Elizabeth Gaskell, "We Are Not Angels"

the long version

In this close reading of her fiction, Terence Wright shows how Mrs Gaskell's poetic realism illuminates human, and particularly female, psychology, including the need for self-creating values if women are to retain their integrity in a society which seeks to label them as 'angels', 'witches' or 'martyrs'. Gaskell also deals with issues of concern to both sexes - the relation of the contingent and the absolute, the power of words, and the need to see a meaning in the shape of our lives. But above all Gaskell's voice speaks for the loving and suffering individual, and her trust that we have 'all one human heart'.