The Politics of Shame in Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South

Reconsidering the politics of feeling in the condition-of-England novel, this paper argues that what characterises Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South is not so much its investment in sympathy as its preoccupation with shame. As a powerful narrative device, shame functions not only as a gender- but above all as a class-related affect that motivates the plot and shapes the encounters between the characters. I will explore how shame is deployed as an important mechanism in the negotiation of the characters' class conflicts and in the cultural work of this condition-of-England novel.

Anja Hartl is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at the University of Innsbruck, Austria. She is the author of Brecht and Post-1990s British Drama: Dialectical Theatre Today (Bloomsbury, 2021). In her postdoctoral project, she explores shame in the Victorian novel. She has published on contemporary British theatre, the Victorian novel, Shakespeare, adaptation, and border studies, and co-edits the Bloomsbury Methuen Drama Agitations series.

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