‘Domestic Mobility’ and Elizabeth Gaskell as a Victorian Woman Writer

This thesis argues for a re-reading of Elizabeth Gaskell through her interest in and portrayals of domesticity both at home and abroad. I consider her own extensive travel and travel observations, and suggest that her travels might have helped to cultivate her global consciousness: this then shapes her portrayal of domesticity. In turn, I show how her writings have travelled to foreign countries, and explore her translation and reception history in China. To explore this nuanced and reciprocal idea, I use the term ‘Domestic Mobility’ to evaluate Gaskell’s embodiment of both nineteenth-century domesticity and mobility. My thesis explores the concept from a number of different angles: firstly, I argue that her nonfiction, including her travel writings and her letters, pays significant attention to domestic details even when abroad. I begin with a close reading of her treatment of the domestic in these different cultural contexts, before moving on to examine the implications of the domestic items she chooses to include in her fiction – items which often silently tell stories of globalization and Empire, such as tea. In the first section of my thesis, I explore what Gaskell found significant in her travels and sought to translate for her audience back at home. In section two, I focus on domestic details in her fiction and how they communicate meanings beyond words. In this way, the material level of domesticity lays the foundation of material mobility in Gaskell’s narrative. In the final part of my thesis, I look at Gaskell’s fiction from a global standpoint, thinking about how the narratives of domesticity of Cranford are translated for a Chinese audience. The concluding case study of such a cultural practice then affords another way to evaluate the strong mobility of the writer’s domesticity, and its relevance to China’s modernity.