Mary Barton (Cyclopedia of Literary Characters)
At a glance:
- Author: Elizabeth Cleghorn Stevenson
- First Published: 1848
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Social realism
- Time of Work: First half of the nineteenth century
- Setting: Manchester, England
- Genres: Long fiction, Social realism
- Subjects: Factories, Suffering, Class conflict, Murder or homicide, Gender roles, Nineteenth century, Social issues, Alienation, Depression, economic, Class consciousness, Trials, England or English people, Working class, Ambition, Unions or unionism, Victorian era or Victorianism
- Locales: Liverpool, England, Manchester, England
Characters Discussed
Mary Barton, the protagonist. By the end of the novel, Mary represents an ideal of Victorian femininity. Much of the novel traces Mary’s development toward this ideal as it comes into conflict with the reality of her social standing. Mary is the ambitious daughter of a laborer. Her prescribed social role is to remain at home, running the household, but she fantasizes about a marriage that would cross class boundaries and allow her to become a lady. She constructs these fantasies around her thoughts about her aunt Esther, who ran away with a soldier. Mary...
[The entire page is 1214 words long]
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