Elizabeth GaskellのWives and Daughters : governessのテーマをめぐって

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It is generally said that Elizabeth Gaskell, unlike many nineteenthcentury women writers, thought comparatively little of the governess question. But she was well aware of the matter and depicted governess life so vividly and accurately in Wives and Daughters, the author's last novel. In Wives and Daughters there are two governesses. One is Mrs. Kirkpatrick, nee Clare, a widow, who had been a governess before her marriage and now manages a private school at Ashcombe, a small town close to Hollingford. She becomes the second wife of Mr. Gibson, Molly's father. The other is Cynthia Kirkpatrick, the new Mrs. Gibson's daughter by her first husband. It is true that Cynthia doesn't get an actual position as a governess in the novel, but there is a very fair possibility of her becoming a governess. She is at school in France trying to perfect herself in the French language. Her main purpose is to improve her prospects as governess or teacher. Cynthia is nearly eighteen, old enough to go out as a governess. There was really no socially acceptable position of women except governesses. If a girl, a spinster or a widow of good family had to earn her living, she had to go out as a governess to a strange family, or manage a school at the best. Clare had been a governess to the young ladies at the Towers, the Cumnors' country house, and is their favourite and is treated in a patronizing fashion. She makes good use of favour with the great family, and can escape the usual fate of the governess by remarrying wealthy Dr. Gibson, the Cumnors' family doctor. On the other hand Cynthia wants to carve out her own future. Teaching is her original intention and she doesn't regard a marriage as a means of escaping her bitter fate. As she is a very beautiful girl, she is loved by many men and finally marries Mr. Henderson, a rich barrister. Her marriage, unlike her mother's, is the natural result of love, not the calculated end attained to escape the odious work as governess. Besides, each of her lovers, consciously or not, takes a critical attitude toward old-fashioned people of Hollingford. Cynthia also, like her sister-in-law, Molly the heroine, has a new view of marriage. Through these two types of governesses, Gaskell shows the difference between the old one of Mrs. Gibson who has no choice except marriage and the new one of Cynthia who can change her own fate by struggling against the group prejudices or hoary fallacies in Hollingford.
桃山学院大学の論文
1991-01-25

Elizabeth GaskellのWives and Daughters : governessのテーマをめぐって

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