Mary Barton's Contemporaries

Of all the reviews contained in this Norton Edition, one stands out as just very odd. The Long Strike: A Drama in Four Acts really seems out of place as review for Mary Barton itself because it's more of a retelling only in play form and it seems to have convoluted Gaskell's initial story of the Industrial Revolution. But none of this is really what I want to talk about I just thought it odd. I read a multitude of the first few reviews and they all practically restated the same things about the novel's good points and accurate portrayal of the living conditions in Manchester so nothing of note there, but it was in Leon Faucher's piece that an idea struck me.


Faucher's piece is not a review of Mary Barton per se, but it describes the time period of the novel in more of a historical context. Faucher outlines the poor state of the citizens and the rise of machinations that take over the factories and lower the jobs available. Later on, Faucher brings in class struggles and mentions that "evil exists on both sides" (418) in regards to both the poor holding strikes and revolts while the upper echelons neglect or harass the poor right back. This sort of back and forth, Faucher argues, is the most unnecessary and oftentimes foolish attempt to fix England's problems.

Now the important part, Faucher mentions a very interesting idea that he puts very bluntly, "if industrial wealth could only be obtained by the sacrifice of everything which constitutes the strength of a people, it would be a hundred times better to renounce it altogether" (418). Faucher even compares this idea to the loss of one's humanity, which certainly shows in John Barton's character. Throughout the novel this idea gets played out but never carried through with most characters because they step back towards their humanity and make sure industrialization does not cannibalize them, either that or they are swallowed and destroyed such as the Davenports and the aforementioned John Barton.

John allows this industrial age to dictate his hatred towards those that are prosperous but have no sense of humanity left, and therefore he himself falls into shadows and ruin for that which he cannot attain. On the reverse side, Carson really never shows a care for those being negatively affected by this industrial wealth until he sees the small boy knock over the girl and hears her shrug off the boy for not knowing what he was doing. He then actively sees John for a person and not a murderer thus gaining some semblance of humanity lost due to his wealth and status. While a few characters notice the shift and stay human in their interactions with others, society as a whole also showed the darkside of having industrialization rip apart communities and show how the factories were an unfair environment(strikes, mill fire, failed chartists), but if society did follow Faucher's idea and abandon all of it then the conditions of England's people would have been much worse for a longer duration of time. The death of many to help secure a better place among the future world powers as opposed to a radically un-technological country unfit to compete in the latter 1800's and early 1900's, was it worth the great class and industrial wealth schisms? the people like the chartists and others who actively got changes to the industrial environment helped to make all the strife worth it.