Mary Barton

by

Elizabeth Gaskell

Themes and Colors
Employers vs. Workers Theme Icon
Sexuality and Danger Theme Icon
Christianity Theme Icon
Poverty and Morality Theme Icon
Empathy vs. Ignorance Theme Icon
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Mary Barton, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Christianity Theme Icon

In Mary Barton, Christian religious virtues such as faith, hope, and love are presented as necessary to a good life and death. Without these virtues, characters go astray, sin, and suffer. For example, Manchester factory worker John Barton loses his religious faith due to the disjunction between the teachings he reads in the Bible and the way the so-called “Christians” around him behave, since these people seem to tolerate glaring forms of inequality. When John’s baby son, Tom, dies of illness and starvation during an economic downturn, John becomes hopeless and embittered. He can no longer feel Christian love toward members of the rich employer class, whom he feels could help poor workers but don’t. During a subsequent workers’ strike, John becomes so loveless and enraged at the employer class’s behavior that he murders Harry Carson, the only son of the major manufacturer Mr. Carson. In turn, he ends up inflicting upon Mr. Carson the same horrific grief he himself suffered when Tom died. It is only when John realizes that he has committed an evil sin, confesses to the crime, recognizes that Mr. Carson loved Harry as he loved Tom, and begs Mr. Carson’s forgiveness that his blighted life is even partially redeemed. Thus, Mary Barton suggests that adhering to Christian-inflected virtues is a path to peace and happiness, whereas deviating from these virtues leads to misery.

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Christianity Quotes in Mary Barton

Below you will find the important quotes in Mary Barton related to the theme of Christianity.
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

“Don ye think He’s the masters’ Father, too? I’d be loth to have ‘em for brothers.”

“Eh, John! donna talk so; sure there’s many and many a master as good or better nor us.”

“If you think so, tell me this. How comes it they’re rich, and we’re poor? I’d like to know that. Han they done as they’d be done by for us?”

Related Characters: John Barton (speaker), Mr. George Wilson (speaker)
Page Number: 61–62
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 16 Quotes

A number of pieces of paper (from the identical letter on which the caricature had been drawn that very morning) were torn up, and one was marked.

Related Characters: John Barton, Harry Carson
Related Symbols: Caricature
Page Number: 178
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 18 Quotes

To avenge his child’s death, the old man lived on; with the single purpose in his heart of vengeance on the murderer. True, his vengeance was sanctioned by law, but was it the less revenge?

Are ye worshippers of Christ? or of Alecto?

Related Characters: Harry Carson , Mr. Carson
Page Number: 199
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 32 Quotes

I don’t know that he exactly used the term vengeance in his thoughts; he spoke of justice, and probably thought of his desired end as such[.]

Related Characters: Jem (James) Wilson, Harry Carson , Mr. Carson
Page Number: 296
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 35 Quotes

The eyes of John Barton grew dim with tears. Rich and poor, masters and men, were then brothers in the deep suffering of the heart; for was not this the very anguish he had felt for little Tom, in years so long gone by that they seemed like another life!

Related Characters: John Barton, Jem (James) Wilson, Harry Carson , Mr. Carson
Page Number: 341
Explanation and Analysis:

“Let my trespasses be unforgiven, so that I may have vengeance for my son’s murder.”

Related Characters: Mr. Carson (speaker), John Barton, Harry Carson , Job Legh
Page Number: 342
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 37 Quotes

“You say our talk has done no good. I say it has. I see the view you take of things from the place where you stand.”

Related Characters: Job Legh (speaker), John Barton, Jem (James) Wilson, Harry Carson , Mr. Carson
Page Number: 360
Explanation and Analysis: