Introduction to “The Old Nurse’s Story” by Elizabeth Gaskell (1852)
Editorial Team: Hannah Atkinson, Olivia Brightwell, Nicolette Fish, Jack Milman
Additional editing by Dr. Heidi L. Pennington
“The Old Nurse’s Story” by Elizabeth Gaskell is a Victorian ghost story, narrated by a character, Hester, who tells her experience as a servant—a nursemaid—in the grand Furnivall family manor, and the haunting she witnesses there. Hester tells of becoming a nurse for the young Miss Rosamond, after which time both of the child’s parents tragically die (Gaskell, Elizabeth, “The Old Nurse’s Story,” paragraph 1). Even as Hester swears to take care of young Rosamond “to the end of the world,” (Gaskell, Elizabeth, “The Old Nurse’s Story”, paragraph 1), in this time period Hester has no legal right to make decisions for Rosamond, and yet she has all of the responsibilities of a parent. Therefore this makes Hester’s maternal bond with Miss Rosamond unconventional, at least by today’s standards. Despite the fact that Hester and Rosamond do not represent a typical family due to the lack of recognized legal bonds, the two exemplify qualities of a healthy family dynamic by Hester’s selflessness to protect and care for Rosamond. Hester explicitly loves young Rosamond, despite the fact that she is her caretaker – a caretaker with fewer rights even than her charge, due to their different social status. Hester and Rosamond’s close relationship acts as a foil to the Furnivall family to expose the lack of care they display towards each other. Hester is in fact narrating these long-past events to Rosamond’s children, Hester’s current charges, further demonstrating her longstanding—if complicated—dedication to caring for Rosamond.
In the annotated text of Gaskell’s story that forms part of this Anthology, there are interpretative effect annotations focusing on the many elements of the text that support our main thesis, which is elaborated in this introduction. We have annotated the story with four distinct tags: Historical context, Narrative Form, Interpretative Analysis, and Horror. Due to the tale’s period, there are many complex and underlying societal structures that help to reinforce the horrific elements of the traumatic past Hester relates, giving way for it to expose strained familial relationships that act as a foil for Hester and Miss Rosamond, functioning by various narrative forms.
Interpretive Effects
Among these various narrative features of the short story are several passages we have selected where Hester or another character, such as Miss Furnivall, display possessive instincts towards their respective wards, whether Rosamond or the ghost child. Wording such as "my bright and pretty pet" as well as "I would carry my darling back to my father's house[...]" shows how the language of the text makes the reader consider the dynamics of the family relationship as something akin to possession, and how that instinct might emerge from love for and desire for the wellbeing of the children (Gaskell, paragraph 2 & 37). We have also noted passages that focus on the dynamics of status and how the family structure is affected by it. One such instance is where Dorothy, a house servant, mentions that Hester "[cannot] take Miss Rosamond with [her], for that she was [Lord Furnivall's] ward, and [Hester] had no right over her", which forces both Hester and Rosamond to stay in the haunted circumstances, which are dangerous to them. The aristocracy, and particularly the male heads of family, had unparalleled rights to dictate the actions of others, from their employees to their wards and other family members—regardless of their emotional closeness or lack thereof.
The purpose of these annotations of the narrative is to help guide the reader in understanding the text through this interpretive angle, and to provide a convincing analysis of one of the meanings in the text. Each of these annotations provide insight into the ways in which the selected excerpts of the text support this thesis by understanding how the historical, narrative, horror, and interpretive lenses create the interpretation we propose.
Narrative Form
Gaskell’s tale is full of many intriguing narrative strategies and forms. The prominent narrative form that this story uses is its temporal layers since it is a present re-telling of events that occurred in the past. Hester, our narrator, re-tells this story not to us as readers, but to Rosamond’s children (Gaskell). Effectively, the story being told as re-telling, forces us to recognize that there are two Hesters in the narrative: Present (or narrator) Hester that is re-telling the story to the children and Past (or character) Hester who experienced the haunting story events in the past.
However, what makes this tale so intriguing is when there are subtle temporal congruences in the text that indicate when both temporalities of Hester are in alliance. For instance, when the haunting first emerges as dangerous to young Rosamond, past Hester tells about how, on that day, she had thought that Miss Rosamond had hidden from her in the manor only then to find out that the child had wound up in the wintry outdoors, as a shepherd came with Miss Rosamond’s body in his arms (Gaskell, Elizabeth, “The Old Nurse’s Story”, paragraph 21). Hester emphasizes in her re-telling the fear she felt when she had discovered little Rosamond’s frost-covered body (Gaskell, paragraph 21). Character Hester was panicked, as narrator Hester makes clear, when she puts Rosamond down to sleep, hoping that the child was finally ‘safe.’ “I watched her til morning light; when she awakened bright and clear—or so I thought at first—and, my dears so I think now” (Gaskell, Elizabeth, “The Old Nurse’s Story”, paragraph 23). There are m-dashes to show a distinctiveness of the two Hesters even as she asserts that she still “thinks” the same as she did in the past, moving from “so I thought at first” to “so I think now.” Emphasizing this alignment of past and present opinion actually suggests that present Hester does not feel quite certain about Rosamond’s state even as she re-tells it. However, this suggestive tension—is adult Rosamond really okay after this haunting?—is not further developed, though it draws the reader’s attention to Hester’s audience, Rosamond’s children. Moreover, recognizing the many temporal levels in this story can help to reveal what we can and cannot assume about Hester as a character. The other narrative features that develop Hester’s characterization through her telling strategies are highlighted in the annotations: analepsis, homodiegetic narration, and an open-framed ending.
Horror and Characters
Elizabth Gaskell’s story carefully combines elements of horror with characterization to create a tale of suspense and tragedy. The elements of horror are amplified by the haunting atmosphere and bleak setting of the Furnivall Manor. The isolation of the manor mirrors the desolation of the characters which sets the perfect backdrop for the eerie events that will unfold later in the story. The characters play a pivotal role in intensifying the horror. Hester, our narrator and caretaker of Miss Rosamond, serves as the reader's guide through the mysteries of the story. While Rosamond, the young innocent child that is left in her care, becomes the fixation of the ghostly interventions, such as when the ghost-child is “beating against the window-panes, as if she [phantom child] wanted to be let in. She seemed to sob and wail, till Miss Rosamond could bear it no longer, and was flying to the door to open it, when, all of a sudden and close upon us, the great organ pealed out so loud and thundering” ( Gaskell, Elizabeth, “The Old Nurse’s Story”, paragraph 31). This is the second encounter that young Miss Rosamond has with the phantom child, whose backstory is nothing but bleak. After the second frightening encounter with the phantom child, Dorothy, one of the house maids, tells Hester the tale of the old lord Furnivall. She says he had two daughter Miss Grace—the living Miss Furnivall at the time of Miss Rosamond’s ghostly encounter—and Miss Maude, who was the eldest. Both fell in love with the same man, a foreigner whom old Lord Furnivall had hired to play in the home. Miss Maude won his heart, and soon thereafter they were secretly married, and had a child together, that would later be left in a nearby farm-house to be cared for by that family. It wasn’t until years later that the old Lord Furinvall became aware of this, the foreign musician had not returned for some time, and the young child was killed by the Lord in a rage that his daughter had married without his consent. This violence and division amongst the family is what haunts the home, the tension that drove the family apart. Our character map aims to model these relationships in the structure of a family map. Although we are unsure of the accuracy of our Furnival Family Tree, it is meant to draw some connection between how the family is brought together and the division that draws them apart.
Historical Context
When one reads Victorian literature, it is vital to know the historical context of these texts. It can help a reader better understand the social and cultural implications – some of which could easily go over the reader’s head if they are not aware of the social and cultural meanings. Let us look into Elizabeth Gaskell’s life, the history of the story’s publication, and relevant Victorian cultural information to help more fully understand the complexities of “The Old Nurse’s Story”.
Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell was born on September 29, 1810 to William and Elizabeth Stevenson in Chelsea. She was raised primarily by her maternal aunt, with Gaskell describing her as “more than a mother” ("The Gaskells"). It is atypical familial relationships such as these that are illustrated in “The Old Nurse’s Story”. Marrying Unitarian minister William Gaskell, Elizabeth later converted to Unitarianism herself. She was exceptionally social, engaging in various acts of charity and welfare. She was likewise close friends with Charlotte Brontë, who encouraged Gaskell’s literary pursuits (Gaskell wrote a biography of Brontë, published in 1857). Charles Dickens was oftentimes an editor of Gaskell’s, apparently wanting to edit her works past recognition to fit his strict standards. Gaskell died suddenly in 1865. She is now buried at Brook Street Chapel in Knutsford, Cheshire where her legacy precedes her ("The Gaskells").
The publication of Gaskell’s stories are likewise a story of their own. Published in Charles Dickens’ annual Christmas volume of Household Words, “The Old Nurse’s Story” is a holiday haunting characterized by its complex familial relationships. Dickens and Gaskell were said to have had a fraught relationship, despite Gaskell writing for Dickens’ journal, Household Words, for years on end. Dickens famously compressed much of Gaskell’s writing against her wishes, putting much of her writing down in history as tainted by his editing methods ("A Complicated Friendship"). It was published in 1852 in a Christmas edition of Household Words, titled, “Round of Stories by the Christmas Fire”. “The Old Nurse’s Story” lives on as one of these famous Victorian hauntings.
As for the story itself, some further clarification is needed in terms of how it presents issues of class and status. The wealth of the Furnivall family cannot be overstated. In one instance, Hester describes the manor, saying, “in the green gloom, we could manage to see old china jars and carved ivory boxes, and great heavy books, and, above all, the old pictures” (Gaskell). To own these things, especially the china and ivory, products of imperial ventures, exemplifies the Furnivall’s enormous wealth in addition to their aristocratic status (Black, Joseph, et al. Broadview Anthology of British Literature, Vol. V, the Victorian Era. Broadview Press, 2013, pp. LIII-LVII). Class is a vital part of the story’s plot, obvious in some areas and implicit in others.
Paradoxically, Hester’s strong bond with Miss Rosamond is characterized by both legal disempowerment and affective connection. Hester's responsibility for the care of the child is contrasted with her lack of legal standing to protect young Rosamond. While the bond between Hester and Miss Rosamond is much more loving in comparison to the actions of the Furnivall family, their bond is impaired by the lack of parental rights Hester has over the child, making the parent relationship unconventional, especially to today's readers. Our collaborative annotations and introduction reveal the surprising distinctions in how the high-status Furnivall family treats one another when compared to Hester and Rosamond's stronger, if legally marginalized, relationship. Especially for today's readers, this exhibit illuminates how Gaskell's narrative may be interpreted as critiquing the legal, social, and familial standards of the Victorian period.
