Mary Barton

About “Mary Barton”

Mary Barton, the daughter of a disillusioned trade unionist, rejects her working-class lover Jem Wilson to pursue a relationship with Henry Carson, the son of a mill owner, hoping to improve her life and her father's. When Henry is shot and Jem is suspected, Mary is torn between the two men. The novel, set during the 'hungry forties,' highlights the class divisions of the industrial revolution through Mary's personal struggles and her father's character, an embittered but courageous activist. Mary Barton (1848) reflects the social and political tensions of the time and foreshadows themes found in Elizabeth Gaskell's later works, such as North and South.