Mary Barton

by

Elizabeth Gaskell

Mary Barton Character Analysis

Golden-haired, blue-eyed Mary Barton is daughter to John Barton and Mrs. Barton and the niece to Esther. A high-spirited girl, Mary decides young that she wants to use her beauty to marry out of working-class poverty and become a “lady.” She strikes up a flirtation with mill owner’s son Harry Carson, assuming that he’ll marry her. She is too naïve, however, to realize that Harry only seeks to “ruin” her. When Mary’s childhood friend Jem Wilson, who has loved her for years, proposes, she rejects him—only to realize too late that she loves Jem, not Harry. Mary breaks off her flirtation with Harry and waits for Jem to propose again. Shortly after, Harry is murdered with Jem’s gun, and Jem is arrested. When Esther brings Mary the wadded shot used in the fatal encounter, Mary recognizes the paper as a valentine from Jem that she repurposed to write out a poem for her father—meaning her father killed Harry. Mary burns the wadded shot, resolving to absolve Jem without implicating her father. She chases down and secures Jem’s alibi in the form of Will Wilson, a sailor who was with Jem at the time of the murder. At Jem’s trial, Mary declares her love for Jem, and Will’s testimony gets Jem acquitted. After the trial is over and guilt-sick John Barton has died, Mary and Jem marry and move to Canada with Mrs. Wilson, where they eventually have a son named Johnnie.

Mary Barton Quotes in Mary Barton

The Mary Barton quotes below are all either spoken by Mary Barton or refer to Mary Barton. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Employers vs. Workers Theme Icon
).
Chapter 3 Quotes

So with this consciousness she had early determined that her beauty should make her a lady; the rank she coveted the more for her father’s abuse; the rank at which she firmly believed her lost Aunt Esther had arrived.

Related Characters: Mary Barton, John Barton, Jem (James) Wilson, Harry Carson , Esther
Page Number: 25
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5 Quotes

“Every sorrow in her mind is sent for good.”

Related Characters: Margaret (speaker), Mary Barton, Alice Wilson
Page Number: 44-45
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6 Quotes

“Tell me, Margaret,” said Mary, taking her apron down from her eyes, and looking at Margaret with eager anxiety, “what can I do to bring him back to me? Should I write to him?”

“No,” replied her friend, “that would not do. Men are so queer, they like to have a’ the courting to themselves.”

Related Characters: Mary Barton (speaker), Margaret (speaker), Jem (James) Wilson, Harry Carson
Page Number: 134
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10 Quotes

“How can I keep her from being such a one as I am; such a wretched, loathsome creature! She was listening just as I listened, and loving just as I loved, and the end will be just like my end. How shall I save her?”

Related Characters: Esther (speaker), Mary Barton, John Barton, Harry Carson , Mrs. Barton
Page Number: 117
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 11 Quotes

What were these hollow vanities to her, now that she had discovered the passionate secret of her soul? She felt as if she almost hated Mr Carson, who had decoyed her with his baubles. […] She had hitherto been walking in grope-light toward a precipice; but in the clear revelation of that past hour she saw her danger, and turned away resolutely and for ever.

Related Characters: Mary Barton, Jem (James) Wilson, Harry Carson , Esther
Page Number: 123
Explanation and Analysis:

For, be it remembered, she had the innocence, or the ignorance, to believe his intentions honourable; and he, feeling that at any price he must have her, only that he would obtain her as cheaply as he could, had never undeceived her[.]

Related Characters: Mary Barton, Jem (James) Wilson, Harry Carson
Page Number: 126
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 14 Quotes

To whom shall the outcast prostitute tell her tale? Who will give her help in the day of need? Hers is a leper sin, and all stand aloof dreading to be counted unclean.

Related Characters: Mary Barton, John Barton, Harry Carson , Esther
Page Number: 149
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 22 Quotes

The corner of stiff, shining, thick, writing paper she recognised as a part of the sheet on which she had copied Samuel Bamford’s beautiful lines so many months ago—copied (as you perhaps remember) on the blank part of a valentine sent to her by Jem Wilson, in those days when she did not treasure and hoard up everything he had touched, as she would do now.

Related Characters: Mary Barton, John Barton, Jem (James) Wilson, Harry Carson , Esther
Related Symbols: Wadded Shot
Page Number: 227
Explanation and Analysis:

Gentle, reserved, and prudent herself, never exposed to the trial of being admired for her personal appearance […] Margaret had no sympathy with the temptations to which loveliness, vanity, ambition, or the desire of being admired exposes so many; no sympathy with flirting girls, in short. Then, she had no idea of the strength of conflict between will and principle in some who were differently constituted from herself.

Related Characters: Mary Barton, Harry Carson , Margaret
Page Number: 233
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 31 Quotes

“I almost misdoubt thee, thou’rt so pretty. Well-a-well! It’s the bad ones as have the broken hearts, sure enough; good folk never get utterly cast down, they’ve always getten hope in the Lord; it’s the sinful as bear the bitter, bitter grief in their crushed hearts, poor souls; it’s them we ought, most of all, to pity and help.”

Related Characters: Mrs. Sturgis (speaker), Mary Barton, The Old Boatman/Ben Sturgis
Page Number: 293
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 34 Quotes

“You’ve set up heroine on your own account, Mary Barton. How did you like standing witness?”

Related Characters: Sally Leadbitter (speaker), Mary Barton, Jem (James) Wilson, Harry Carson
Page Number: 333
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Mary Barton LitChart as a printable PDF.
Mary Barton PDF

Mary Barton Quotes in Mary Barton

The Mary Barton quotes below are all either spoken by Mary Barton or refer to Mary Barton. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Employers vs. Workers Theme Icon
).
Chapter 3 Quotes

So with this consciousness she had early determined that her beauty should make her a lady; the rank she coveted the more for her father’s abuse; the rank at which she firmly believed her lost Aunt Esther had arrived.

Related Characters: Mary Barton, John Barton, Jem (James) Wilson, Harry Carson , Esther
Page Number: 25
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5 Quotes

“Every sorrow in her mind is sent for good.”

Related Characters: Margaret (speaker), Mary Barton, Alice Wilson
Page Number: 44-45
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6 Quotes

“Tell me, Margaret,” said Mary, taking her apron down from her eyes, and looking at Margaret with eager anxiety, “what can I do to bring him back to me? Should I write to him?”

“No,” replied her friend, “that would not do. Men are so queer, they like to have a’ the courting to themselves.”

Related Characters: Mary Barton (speaker), Margaret (speaker), Jem (James) Wilson, Harry Carson
Page Number: 134
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10 Quotes

“How can I keep her from being such a one as I am; such a wretched, loathsome creature! She was listening just as I listened, and loving just as I loved, and the end will be just like my end. How shall I save her?”

Related Characters: Esther (speaker), Mary Barton, John Barton, Harry Carson , Mrs. Barton
Page Number: 117
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 11 Quotes

What were these hollow vanities to her, now that she had discovered the passionate secret of her soul? She felt as if she almost hated Mr Carson, who had decoyed her with his baubles. […] She had hitherto been walking in grope-light toward a precipice; but in the clear revelation of that past hour she saw her danger, and turned away resolutely and for ever.

Related Characters: Mary Barton, Jem (James) Wilson, Harry Carson , Esther
Page Number: 123
Explanation and Analysis:

For, be it remembered, she had the innocence, or the ignorance, to believe his intentions honourable; and he, feeling that at any price he must have her, only that he would obtain her as cheaply as he could, had never undeceived her[.]

Related Characters: Mary Barton, Jem (James) Wilson, Harry Carson
Page Number: 126
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 14 Quotes

To whom shall the outcast prostitute tell her tale? Who will give her help in the day of need? Hers is a leper sin, and all stand aloof dreading to be counted unclean.

Related Characters: Mary Barton, John Barton, Harry Carson , Esther
Page Number: 149
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 22 Quotes

The corner of stiff, shining, thick, writing paper she recognised as a part of the sheet on which she had copied Samuel Bamford’s beautiful lines so many months ago—copied (as you perhaps remember) on the blank part of a valentine sent to her by Jem Wilson, in those days when she did not treasure and hoard up everything he had touched, as she would do now.

Related Characters: Mary Barton, John Barton, Jem (James) Wilson, Harry Carson , Esther
Related Symbols: Wadded Shot
Page Number: 227
Explanation and Analysis:

Gentle, reserved, and prudent herself, never exposed to the trial of being admired for her personal appearance […] Margaret had no sympathy with the temptations to which loveliness, vanity, ambition, or the desire of being admired exposes so many; no sympathy with flirting girls, in short. Then, she had no idea of the strength of conflict between will and principle in some who were differently constituted from herself.

Related Characters: Mary Barton, Harry Carson , Margaret
Page Number: 233
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 31 Quotes

“I almost misdoubt thee, thou’rt so pretty. Well-a-well! It’s the bad ones as have the broken hearts, sure enough; good folk never get utterly cast down, they’ve always getten hope in the Lord; it’s the sinful as bear the bitter, bitter grief in their crushed hearts, poor souls; it’s them we ought, most of all, to pity and help.”

Related Characters: Mrs. Sturgis (speaker), Mary Barton, The Old Boatman/Ben Sturgis
Page Number: 293
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 34 Quotes

“You’ve set up heroine on your own account, Mary Barton. How did you like standing witness?”

Related Characters: Sally Leadbitter (speaker), Mary Barton, Jem (James) Wilson, Harry Carson
Page Number: 333
Explanation and Analysis: