In Elizabeth Gaskell’s works, gardens emerge as a potent metaphor for Victorian ideals, particularly those tied to femininity, class, and domesticity. In an era when gardens symbolised order and beauty, they also mirrored the rigid roles women were expected to perform.
Elizabeth’s use of gardens in novels such as North and South and Wives and Daughters offers a profound commentary on how these spaces reflect and challenge women’s positions in a world defined by strict social hierarchies.
In North and South, the natural, unspoiled, unpolluted beauty of the Hale family’s southern home epitomises Margaret’s life before her relocation to the industrial North. It represents a world of serenity and tradition, where domestic and passive roles of women are inconspicuously reinforced. Yet, when Margaret moves to Milton, the garden shifts in significance, mirroring her personal transformation. It is here that her connection to the garden evolves from a symbol of genteel domesticity to a space of private rebellion, reflecting her growing awareness of class struggle and industrialisation. Industrialisation had destroyed nature to make way for man’s progress. But Margaret has to ask whether this is wrong or whether this emboldens and emancipates the marginalised, such as the poor and women. Then, when Margaret returns to Helstone, this visit becomes a sanctuary for introspection, a place where she can contemplate the moral and social complexities she now faces.
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Again, Elizabeth’s personal correspondence and diaries further illuminate her affinity for nature as a space for personal reflection and resistance against the pressures of a Victorian society.
In her letters, she often describes walking in her own garden as a means to find solace and clarity amidst the strains of womanhood (as seen in the quote to the left which is in the garden at the House).
This intimate relationship with nature echoes throughout her characters, many of whom find in gardens a rare moment of freedom to question their prescribed roles.
In Victorian literature, gardens often represented social status and the control over women’s lives, as seen in works like The Mill on the Floss, where the garden at St. Ogg’s reflects the limitations placed on women’s freedom and choices. In contrast, Elizabeth’s use of gardens goes beyond this typical role. For her characters, gardens become stages for subtle rebellion and personal reflection, offering subtle critiques of the social norms that confine them. While gardens in novels like Wuthering Heights reflect the untamed passions and chaos of the characters, Elizabeth’s gardens provide a more fertile soil for female characters, one where her female protagonists can contest and sometimes break free from the expectations placed upon them.
Blog by Caroline Malcolm-Boulton
As well as being a big fan of North and South, Caroline is a freelance writer, journalist and published fanfiction writer. She can be found on Facebook as The Scribbler CMB and you can read an extended versions of this article on Caroline’s blog.
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Caroline Malcolm Boulton interviews top fanfiction writers Trudy Brasure, Elaine Owen and Philipa Holt to look at how they have been inspired by North and South to take up the pen in the name of Elizabeth Gaskell.
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