Culture, Politics, and Reality in “The Poor Clare”

“The Poor Clare”, a short story written by Elizabeth Glaskell, is filled with culture, politics, and reality. One of the main characters, Bridget Fitzgerald, is the poor clare in this story. She is just a lonely old caretaker who wishes to be reunited with her daughter. A poor clare is someone who lives in a convent. They are very religious people and most of the time they die from starvation. Bridget evolves from being a caretaker into being a poor clare. This could be because of her actions and the fact that she feels guilty for cursing her granddaughter. It does not matter how she became a poor clare. What is important is that she was segregated in society. Why did Glaskell fill this phenomenal story with culture, politics, and reality? The plot of “The Poor Clare” seems to portray society in a similar way to everyday life. Without this story, we wouldn’t fully understand the classes. There is so much more to this time period than the middle-class and it is imperative that we study all of the social classes. We need to understand every class’s way of life. “The Poor Clare” focuses on the division of the middle and low classes. Unfortunately, this division was just part of the culture of the Victorian period. We see segregation throughout this whole story. Take Bridget for example. She was a little different than everyone else and she was seen as an outcast. Eventually, she became a clare and seemed to be even more of an outsider. If she had been a part of the middle-class then she wouldn’t have died from starvation. She would have been able to support herself and take care of herself. Bridget had lived in poverty most of her life, but it had never been this severe. She always had food on her table, even if it was not much. This just goes to show that your whole life can change overnight, and you can’t always fix it. As the years pass she becomes antisocial and even a witch. She prays every day, but is that enough? She ends up cursing her long lost granddaughter, whom she didn’t know existed, and the curse was not lifted until Bridget died. She eventually dies from hunger, which was common for the poor clares during that time. Segregation plays a key role in culture, politics, and reality, especially during this time period. In my opinion, segregation makes it worse because when society is split then the low-class does not get any help or support that it needs. Their culture is different than the culture of middle-class. They have a different way of life. For example, they do not take anything for granted and cherish what they have whereas some people in the middle-class may not. This story does a great job at showing segregation and not limiting it to just social classes. When people thought of Bridget, they thought of her as a witch. Having that title made her like a disease. No one wanted to have anything to do with her and they were all scared of her. The segregation of classes led to many deaths during this time period. It is imperative that this culture is seen as a very horrific one. People were being treated awfully and they seemed to be dying left and right. This is definitely not a time period you would want to live in. During this time period, you will never see anyone, who lives in poverty, in politics. They were not seen as equal, therefore, they were not allowed to participate. Politics were more for the people who were in the upper-class. These people may have even be seen as aristocrats. If you think about it, this time period is very similar to the modern day era. Our classes are divided. You do not see anyone from the lower class participating in politics. There was definitely no one in politics who was considered a witch, or someone who practiced witchcraft. People were very selective about who held what position in office. This was just the way of life during the Victorian era. The culture of this time period ties into the politics of this time period. The reason that people in the upper-class mainly held positions in office was because of the way the culture was. The segregation led to upper-class people being the only people who were “allowed” to be in office. It was definitely a very brutal time period. Their reality was something else. They looked death in the eyes on a daily basis. Thousands starved to death. If society had been more unified then lives could have been spared. Social classes being segregated doesn’t help any social problems. In all honesty, it probably makes it worse. The society is not unified and there are probably more enemies than friends. There is judgment and brutality. We still see things like that happen in modern times. People’s reality could have been a million times better if society had not of been so segregated. Culture, politics, and reality blend together so well in this story because if they culture had been different then politics would have been different and reality would have been a whole lot better. This story definitely goes into detail how tough of a life they have. People who don’t have anything suffer dearly. Reality ties into both culture and politics, and in all honesty it goes all the way back to culture. The way that the culture was set up made the reality so horrible. Most of it is because of segregation. The segregation of classes led to the upper-class being in politics which led to the lower-class and people in poverty needing help that they were not going to receive. Unfortunately, there was not much that could be done about their way of life. They really just had to go with the flow and hope to survive. Everyone, especially in the lower-class, fought for their lives every day. According to Anna Koustinoudi, Gaskell set this story up like that on purpose. It seems as that Gaskell had sort of a traumatic past and that was what influenced this story. Koustinoudi also mentions that Gaskell’s story seems to reflect the Enlightenment. There was a lot of phobia, trauma, and desire in the story which tends to relate to the Enlightenment. Koustinoudi’s article goes into great detail about the story and she came to the conclusion that Gaskell had a traumatic past which is the reason that this story is the way that it is. Gaskell intended for culture, politics, and reality to all be related and for the lives of her characters to be what they were. This was a very sad and depressing story, even from the beginning. Gaskell must have had some sort of traumatic experience to be able to write a story like this. I never thought of it like that. I always just assumed that she thought of a topic and decided to write about it. It never occurred to be that something bad could have happened in her life and that this story was a reflection of it. I also found an article by Ellen Laun that says that “The Poor Clare” was actually a missing story of Gaskell’s. Laun mentions that it was very unlike Gaskell to “lose” a story that she had written. Maybe she wanted to forget about it after she wrote it. If this story was in fact a reflection of a traumatic experience that Gaskell had endured then it would make sense that she intentionally made it disappear. This all makes sense considering the fact the Bridget, Gaskell’s main character in the story, has a daughter that she believes disappears. All of the hardships in the story that people endured could be because of something that happened in her past. Maybe she just needed to write it all down to get it off of her chest and never wanted anyone to read it. That could be why it was a missing story of hers. Gaskell may have never intended for anyone to read it, however, it is a fantastic short story. I have found many articles stating that this story is considered to be feminist, however, Shirley Foster sees it differently. Foster makes note that Gaskell’s story is a huge analysis of the conditions of the nineteenth century. I found something interesting in this article. Foster states that Gaskell liked to write stories about topics that were considered to be unacceptable. Even today, topics such as hatred, child murders, and sexual jealousy would be considered unacceptable topics. Gaskell seemed to have a fascination with violence and disorder. I still believe that this fact about her could be related to something that happened in her past and the only way she can express her feelings toward it is through stories. “Bridget in ‘The Poor Clare’, violence is depicted or indirectly enacted on women can turn themselves into powerful figures” (Foster). This may also hint at Gaskell being a feminist, which would make since because she was a woman of this time period. Foster later mentions that this story is about hatred and revenge, which leads to violence and relationships within families. Gaskell had quite the interest in human life and relationships. I mentioned earlier that Gaskell seems to be referred to as a feminist. Reddy mentions, as did Koustinoudi, that this is a very gothic story. Reddy believes that this piece is all about female sexuality. I never thought of this story in that way. She seems to think that Gaskell intended for this story to depict women as both powerful and powerless. I definitely can make that connection. Bridget seems to be empowered, because she curses her granddaughter. Her granddaughter is then powerless over the curse and can’t do anything to lift it. I understand where Reddy is coming from with this accusation. If you think about it, women during this time period were not considered equal to men. Gaskell being a feminist would explain why she wrote a story based on culture, politics, and reality. Women were not allowed to be a part of politics because of the culture of that time period. This led to their reality being less than perfect. I never made a connection between this story and the Great Hunger. I know that there was a great deal of poverty in this story, which led to hunger. Bridget died from starvation at the end. Ingelbien makes a comment that Gaskell is referring to the Irish Famine and this story is merely a comment on the Great Hunger. It does make sense now that I think about it. I thought that Gaskell was just explaining more on the culture of that time period, but really she was making a reference to the great famines that have occurred. Even with this new evidence, it is still known that Gaskell wrote this way on purpose. Maybe she wanted to get a point across. Whatever her intentions were, we understand that the characters in her story suffered just like people in the real world did. Gaskell liked to write about ghosts, even if she didn’t believe in them. There is a ghost in “The Poor Clare”. When Bridget curses her granddaughter, she makes her become haunted. I have read many things about what the ghost like figure is supposed to represent, however, I think Gaskell just wanted to make the story even more haunting than it is. Martin mentioned in her article that Gaskell really like to write stories about ghosts. It seemed to be what she could really excel at. It also makes sense for this story to have a ghost in it. During the time period that this story is set in, people believed in witchcraft. That is a part of the culture of this time period. I just makes sense for Bridget to cast a spell and for there to be a ghost in the story. This article makes me think back to the culture aspect of the story. There are many reasons why Gaskell could have based this story off of culture, politics, and reality. Only Elizabeth herself could tell us what her intentions really were. I have found many articles that have made me think of this story in ways that I have never thought of it before. Gaskell made the culture of the story tie into the politics of that time period. From there she made the politics tie into the reality of the people. She made all three of these things related to each other, which in the long run made for a better story. Even if she never intended for this story to be read, or even published for that matter, if is a phenomenal story that should be shared with everyone. Works Cited Foster, Shirley. "Violence and Disorder in Elizabeth Gaskell's Short Stories." Gaskell Society Journal 19 (2005): 14-24. Rpt. in Short Story Criticism. Ed. Jelena O. Krstovic. Vol. 97. Detroit: Gale, 2007. Literature Resource Center. Web. 10 Dec. 2014. Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn. "Poor Clare." Poor Clare. 1. n.p.: Project Glutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, 2006. Literary Reference Center Plus. Web. 29 Oct. 2014. Ingelbien, Raphael. "Elizabeth Gaskell's 'The Poor Clare' and the Irish Famine." Irish University Review: a journal of Irish Studies 40.2 (2010): 1+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 10 Dec. 2014. Koustinoudi, Anna. “Temporality, Narrative Discordance And The Phantom As Transgenerational Trauma In Elizabeth Gaskell’s ‘The Poor Clare’.” Gothic Studies 14.2 (2012): 23-29. Literary Reference Center Plus. Web. 10 Dec. 2014. Laun, Ellen M. “A Missing Gaskell Tale Found.” Studies In Short Fiction 15.2 (1978): 177. Literary Reference Center Plus. Web. 10 Dec. 2014. Martin, Carol A. "Gaskell's Ghosts: Truths in Disguise." Studies in the Novel 21.1 (Spring 1989): 27-40. Rpt. in Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism. Ed. Janet Witalec. Vol. 70. Detroit: Gale Research, 1999. Literature Resource Center. Web. 10 Dec. 2014. Reddy, Maureen T. "Female Sexuality in 'The Poor Clare': The Demon in the House." Studies in Short Fiction 21.3 (Summer 1984): 259-265. Rpt. in Short Story Criticism. Ed. Jelena O. Krstovic. Vol. 97. Detroit: Gale, 2007. Literature Resource Center. Web. 10 Dec. 2014.