a wife who agrees with him and a brilliant career in the Royal Navy."

Ha! I like it. Until you dissected Kinraid, I didn't find him that problematic, saw him mostly as a foil for the Sylvia-Philip relationship a la Handley's comments. I think you're on to something there, and I wonder if Gaskell means to caution us that real justice is not to be found in this world.

That leads me back to ...

1. Unitarians: I was raised a Unitarian (now I'm a liberal Catholic, if there even is such a thing anymore), and that Unitarian background colors my reading, I suppose. Among early Unitarians, God is a kind of benevolent abstraction who expects us to live upright, moral lives, the better to go to our heavenly reward which depends on our actions and thoughts. So Unitarians would laud moral behavior, even if they saw it as linked with certain superstitions as Alice's notions are.

Even though Alice's beliefs are harsh, her actions are much softer, and I think Gaskell paints her with quite a lot of care and interest despite her minor role in the novel. I'm not sure I like Alice, but I think Gaskell understands and respects her.

Alice seems to be a kind of mirror of Sylvia, who married a man with whom she was smitten, who ended up beating her and leaving her on the charity of the Foster brother whom she didn't marry. I think there is a certain strain of vindictiveness mixed with her faith that her bitterness feeds.

6. New point, though minor: St. Sepulchre, which you mention above as a long digression. I read Philip's journey homeward as a kind of Pilgrim's Progress, and St. Sepulchure's is a kind of temptation to forgetfulness, a little death, as the name of the place implies. He could have lived there in comfort and security, lived a life of usefulness and service. But it would have meant a kind of spiritual abandonment of Sylvia and his child. The (re)formation of his soul is not complete until he can go to Monkshaven and see Sylvia and his child and resolve his relations with them.

I'm not sure that this journey isn't something of a jumble. I don't know whether my ideas about it are ill-formed, or if Gaskell doesn't bring it off that well. But I see this as tied in with your idea that Philip becomes a hero, but not in the way he expected to. He transcends (favorite Unitarian concept) his old obsessive and selfish self through his suffering.

3. Philip again: You said, "I think Gaskell's sexual reticence meant that we don't know if Sylvia found Philip positively unattractive - which would be purely awful - or if he 'just didn't do anything for her'. "

That's an interesting issue.

There are some oblique references to wifely satisfaction, which seems to imply sexual satisfaction. Molly Corney is a very happy wife and dotes on her husband and his sense of humor, and generally seems to enjoy her elevated station. Daniel telles Belle that he wants to come back from jail to see her happy and "lusty," which may not imply only sex, but certainly seems to include it a happy physical union.

Right after Sylvia has the baby, I believe, Philip notices a difference in her (drawback of audiobooks is that you can't flip back to pages), and says something about how she wasn't as as passionate as before. So I take it to mean that even though Sylvia keeps Kinraid in her heart, she is not repulsed by Philip, and they have an agreeable sex life.

Middlemarch, while very delicate, certainly seems to me to imply that a good marriage includes sexual pleasure, in fact implies that sexual pleasure is a sign of a mature loving relationship, i.e., Dorothea seems to pine away from lack of passion in her marriage to Casaubon, while Rosamund is really pretty cold and just likes her furniture.

5. Stress. Yes, I agree that we have ramped up our stressors and don't really encourage people to restore their mental health in any real way; we have pills now! I read something some years back that the only really effective drug doctors had at their disposal in Victorian times was laudanum. So I suppose that a doctor without the pharmacological arsenal we have now, would be more sensitive to rest, diet, exercise, and fresh air.

7. And another new topic: We haven't really raked Hester over yet!

Well, here I am, late to a discussion that I can't add much to. I've never read any of Elizabeth Gaskell though I did see the BBC production of Cranford and liked it very much. I like what you say about Unitarians, nohrt4me2. You know, Garrison Keillor is always telling jokes about them and their lack of belief or rather tolerance of all belief. You make me want to read the book. I've been reading Slammerkin for the past few days and thought today that the reason I like to read books about women is that there are women in them. I would think that a novel about conscription written by men would be very interesting, but would have nothing to say about how women lived at the same time the men were being stolen away. I imagine she would have an interesting take on the situation.

Citizenjoyce, I liked "Cranford" on TV, too.

A whole thread could be devoted to Unitarian women writers of the 19th century (though perhaps I would be over there talking to myself). They were largely reformers and feminists. While their efforts may seem clunky, even tiresome and unsubtle to us today, I think that's partly b/c we see them through the filter of today's societal values, which extol individualism and personal achievement rather than social justice. These ideas need not be mutually exclusive, of course, but the latter can come off as awfully preachy sometimes.

1. Unitarians in "Sylvia's Lovers" again: Louisa May Alcott was also Unitarian, and, while I loathed Little Women when I was 13, I suppose in rebellion to that same moral rectitude I found in our Unitarian church growing up, I found it extremely moving when I was 35 and better understood Alcott's time, vision, and sympathies for this family of women who got through on unpretentious kindness and humor. I also liked her b/c she didn't try to make her women little tin saints.

I think Gaskell is trying to do something similar with the women in "Sylvia's Lovers," particularly with her minor characters. Sylvia is not introspective or tuned into the spiritual world, though her natural feeling leads her to forgiveness. But Hester, Mrs. Robson, Alice Rose, and perhaps even Phoebe and Kester's sister, are imperfect women struggling to live moral lives, and who have a strong sense of humanity, which is tied up with Unitarian notions of the divine.

Welcome, CitizenJoyce, please do read it! I could go on about it for a long, long, time...

What you both say is very interesting about spiritual issues. Now, I was brought u p an atheist ( we once lived in a haunted house and I had to accept that I was having odd experiences) but have instinctive spiritual leanings. I have never been able to believe in a Creator who would damn his/her creations for eternity for being bad for a few years on earth, even if they were absolutely wicked, so was always horrified by beliefs about 'The Elect' and predestination. The views of Unitarians sound congenial;

I am probably a bit hard on Alice, who as Nort4me2 says, has been embittered by her experiences with Jack Rose and takes it out of anyone who dares to think of anything but the next world - not as if there would be much point , if one was damned anyway!

Hester, Nort4me2 - seems t o me to be in some ways Gaskell's ideal Christian, charitable without being judgemental, but she is harsh on herself and her life of self abnegation and frustrated love leads to her being rather joyless.

That is a shame; we may assume the wicked Jack Rose had a joyful streak, or else how could he have won over Alice? As his daughter, Hester must be intended to have it in her somewhere.

I believe some critic commented somewhere that Gaskell always took into account heriditary when creating character, (note how Kinraid and his cousin Molly Corney may have more in common than at first appears).

It would be nice if we can believe that Gaskell did intend Sylvia and Philip t o have had a happy sexual relationship - her coldness to h im when Daniel teases him when she is younger about kissing her may not be indicative -for after all she is outraged when Kinraid says she must kiss him as a forefeit at the New Year's Eve party; he persuades her t o kiss her in another room apart form the action, so we don't know how he went about it, but we may assume he is a glib talker...

You could well be right about the St Sepulchre stay being part of a spiritual progression on Philips part. That is food for thought indeed.

Some other crit ic (w as it Terry Eagleton? I seem to be good at forgetting their names and there aren't that many crtitiques of this book available) says that Philip and Kinraid effectively swap places dur ing the course of the novel. Kinraid, the outsider and the rebel , as he is promoted in the navy and marries an heiress, becomes the establishent figure, Philip, once an embodiment of middle class self help, thrift and mercantile convictions, becomes the man who rejects material values.

Must sign off. Fascinating stuff, Nort4me2 and Citizen Joyce.

MaryLou

Oh, dear, I hope I didn't scare MaryLou0 away!

Was just thinking about what the book reveals about Gaskell's overarching views of "how women are" and the extent to which she buys into prevailing social ideas or not. I've only read three Gaskells, but I don't see any overt feminist reform ideas as I do in Alcott.

Lol ynohr t4me2, I am up for any amount of analysis of the book. Most people can't stand it when I start boring on about it, so it's so nice to meet someone else who wants to discuss it in detail from all sorts of aspects.

Sylvia seems to be a feminist by default, like so many female characters created by women who appeared to fit into their roles happily enough overtly.

That speech about 'I'm speaking like a woman...who's been let down by men as she trusted and has no help for it' is fascinating. The poor girl ends up disillusioned by both Kinraid and Philip in different ways.

In the household of women with Alice, Hester and her daughter, she seems happier t han when living as part of a conventional set up.

She's such a lively girl, would have been so suited to going to sea herself....

MaryLou

"In the household of women with Alice, Hester and her daughter, she seems happier than when living as part of a conventional set up."

Yes, I think she was b/c Philip was gone. There were some tensions with Alice and Hester--Hester in love with Philip and Alice feeling Sylvia is undeserving of him--though the baby helped pull them all together. I thought that was pretty realistic.

In some ways the set-up is claustrophobic, though. Sylvia talks about living in town and having to dress to go out and be circumscribed by walking on the streets. I think there's another parallel with Tess of the D'Urbervilles.

Sylvia also has to be circumspect in what she says around Hester and Alice, though there's that scene where she tells Hester that she should have married Philip and things would have been better.

Eveything is pretty corseted.

Lol Nohr t4me2, you are right for sure that she was glad to be rid of Philip and his silent demands for love and to have his tea on time!

You are so right about her not liking being stuck in an existence where she has to look respectable, when she liked not to bother with her appearance and to run out and look after animals.

To me, it often comes back to this, though the demands of the plot made it otherwise:- It made so much more sense for her to have accepted Kester's offer and have stayed on the farm. Then she could have been free in all senses.

When the caddish Kinraid came back, she could have been gradually disillusioned with him, after marriage and children. Still, I suppose she would have hated life as a Naval Officer's wife too: formal dinners, being polite to the right people. Any criticisms of Press Gangs not to be uttered...That would have been a modern novel, I suppose.

I think throughought Sylvia is very secretive, t hough I take your point about being circumspect around miserable Alice and the indignant Hester. For instance, she never speaks of 'her gr eatest sorrows much' even to Kester...

MaryLou

Yes, Gaskell offers or suggest many happier alternatives for Sylvia--going back to the farm with Kester (and maybe getting his widowed sister to sell her place in town and live with them).

But she keeps Sylvia locked up in town behind the store. I think of the store as a kind of symbol for many things--conventional respectability, male protection, financial security--in short, marriage.

One (of many) things against Philip is that he runs off without any thought for his child and how she is to be supported. He essentially abandons them and throws them on the mercy of the Foster brothers. This failure to look out for a helpless child, never mind a woman whose ability to support herself are limited, in my view, is not expiated by his saving of Kinraid. Especially Kinraid, who was reckless in his pursuit of military glory

I think we've forgotten the role money played in marriage decisions up until fairly recently. Most of my girlfriends got married in the 1970s, and the first question out of their grandmothers (and mine, too), was what skills did the bridegroom have that would allow him to make a good living, and how much money and property had he accrued before the wedding.

My parents married in the 1950s, and my dad used to tell about being grilled by my grandfather about his financial status. Grandpa made it clear that he and Gramma had some money put by for my mother's wedding and some home furnishings, but that beyond that they were on their own.

Does anybody do that any more? I wonder if that's a good thing.

You've r aised some interesting points there, Nohrt4me2!

Yes, Philip's taking off without making arrangements for his baby daughter and Sylvia is shabby. Whether Gaskell meant it to to be - or whether she just assumed that the shop was thriving enough to support them all without Philip's working to promote the business (seeing that Coulson is presented as a sort of plodder in business affairs) I don't know.

For sure, too, as you say, risking his life in that is irresonsible
to his dependents back home. I wonder if in her enthusiasm for showing Philip transcending his bitter hatred of Kinraid Gaskell rather neglected that?

Sylvia would love to escape from the dark and confining house back to the country, but Fost er thinks otherwise, I assume still obsessed by doing his best for Alice (is he the one who was in love iwth her? I was always mixing them up, and I have to admit (looks about furtively) to reading this book three times...

It's awful the way Sylvia is confined like a wild animal. She is an untamed creature, with all the appeal and natural dignity of one, really.

I don't know if you saw my post above about Hester in answer to yours, but apropos self control, I find t he scene where poor Sylvia is told in a casual aside by Molly that Kinraid married eight months after their dramatic parting (when he had told her when proposing to her that he would have her or nobody) painful. She has to keep silence, only saying later to Hest er that if it wasn't for Bella she'd think it best if she was dead, as 'T hose who one thinks the most of forgets one soonest.'

I'd be interested in your comments on it.

Yes, she had been rather a fool about him, but she was illiterate and headstrong and you can picture her silent humiliation and resentment.

Then, worse still, she has to meet Kinraid's wife (who comes across as rather insipid and silly). Gaskell believed in self control like anything, but for sure she must have conceded that Sylvia had to be jealous of this happy wife who's effortlessly got the prize that she wanted more than anything

I say 'more than anyt hing' but not quite, because when Kinraid asks her 'to go off with him' (does he truly believe that his admiral could get Syliva a divorce; just a few years later on, even King George the Fourth couldn't get a divorce?) she doesn't, because of the baby.

I was always puzzled here; does Sylvia realise that legally she wouldn't be allowed custody (barbaric laws for deserting wives in those days) or does she sense that she would end up 'his mistress' and object morally?

What you say about Grandmother's advice is fascinating; further back, even Jane Austen (whom some see as romantic) said that finances had to be taken into account too...

Lucinda

"I wonder if in her enthusiasm for showing Philip transcending his bitter hatred of Kinraid Gaskell rather neglected that? "

Ooooh! This gets right to the heart of something I hadn't quite articulated: Is Gaskell always successful in what she's trying to say? There are places where he message seems to be a little muddled. She values self-control and admires Hester and even Alice. But her heroine is Sylvia, who clearly believes that self-control is overrated. Gaskell seems conflicted here--and I think the story gets ambiguous as a result.

Ditto Sylvia not going back to the farm with Kester. She has always been self-directed, even headstrong, in the country, but in town she seems to lose her self-confidence and seeks out advice from the Fosters--and, of course, while they're good fellows, they are going to push her along the most narrow path.

It's always dicey to try to psych out the writer, but I wonder if Gaskell was herself somewhat conflicted. As a Unitarian, she would have seen self-control as the way to divinity. But as a woman, she also seems to let a lot of criticism about self-control leak out.

"She has to keep silence, only saying later to Hester that if it wasn't for Bella she'd think it best if she was dead, as 'T ose who one thinks the most of forgets one soonest.' "

You know, it struck me, too, how many times Sylvia expresses pretty cynical truisms and wishes she were dead. I don't recall this kind of despair showing up so often in any other Victorian novel. Certainly, there are times when characters are resigned to death or experience what Catholics would call a "good death," having been forgiven and surrounded by loved ones. But Sylvia seems to think about death constantly as soon as Daniel dies.

How come Philip gets a "good death," and Sylvia has to trudge onward and die young, unfairly villified by the community? Is Gaskell making a martyr of Sylvia or some sort of point about the lot of women? Or is she punishing her? Again, I wonder if Gaskell is conflicted here.

Re marriage and money, I'm reading Trollope's The Eustace Diamonds, and the business of marriage is hilarious; they start off with the prospective groom outlining his income, property holdings, and inheritance. This is understood immediately by would-be brides as the opener to a marriage proposal. Love talk comes after.

Noht 4me2 - Lightening visit - daughter and O/H ill t oday- but I wanted to say that I agree, why does Philip get an heroic death and Sylvia, who senses that she has been betrayed by both men in different ways, have to drag out an existence of repentance for a good few gloomy years?

It 's as if, as a woman, she isn't allowed to be angry or if she is, she is punished for it. I don't remember any crit ic saying how unfair this is. There is a feminist critique of it somwhere, is it Patsy Stoneman? But I think she emphasizes more that Sylvia has no voice for her wr ongs, whereas the men are - like Kinraid - 'story tellers'. Their version of events goes down in history. Kest er doesn't tell the whole truth - has he been sworn to silence by Sylvia herelf - so nobody later knows what grounds Sylvia had for appearing callous.

That was, of course, how it was before feminist ideas, I suppose. A vague sense of injustice.
Gaskell is much harder on her falling heroines - ie 'Ruth' than she is on men. They can 'put it around' get drunk, what have you, and they are just being men...Rant, rant.

The Eustace Diamonds...R omantic, or what? I've never read any Trollope.

As you say, Sylvia starts dwelling on death early. Perhaps she shuts off her immune system and dies thereby once Bella is more or less independent?

MaryLou

ML, hope people at your house are feeling better!

I wonder if Kester doesn't tell the truth--or nobody believes him?

This is very interesting: "That was, of course, how it was before feminist ideas, I suppose. A vague sense of injustice." Since "Sylvia" was written, feminist ideas have been articulated in more detail and in their relations to various aspects of life (political, marital, parental, etc.), and a sort of canon of feminist literature has emerged.

So it's easy to forget that Gaskell is breaking ground to some extent, and that her characters sometimes fall flat (Sylvia sometimes seems like a stereotypical country coquette, though that may be my fault rather than Gaskell's) or she offers no prescriptions or alternatives for Sylvia.

It might be interesting to examine whether Gaskell's novel works on two different levels--1. as a realistic depiction of life in the north of England during the Napoleonic Wars, and 2. as a feminist novel.

One thing neither of us has mentioned is Gaskell's geographical descriptions. I noticed this in "North and South" that she has a real flair for landscape. It's one of the most enjoyable parts of this book and "Sylvia."

No "The Eustace Diamonds" is not a romance, though marriage is at the core. I'm not really sure how you categorize Trollope. I'd say comedy of manners, but the people are so dreadful it's sometimes cringe-making. Just my kind of book!

Thanks, Noht - They are recovering! To analyse SL as a 'realistic depiction of life in t he north of england during the Napoleonic Wars, and as a feminist novel' would be fascinating.

As I said in my first post, many people, certainly most readers, seem to see it as a romantic story, which I certainly think is questionable. If Sylvia is meant to h ave been deprived of her true steadfast lover through Philip's shabby behaviour - as at one time she believes - how come Kinraid is depicted as having such a questionable character? Yet the average reader seems to enjoy the seemingly opt imistic beginning far more than the concluding volume, which for sure, does put Sylvia in a dismal predicament where it seems that everything that she does is wrong, and it all stems from her decision to marry Philip for reasons of duty, ie to keep her mot her in comfort.

There are any number of realistic domestic details of life in that period, rush lights, making possets, etc. Yet I think that Gaskell's love of the country (I believe she didn't really like living in Manchester) makes her idealise it. For instance, I think it is possible to overlook the fact that some of the depiction here is romanticised - ie t he dairy, where of all places, Kinraid choses to court Sylvia and where, for sure, cows defacated than as they do now (though in lesser numbers?) but a nice Victorian novelist's cows considerately held themselves in...

Yet there are other descriptions (as you say, neither of us has mentioned her descriptions of scenery) that are both evocative and for instance, the skylark singing as Philip walks to Haytersbank farm on his return from London. Sadly, that is an incredibly rare thing now, though at that time probably everyday.

I'm not that good at appreciating descriptions of scenery or locations that are lengthy - I think the first chapter's description of Monkshaven goes on too long - but I do like the touches of description that occur throughout, particularly of the sea. As I think Sharps points out, Gaskell insists too much on the 'waves coming in on the shelving shore' at the end, but generally these descriptions are vivid without being intrusive.

As a feminist tract it would, however obliquely - presumably challange romantic notions and idealised views of men, and too much trust in men, as a matter of course? Treacherous ground for a good wife like Gaskell, yet it seems to do just that. In a w ay, t he only man who doesn't let Sylvia down is Kester, who loves her as a person he understands.

Interesting that you suggest Kester doesn't tell the (whole) truth. I think he is meant to be reticient, because he doesn't want to point blame at Philip. In fact, he has been good at being reticent throughout.

ML

I agree that SL is not a romance, and in that respect, Gaskell (wittingly?) is turning "the woman's novel" on its head. The title would certainly lure a romantic (was the title her idea or her publisher's?), but then it seems to slice and dice all those romantic notions until they look like a bloody mess.

Marrying Philip because he's safe and stable, but without loving him, is a mistake. Marrying Kinraid might have allowed Sylvia to retain her romantic illusions about him (and he her), but only b/c they would have been parted for most of their lives by his gigs in the Greenland Sea or the Royal Navy. She clearly would not have been able to count on him for any kind of emotional support; it would have been a marriage without cohabitation and much anxiety.

It also, as much as anything else, is an exploration of the financial vagaries that women fall prey to. Their lives are not self-directed, their options are limited. One of the hardest scenes is Sylvia going to the Fosters with her little girl after Philip has left. She is a capable, strong girl who knows how to run a farm, but she has to throw herself on the financial mercy of the brothers in order to survive.

The sea is an interesting image in the book. It is the boundary beyond which women cannot go. Men can go out there, but they can't. It is also the place where the men in Monkshaven earn their money--which women also can't do in any big way (butter and egg money is about all they can earn). The sea is also a force of nature that can't be controlled. So if the men's lives are often at risk in making a living at sea, how much more risky is it for women to be at the financial mercy of men who support them in this way.

That Sylvia is drawn to the sea walks once she moves to town, I think represents her desire for autonomy--and for death. Either one, she feels, would serve her better than the Limbo in which she must live in town.

I guess those would be pretty obvious observations, really, but it would be interesting to look at how the sea figures into Sylvia's life, first as a kind of curiosity (in that early chapter where she and Molly get caught up in the returning ships on the way to market) and then as a place where she goes to contemplate the imponderables of her life.

Fascinat ing insights, Noht4me2...

The sea - yes, it is the source of livlihood, of adventure, of 'becoming a man' of leaving home, t he cause of berevament and the area where the press gangs patrol. It is t he force of untamed nature in the novel, and as you say, women cannot venture beyond t he boundary it makes. It affects their lives, but they are helpless against it.

Apropos Gaskell exploding any romantic expectations raised by the title (astute point of yours, that!) I think she goes even further , because of the question of the Royal Navy's collusion in the activities of the press gang, and Kinraid having become an officer.

Do tell me what you think of a thing I have noticed about this destruction of possible romantic prospects, as no critic seems to have picked up on it( leans forward eagerly).

As a Naval Officer dur ing the Revolutionary Wars Kinraid would as a Lieutenant and later Captain have to rely upon perhaps as much as a quarter of his men being supplied by the hated press gang; so had Sylvia accepted Kester's offer, and not married Philip, when she married Kinraid she would be faced with disillusionment anyway, even if they did spend months apart, that of her old hero, who r isked his life opposing the gang and killed off two of their number, colluding with them by one remove.

Of course, Sylvia isn't cerebral, and she might not have worked that out in theory, but she would be unable to hide her hatred of press gangs (exacerbated by Daniel's end) and must come to realise how Kinraid had compromised over that issue.

Of course, she would hardly be suited to life as a Navy Officer's wife either; formal dinners, keeping in with the right people, etc. etc.

It is as if Gaskell is determined that Sylvia be disillusioned. Critics point out that Philip breaks the first commandment, but perhaps Sylvia, in idealising Kinraid does too and of course, Gaskell would have none of that going unpunished in one way or another, twice as much in a woman as in a man...

Clarinda doesn't seem to mind the life of being apart from her husband and his being in danger at all; but perhaps she is insensitive?

ML

"It is as if Gaskell is determined that Sylvia be disillusioned. Critics point out that Philip breaks the first commandment, but perhaps Sylvia, in idealising Kinraid does too and of course, Gaskell would have none of that going unpunished in one way or another, twice as much in a woman as in a man..."

I think you're right; Gaskell forces Sylvia into a no-win situation. If she had married Kinraid, unhappiness ensues as you've pointed out in following the logical arc of that story. We see what's happened to Philip, whose neediness for love and then forgiveness sucks the life out of Sylvia.

Why Gaskell has set up this situation that leads to a short, unhappy life for Sylvia seems to be a central question the reader has to wrestle with.

Is it punishment?

I've seen much later feminist writers (Marilyn French, Marge Piercey) punish their heroines: Hold out an independent path to freedom (e.g., Sylvia goes back to Haytersbank with Kester), which the protagonist rejects out of some sense of duty to convention or timidity--and she ends badly.

One of the reasons I found those novels very unsatisfying was b/c it seemed wrong to try to build up the "sisterhood" by criticizing other women, when the real villains were attitudes and laws that allowed for various inequities between the sexes.

I'm not sure, however, that Gaskell is following this line of later feminist writers. Moreover, I don't think that Victorian women esteemed complete personal freedom in the same regard we do now. The goal of life was to resist being a trial to oneself and others, and to live a life of service.

In North and South it is clear that Gaskell sees women as victims of attitudes, laws, and economic forces. Even Hannah Thornton, the widow who is as much a mill owner as her son, though she has no legal claim to the business, has become hardened and unempathetic because of the hard life she led as a former mill worker. Yet it is also women who improve conditions in the mills. The end is no Utopia, but Gaskell seems clearly to be making a case that good, upright women have a moral obligation to exercise the influence they can, and that their influence can make a difference.

Sylvia is kind of a moper and does a lot of woe-is-me-ing, but never really comes to grasp the influence she might wield. She can't transcend her personal misery to see that she might live a life of service to others, and thereby find happiness. This is her tragedy. Her punishment? I'm not sure Gaskell was quite that cruel.

Fascinating stuff, Noht4me2. Yes, I think Gaskell was for some reason setting up a sitaution, as you say, which was 'no win' for Sylvia, and again as you say, she had far less belief in personal autonomy for woman than later feminists - would indeed, as a minister's dutiful wife, no doubt have resisted such a term (if it existed then; I must admit to ignorance about that; never did read the earlier Mary Woolenstoncraft).

This being so, what was she aiming at? You suggest a vision of 'good upright woman have a moral obligation to exercise the influence they can, and that their influence can make a difference.'

That could well be it; it might be why Gaskell puts Sylvia in a situation where she has to go and live in a household with Alice and Hester?

It may well be that as Alice Rose's version of religion is so abhorrant to me - not being based on loving kindness but a sort of elitism- I underestimate that spiritual influence that she is meant to wield. For sure she does teach the ignorant Sylvia to read (for some reason, t he task is allocated to her and not to the more congenial if gloomy Hester) and this may have some bearing on it all. They are a household of women who believe in 'duty' and we may assume that Gaskell as a Victorian moralist was big on duty and it is, after all, a version of what you say about using influence in a positive way.

Perhaps Sylvia is to use her influence in a singularly domestic, limited way there, softening Alice, doing the work that's near at hand (she becomes an excellent housekeeper, it says somewhere in the third volume). In turn Alice teaches her to read and she has access t o the bible. I mustn't underestimate how important that must have been to a minister's wife.

Sylvia had more religious convictions before than Alice would believe, though these seem to be muddled. In her histrionic speech (wonderful description of Graham Handley's in his 'Not es on Sylvia's Lovers') she says to Kinraid of Philip 'He's spoilt my life...but neither yo' nor him shall spoil my soul...I'll nivir see you again on this side heaven so help me God!...I've sworn my oath to him as well as yo'. There's things I will do, and things I won't...'

So she does seem to take strong account of her marriage vow in church, but doesn't seem to see the contradiction in swearing never to forgive Philip at the same time. It's odd, that, as her mother is depicted as religious, though not a regular churchgoer.

You are right in saying that Sylvia does seem to become a bit negative, or anyway, not a positive force. She has such positive qualties at the beginning, of passion, loyalty, liveliness, etc, it seems od. But note when they seem to vanish. As soon as he falls in love...After that, her whole life inevitably becomes subservient to what happens with the man she is besotted with; she never seems to recover her spirits after Kinraid vanishes, pr esumed drowned. Much later, when Philip sees her looking rosy watching the carnival, that is a flash in the pan, for she never seems to get her colour back properly either.

For sure, that is mirrored consistently in later literature where heroines usually lose autonomy, their sense of humour, etc once they fall in love. I noted it with dismay in 'City of Bones' when I read it to my daughter.

Part of the problem may be that the third volume is so rushed; we don't hear what Sylvia's life is like day to day. There may be various pointers which Gaskell thought that she had included but in her rush, left out?

One doesn't like to think that Gaskell was punishing poor Sylvia, who may have been a fool to worship Kinraid so undeservedy, but who was showing characteristics in t hemseves admirable when she did so (loyalty, forgetfulness of self etc) but (rant, rant) Gaskell does seem particularly hard on female characters as she isn't on males, for instance,her treatment of poor Ruth...

Goodness,I have gone on again. You will be amazed...

ML

ML, I'm watching the last installment of "Prohibition" on PBS this tonight. Will be back to comment soon! Thinking lots about your post above, though!

No hurry Nohrt4me2....

ML

"What was she aiming at?" Yeah, that's the Big Question, isn't it? I think the book is flawed--but, then, I don't hope to understand it in the same way someone in the middle 1800s did.

I don't think Gaskell likes Alice's religion, either. Unitarians would be against that kind of superstition. Moreover, I think we're meant to understand Alice's religion as, perhaps, a backlash of her hasty marriage to a drunken sailor.

And Gaskell makes a somewhat disparaging remark about Alice's notions about the Bible and reading of other books.

In any case, the Bible is no comfort to Sylvia, and neither is religion. It has made Hester (and to some extent Alice) a good woman, but it hasn't made her happy.

Yes, I think we're meant to admire Sylvia in her "sylvan" state as a young girl, before she falls in love.

I do like the way Gaskell weaves Sylvia and Hester together. They are sort of like negative images of each other. Both are in love, both live in town, both are unhappy for largely the same reasons, but one is all reason and duty, and the other is all passion and feeling. Is Gaskell saying all women's lives are horrid? Or that women should shoot for some Golden Mean? But if so, what is that? Who's the woman who shows us the Golden Mean? Nobody.

Hello, Noht4me2, sorry about delay in replying to your fascinating message. I became inundated myself! Your remakrs are really interesting.

I wonder if Gaskell wrote a novel, accidentally, that raised more questions than answers that could be given within the constrictions of her religious beliefs and notions of propriety?
I tend to think so. Perhaps she took the view that such muddles could only be sorted out in the next world.

I know a couple of critics say that she changed her plan and this was why the three volumes sit uneasily together, the comparatively happy unrestrained first, the gloomy and confining second, the melodramatic third. One cr itic (I've forgotten his name, John Something) even suggests Kinraid was the original hero - but his being so doesn't make sense to me, he is depicted too superficially and I find it hard to believe that the serious minded Gaskell would have portrayed a 'hero' with his particular frailties, fickleness, etc.

Your points about Sylvia and Hester being types of mirror images of each other is intriguing. I t hink I said somewhere back that Philip and Kinraid would make a more satisfactory character if combined because they are too much polar opposites, as if Gaskell had written out a balance sheet 'outgoing/introverted handsome/plain dependable/history of being undependable etc. Sylvia and Hester start off very different but they come to be more like each other but only through Sylvia becoming humbled, remorseful and saddened as the end of t he story approaches.

Your right, t here isn't a character who respresents the Golden Mean, unless that is meant t o be represented in Bella, whose later history we don't know.

I find the thought of Predestination - like Gaskell - so grotesque that I have never been able to understand how people can reconcile it with the notion of a merciful Creator
(or indeed, belief in eternal punishment at all) so I can understand why she pokes fun at Alice's dismal beliefs.
I find it odd that Sylvia's mother (as you say, !) who is meant to have some religious beliefs, never seems to have told her that to swear an oath never to forgive someone is unchristian. Oddly, too, why does Sylvia stick to her marriage vows in one way, in refusing to go off with Kinraid, yet take some sort of irreligous vow against Philip? Gaskell says she has a 'superstitious fear' of breaking this. I found that odd and confused.

"I wonder if Gaskell wrote a novel, accidentally, that raised more questions than answers that could be given within the constrictions of her religious beliefs and notions of propriety? I tend to think so. Perhaps she took the view that such muddles could only be sorted out in the next world."

Yes, exactly. I think Gaskell must have found herself in a quandary. I would be really interested in reading some criticism about the novel. I think the idea that she changed her plan maybe shows that she was trying to think something through and felt there wasn't an answer.

She sort of does leave Sylvia's fate to heaven. She kills her off rather hastily and seems to hustle things to an end as if she'd hit a wall.

I agree about predestination. If it's all rigged ahead of time, why bother trying? I know some Calvinists who say it's more nuanced than that, but it just makes my head hurt.

It would be interesting to look at the critical reception of the book when it was published. I keep picking at what Gaskell is trying to be saying about religion, theology, superstitions, conventions, morality, and I wonder how it was viewed then.

Modern critics seem to find Jane Austen's "Mansfield Park" difficult because the protagonists, Fannie and Edmund, are both earnest, humorless, fussy, and religious (Edmund is a clergyman). But, as I recall, it was very popular at the time, and, while Austen's father was an Anglican clergyman, she sure skewered a lot of them in her novels.

Hey, Noght4me2, there's a book concerning just that by Angus Easson: -'Elizabeth Gaskell: The Critical Heritage' London Routledge 1991, that I believe gives a whole range of contemporary reviews. I have only read extracts from a few which are printed as part of my copy of t he novel, which is the Everyman edition.

Some of them seem to miss the point, and t o interpret it as a tragic romantic novel, or that was the impression I got from
some of the reviews. One conventional male critic calls Sylvia 'A self willed vixen'. Well, you can imagine how shocking her vow never to forgive Philip would be to Victorian males.

I read an interesting article on the web about story telling in Sylvia's Lovers, I think by Patsy Stoneman, feminist in tone.
She mentions in it, I think, how Sylvia's true story, and her betrayals remain untold.

Well. Why didn't WE think of that? Self-willed vixens always come to grief, as well they should, even in those Russ Meyer porn movies.

So, now I have to go read some Gaskell criticism.

I've been trying to cobble up a light-hearted "Marxist Criticism: The Literary Life of Groucho Marx." I wonder if he read Gaskell? He read just about everything.

Lol, Nohteme2!

I find the paucity of literary crticism on Sylvia's Lovers disappointing.

I liked Graham Handley's little book on it because he seemed to be the only crtiic who ever noticed the massive irony of Charley Kinraid's having a glittering career in the Navy after he'd killed off two press gang members. Even the characters don't seem to see that, but I think Gaskell portrayed that deliberately as a comment on (as you say above somewhere) t he unfairness of justice in this world.

By contrast, poor bumbling Daniel, on the other hand, gets hanged for being the instigator of the riot, during which property was destroyed but no people killed.

Geoffrey Sharps has a huge volume on Gaskell I got via t he British Library that includes a good sect ion on Sylvia's Lovers, but of course, they were men, and pre feminist men at that, and the things women see in it, naturally they don't.

It always comes down to t his for me; why did Gaskell have to make poor Philip so drooping and unattractive? Why did he have to have not t he slightest chance as a sexual rival against Kinraid? It would have been so much more interesting if he had had a lot of attraction, and Sylvia blind to it, mourning obsessively over Kinraid. I don't see why he can't have been like Jem in Mary Barton, and attractive enough, but not as obviously so as Harry Whatsit?

Apropos Fanny and Edmund in Mansfield Park, of course, you are right. Austen was very devout and I suppose Fanny (ironically called!) represented that whereas Elizabeth Bennet was her light side, though she has a strong moral code.
I think some modern critics actively resent, a s you say, the religious message of Sylvia's Lovers.