Humanizing Christian Conversion: Re-examining Sympathy in Elizabeth Gaskell’s Industrial Novels

Abstract It is often said that by prescribing sympathy between classes, Elizabeth Gaskell’s industrial novels evade a political solution to proletarian immiseration and help maintain the capitalist system. This article calls for broader ways to consider Gaskell’s use of sympathy: in Mary Barton (1848) and North and South (1854–55), Gaskell uses sympathy not only to critique capitalism’s distorting effect on human psychology and relationships but also to reenvision the mechanics of realizing Christian brotherhood. Her novels do not so much prescribe sympathy as a solution to class conflict, as show sympathy’s suppression or distortion by capitalism that leads to class conflict. To redevelop human sympathy, Gaskell envisions a ‘realistic’, humanistic means of realizing a sense of universal brotherhood that relies on humans’ emotional and rational capacities rather than God’s intervention. Grounded in an examination of Gaskell’s reenvisioning of Christian conversion, this article shows that her model of sympathy is more complicated than critics have assumed, straddling the paradigms by Adam Smith and David Hume in a number of ways. Showing Gaskell’s hybrid model of sympathy, this article enriches existing understanding of Victorian sympathy.