Mary Barton: Allusions 4 key examples

The parable of Dives and Lazarus—which figured into English folk songs—would have supplied reference as immediately recognizable to readers then as today. The story offers solace in the face of gaping inequality. Dives is rich and Lazarus is poor. But when both die, Dives languishes in Hell while Lazarus ascends to Heaven. Death turns the tables, promising that the poor will receive their heavenly reward.

Stories like these would have been common in a Victorian era that counseled prudence, sincerity, and meek propriety. In the beginning, it at least sustains John Barton’s hope for just punishment of the rich. But as the injustices pile on, his patience thins. Religion—however compelling its narratives—begins to fail him.

Dives and Lazarus get mentioned later in the novel as well, suggesting the novel’s deep resonance with the parable. It also sets up the slight irony of the novel’s end, in which John and Mr. Carson add their own twist to the story. The murderer and grieving father form a Dives-Lazarus pair themselves; this time, though, neither seems headed for Heaven. John Barton lays dying while the factory owner is tormented by his loss. Both suffer alike. With its characters trapped on earth, the novel resolves its inter-class conflict less with divine judgment than with a strange, tortured equality.

Frankenstein provides an unlikely parallel to the novel. Shelley’s work—whose primary focus is on the perils of unfettered technology—translates itself in surprising ways to Mary Barton’s social context. Gaskell’s allusion mistakenly compares the working poor to Frankenstein, the scientist who creates the monster, rather than the monster itself. But the suggestion is still there: in mentioning the story of a mad science experiment gone awry, the novel warns the upper class about its own unjust practices. Every monster is the product of its maker. Frankenstein abandons scientific guardrails in his reckless pursuit of advancement and innovation. And in the case of England’s “uneducated” class, Gaskell points a finger towards the rich. She calls out the social and economic forces that marginalize the less fortunate. She recognizes how systemic injustices can contribute to disgruntlement and ignorance. In so doing, she shows the country’s rich how its lopsided social conditions are beasts of their own making.

These classical allusions call attention to the doomed nature of Mr. Carson’s pursuit. “Are ye worshippers of Christ? or of Alecto?” the narrator asks, referencing the Fury of vengeance that bears snakes for hair and punishes mortals for their crimes. The novel wades still deeper into classical culture with its mention of Orestes, the son who avenges his father by killing his faithless mother and lover. In two strokes, it assembles a tragic cornerstone of Greek mythology. Driven to madness after his murderous act, Orestes gets pursued by Alecto and the Furies as punishment and nearly haunted to no end. Here, the reference suggests that Mr. Carson’s thirst for blood only destines him for still greater sadness.

The novel’s use of allusion supports a moral appeal, too. By summoning up this canon of classics, the narrator’s commentary pits paganism against Christianity; it contrasts connotations of crudeness with the ideals of grace and mercy. The narrator’s sarcastic remark—which imagines Orestes as a “very tolerable Christian”—criticizes Mr. Carson for his similarly narrow-minded vengefulness. The narrator hints, in other words, that nineteenth-century Christians weren't very Christian.

Helen of Troy—daughter of Zeus and human embodiment of beauty—supplies the moment with a knot of connotations. Gaskell alludes to a landmark of classical mythology that clarifies the dynamics in the courtroom. In the Greek legends, Helen had been offered by Aphrodite as a reward to Paris. Overjoyed at being selected as the most beautiful goddess, Aphrodite abducts the queen from King Menelaus and single-handedly precipitates a decades-long war. The ensuing conflict—told through the Iliad—ends up costing thousands of lives and ruining an entire city.

Here, the allusion feeds into Mary’s portrait of ravishing female beauty. She is helpless, passive, and gorgeous, the object of burning desire for both Jem and Harry. At this moment, her beauty also misleads the spectators to construct their own narratives. Mary’s double affections have no part in Harry’s actual murder. But in Mr. Carson’s mind she is guilty all the same, a lightning rod for the cascade of fatal consequences.