ENGL 510: The City in the 19th Century

OKAY EVERYBODY now that you have all hopefully finished the book, my post will no longer be a spoiler alert. If it still is then too bad so sad. No but really. Wasn’t the ending kinda, you know, lame? Here we have an epic tale of class vs. class and it just ends. With no really winner except for love. Frankly I’m sick of such endings...anyways...

"Many of the improvements now in practice in the system of employment in Manchester, owe their origins in short earnest sentences spoken by Mr. Carson" (page 374)

Well here, our lovely friend, Gaskell wants us to have a nice, lovely, and tidy ending for not only Mary and her beau but for all her little factory friends. I'm not trying to be cynical but after reading excerpts from Engels, Vaughan and all the others, I doubt Carson did anything for these people...or anyone like Carson for that matter

I mean did her and Eliot have a pow wow about how to rob us from a legit ending? I mean Eliot gives us a slight hint to Silas losing his job because of the revolution...and we see his old town demolished into crap town USA....but he still has that lovely fairy tale ending. 

So dude, what are we supposed to get out of such endings? I get it, Eliot was bringing in Realism and all that jazz and Gaskell was trying to break boundaries...but at least give us the right Reality. Love is great, everyone should have it at one point in their lives, but that cannot be a solution to a story. 

Barton's father killed Mary's only chance of having a comfy rich life. Again, i sound really messed up but that's reality sometimes. Then Jem almost dies for her, which is all nice, but he prevails and ends up in Canada.

OH CMON...

it took John like days to walk to London and here Jem is galavanting around.

Whatever, clearly i'm bitter. 

What doesn't the ending tell us? hm?

that the revolution continued to ruin lives.

That the revolution killed children and tore families apart

that the revolution did n't get better til much later on?

hey that's realism baby!

Engels and Gaskell should have combined their stories and had a legit ending. 

my vote!