Gaskell's Food Plots: Biopolitics of the Industrial Novel

Unlike many Victorian novels, Mary Barton directly confronts the pervasive issue of hunger among the working class. The novel doesn't merely allude to hunger; it makes it a central theme, vividly portraying its physical and emotional consequences. This contrasts sharply with the tendency, discussed earlier, to treat food and eating as mere indices of other social issues, rather than exploring their intrinsic connection to material appetite. The author challenges the scholarly tendency to skirt around specific details of food, eating, and appetite, emphasizing the disproportionate attention given to these aspects in the novel itself and in contemporary reviews compared to academic commentary. The text offers abundant opportunities for indexical readings of food and eating which are considered inadequate, and the essay argues that Gaskell deliberately uses hunger to disrupt familiar modes of signification and call for a new critical approach. The death of John Barton's son from hunger is presented as a pivotal event, significantly shaping the narrative and John's subsequent actions, including his involvement in Chartism and his eventual act of violence.

The essay analyzes how appetite, particularly in its extreme form of hunger, possesses the power to blur the lines between subjects and objects. Several key scenes illustrate this. A particularly impactful scene depicts John Barton's encounter with inaccessible luxury food—a juxtaposition that highlights the stark contrast between his own desperate circumstances and the abundance available to others. His son's death from hunger further amplifies this unsettling effect. This scene shows how food, as a crucial resource, illuminates the precariousness of human beings' distinction from mere objects; the lack of access to food makes the human subjects more akin to the objects of desire themselves. The essay also analyzes an earlier scene depicting a meal shared by the Bartons, showing how the food and its preparation contribute to a more subtle understanding of class, hospitality, and family dynamics. However, in a later scene, the prepared meal becomes a scene of emotional turmoil, demonstrating how the romance plot can eclipse the food plot—a testament to the ways that the novel's emotional power is often centered on romantic conflicts rather than material realities. This demonstrates the inherent tension between the material and the emotional within the narrative.

A significant section of the essay explores the narrative shift from the dominant food plot, focused on hunger and its consequences, to the marriage plot centered on Mary Barton's romantic relationships. This shift is interpreted as enacting a biopolitical move, where the focus of life's value changes from the starving masses to Mary and Jem's romantic pursuit. The essay acknowledges the seemingly jarring transition and its potential interpretation as the triumph of idealized selfhood and futurity, represented by the marriage plot, over the material needs represented in the food plot. This is viewed as a model prioritizing choice, desire, and feeling over bodily appetite. The analysis, however, argues that Gaskell doesn't merely enact this shift but also critically examines it, thereby creating a tension rather than providing a clear resolution. The persistent presence of hunger even after the narrative focus shifts to Mary's romance highlights the persistent social reality. This is exemplified by Mary’s encounter with a hungry child even after the novel appears to have moved away from focusing on hunger as a central issue.

Mary's dreams and fantasies reveal the complex relationship between appetite, economics, and romance. Her early dream of marrying Harry Carson is shown to have intertwined desires and economic aspirations. The dream is explicitly linked to overcoming the family's poverty and having access to enough food. Even after Mary realizes her love for Jem Wilson, the essay argues that she does not simply relinquish the economic aspects of her earlier desires; the economic fantasies are shown as a conduit to the desire for the satisfaction of bodily appetite. Mary's dream emphasizes the pivotal roles of both marriage and eating in her imagination of a life freed from hunger. The shift in narrative focus toward Mary's story is interpreted as a complex attempt to imagine a working-class future unburdened by hunger while simultaneously interrogating the cost of that shift. The persistence of instances of hunger throughout the novel challenges any simple narrative of escape or resolution, highlighting the lingering presence of material appetite even within the context of romantic fulfillment.

The concluding section highlights how the specter of hunger persists even as the novel culminates in Mary and Jem's marriage. The death of John Barton's son due to hunger is recalled near the end, haunting the depiction of Mary's well-fed child. This underscores the novel's unresolved tension between the marriage plot and the persistent reality of hunger. The essay also analyzes the challenges of representing hunger artistically and politically, referencing the incommunicability of hunger and the failure of Chartism to achieve its goals. By linking artistic and political failure, the novel creates a space where art and politics confront their inability to address hunger effectively. This acknowledges the novel's limits while simultaneously emphasizing the urgency of its attempt to depict and comprehend the overwhelming reality of hunger. This tension between artistic expression and the inherent limitations of representation becomes a critical element in Mary Barton's exploration of hunger as a central social and political problem, demonstrating the enduring impact of hunger and material appetite.