Still, with all the fervor of youth, Ruth has convinced herself that she loves Bellingham. Her dreaminess seems to irritate him, as when they’re stuck inside at the inn due to bad weather. Ruth and Bellingham seem ill-suited, as she’s young and dreamy and he’s jaded and cranky. The intervening time is very lightly alluded to, and in fact a small part of me was hoping Ruth wasn’t really ruined (admittedly it seemed unlikely that the selfish Bellingham would be taking care of Ruth while getting nothing in return). Several months later, Ruth and Bellingham are staying at an inn in Wales on holiday. Just like that, the trap is closed Bellingham has the perfect excuse to “take care” of Ruth, and Ruth doesn’t have any other options, besides dying in a ditch, I guess.

One Sunday when returning from a long walk (she had taken him to visit her childhood home), Ruth and Bellingham are caught on the road by her employer, who fires Ruth on the spot. Bellingham soon begin pursuing Ruth, who seems almost unaware of the nature of his interest in her she’s that innocent. She’s also very beautiful, and her beauty catches the eye of Henry Bellingham when she is tasked one evening with waiting on the ladies at a ball and repairing their gowns as needed. She has just been orphaned and her indifferent guardian finds her the position Ruth is barely 15 years old. The story opens with Ruth having recently taken up a post as a seamstress in a Victorian sweatshop. Ruth does the same (and the results are not much better), though for all her atoning for her “sin” she is an incredibly, painfully innocent heroine. I do know the general plot, though, and have picked up the idea that Tess is doomed because she has sex outside of marriage. I’ve never read Tess I tread very lightly with Hardy after my traumatic experience with Jude the Obscure. I will start by saying that I somehow stumbled across this being described as a bit of an antidote to Hardy’s Tess of D’Urbervilles.

She reminds me of Anne Bronte, the least flashy of the Bronte sisters IMO (and of course Gaskell was famously a friend and biographer of Charlotte Bronte).Īnyway, Ruth. I don’t know why I haven’t read everything Gaskell’s written already since I really do enjoy her realistic and emotionally sensitive writing. Still, it was a number of years before I tried another of her works I read Mary Barton last year. I eventually read both books and liked them each quite well. I also watched and adored the PBS adaption of Cranford, a very different kind of story. I was first turned onto Gaskell’s work not in print but by the miniseries version of North and South, which I love.

Ruth by Elizabeth Gaskell