Cranford: Analysis of Setting
"Cranford: Analysis of Setting" explores the social dynamics and physical environment of the fictional English village of Cranford, inspired by Knutsford in Cheshire. This setting is characterized by its predominantly female population, including widows, spinsters, and visiting unmarried women, while the town's men are typically absent, engaged in work in the nearby industrial city of Drumble. The arrival of the railroad threatens to disrupt the town's leisurely routines, which revolve around domestic activities such as needlework, tea gatherings, and card games.
Cranford is described as a modestly sized town, complete with shops and an inn, yet it is portrayed as somewhat insular, with its residents rarely venturing beyond its borders. Contrast is drawn between Cranford and Drumble, the latter being depicted as a bustling, masculine environment that evokes mixed feelings among Cranford's female inhabitants. The narrative includes a mention of Woodley, the estate of the late Thomas Holbrook, which represents a more vibrant lifestyle compared to the rigid social structure of Cranford. Additionally, Paris emerges as a distant and enigmatic place, reinforcing the theme of contrasting locales and the limited perspectives of the Cranford women. Overall, the analysis highlights how the setting reflects and shapes the characters' lives in both a physical and social context.
Cranford: Analysis of Setting
First published: 1851-1853
Type of work: Novel
Type of plot: Domestic realism
Time of work: Early nineteenth century
Asterisk denotes entries on real places.
Places Discussed
Cranford
Cranford. English village modeled on Knutsford in Cheshire, where Elizabeth Gaskell spent part of her childhood, A country town larger than a village, Cranford is “in possession of the Amazons,” in that its patterns of social life and mores are dictated almost exclusively by widows, spinsters, occasional younger unmarried women visitors, and maid servants. Husbands, if they exist, are away on business all week in the neighboring commercial city of Drumble. However, as Drumble is only twenty miles away by railroad, the creation of a railroad line nearby threatens to destabilize the comfortable routines of morning needlework, afternoon calls, and early evening tea parties followed by serious card playing. None of the women, with the exception of Mary Smith, the youthful narrator and frequent visitor from outside, seems ever to leave the town. However, Cranford is, in fact, large enough to possess an inn and a number of shops, including a millinery establishment and a century-old assembly room attached to the inn, which once held balls and parties of county families but is now rarely used. Mary Smith notes that Cranford’s aging population does not read or walk much, so the settings the reader encounters most often are modest cottage interiors, usually at tea time.
Woodley
Woodley. Country estate of Thomas Holbrook, whom Miss Matty might have married except for her sister’s disapproval of his modest social rank. When Miss Matty and Mary visit the estate in June after a chance encounter only a few months before Mr. Holbrook’s death, readers are treated to roses, currant bushes, feathery asparagus, gilly-flowers, and an old-fashioned but comfortable house. Here is a setting for a wider and fuller life than Miss Matty can live in Cranford, whose social strictures are so stiff and precise that Holbrook for many years made Misselton, four or five miles in the opposite direction from his estate, his market town after Miss Matty refused his offer of marriage.
Drumble
Drumble. City about twenty miles away from Cranford. It is probably modeled on the large industrial English city of Manchester, which bears the same relationship to Knutsford that Drumble bears to Cranford. In contrast to Cranford, Drumble seems to be an almost entirely masculine destination, although Mary Smith does shop there after returning to her father’s house and before coming back to visit Miss Matty again. The city is never pictured directly but is often spoken of, albeit with a certain ambivalence, a place to be viewed both warily and respectfully.
*Paris
*Paris. France’s capital city, like Drumble, remains a distant, even more remote presence, and again primarily a masculine one. In the minds of the Cranford ladies, Holbrook’s death is probably a consequence of his having visited there. In a later episode set in Cranford, the former Jessie Brown and her husband visit Paris and send as a gift to a Cranfordite a newly chic hoopskirt; the local residents are so baffled by the alien elegance of the metal framework that they believe it to be a parrot cage.
Bibliography
Auerbach, Nina. Communities of Women: An Idea in Fiction. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1978. Stresses the virtues of Cranford as a cooperative female community and speculates that the novel may have been influenced by Gaskell’s friendship with Charlotte Brontë.
Keating, Peter, ed. Introduction to “Cranford” and “Cousin Phillis,” by Elizabeth Gaskell. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin, 1976. An informative introduction that stresses Cranford’s representations of social change.
Schor, Hilary M. Scheherezade in the Marketplace: Elizabeth Gaskell and the Victorian Novel. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. Explores Cranford’s experimentation with narrative, which is especially interesting for its references to other literary works and for its narrator’s attentiveness to Miss Matty’s hidden “woman’s story.”
Stoneman, Patsy. Elizabeth Gaskell. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987. A survey of Gaskell’s works that stresses Cranford’s depiction of women as limited and marginalized by society. Includes a useful bibliography on Gaskell, Victorian women and women writers, and feminist theory and literary criticism.
Uglow, Jennifer. Elizabeth Gaskell: A Habit of Stories. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1993. An excellent biography that describes Gaskell’s writing of Cranford and discusses perceptively the novel’s themes, characters, and structure. Sees the novel as “an appeal against separate spheres” for men and women.