![]() ![]() ![]() I understand this, but it makes it hard for me, as a modern reader, to be interested in her as a character. ![]() Of course, her real fault is that she is a "fallen woman," which is exactly why Gaskell made her so unrealistically good and pure - she had to make Ruth perfect in order to show that she was unfairly punished for one mistake she made in her youth. (Or maybe one reason I don't like Ruth as a character, though, is because of her masochistic insistence on beating herself up over one mistake, a trait that is uncomfortably familiar to me.) These are the kinds of faults that you give when you're asked on your job interview what your shortcomings are - they are, in a sense, strengths disguised as faults. Benson keep saying she has faults, but her faults seem to be that she is too proud to accept gifts or handouts and that she is overprotective of her son. in my opinion, too good to be very attached to as a reader. A lot of people say that Victorian heroines are always too good to be true, and I can see that point, but Ruth seriously is too good. Unlike some of the other readers, I did not love the character of Ruth. It's funny Gaskell's novels seems to me to be what everyone thinks of as a "Victorian novel," and yet she is not really read or taught widely. ![]()
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