Plasticity,Recycled Characters and Beloved Brothers: Part One: Elizabeth Gaskell
In an earlier post, I discussed how Elizabeth Gaskell used a particular character type – suely largely based on her lost and beloved brother – the charming, brave, dashing and handsome sailor, three times, in slightly different variations.
She used this character type possibly for times, if I count the returned sailor ‘Poor Peter’ in ‘Cranford’ ( I have yet to read that).
This reuse of a character type, is in fact, is contrary to the cliam which WA Craik makes of the author n her 1970 work ‘Elizabeth Gaskell and the English Provincial Novel’, that this author never revisits character types or situations. This is so untrue, that I was startled by it. It seems to show a startling lack of perception on the part of that biographer.
Having read some biographies of Elizbeth Gaskell, I am always struck by the fact that she never properly got over the…
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