Ruth

Ruth is the novel’s protagonist, and the plot follows her life experiences and character development, concluding shortly after her death. Ruth experiences significant change and growth due to her life experiences, namely her illicit relationship with Bellingham, the end of that relationship, and her experience of becoming a mother and raising her son. At the beginning of the novel, Ruth is a lonely, restless, dissatisfied young girl who dreams of something grander than a life of poverty and hard work, lamenting, “how shall I get through five years of these terrible nights!” (9). Ruth is also very sheltered and naïve, which leaves her vulnerable to being seduced by Bellingham; she almost leaves the inn where she is waiting for him (thus saving herself from being ruined). Still, she hesitates because she doesn’t have money to pay for a cup of tea, and “(like a child) all dilemmas appeared of equal magnitude to her” (46).

Ruth is initially so trusting and innocent that she doesn’t realize her fate until she finds herself abandoned and pregnant in Wales. As a highly emotional and reactive young girl, she does not initially try to problem-solve or look for help but very nearly kills herself. Ruth’s growth and development as a character begin with her choice to turn back and help Mr. Benson, showing her strong orientation toward compassion and care: “She could never bear to hear or see bodily suffering […]; and now, in her rush to the awful death of the suicide, she stayed her wild steps” (73). For the rest of the novel, Ruth matures and grows into a calm, patient, caring, and nurturing figure representing Victorian ideals of femininity and motherhood. She exemplifies these traits in her roles as Leonard’s mother, as the governess to the Bradshaw girls, and in her eventual role as a nurse. As Jemima summarizes, in the eyes of virtually everyone around her, “Ruth was beautiful, gentle, good, and conscientious” (181).

Ruth’s physical beauty is an important character trait that figures significantly in the novel. As a young girl, her beauty makes her vulnerable since Mrs. Mason first sends her to the ball where she meets Bellingham because “she was struck afresh with the remarkable beauty which Ruth possessed” (11). Likewise, Bellingham initially pursues her because of his “strong perception of Ruth’s exceeding beauty” (21), and when they reunite years later, he tries to persuade her to resume the relationship because he still finds her extremely attractive. While Ruth’s appearance exposes her to moral danger, it is also an important factor in why characters choose to show compassion and help her. Individuals such as Mr. Benson, Faith, and Mr. Bradshaw (when he thinks that Ruth is a widow) see Ruth’s external appearance as an indicator of her inner virtue. Even after she is dead, Ruth’s corpse is notably beautiful, and when Bellingham comments on this rare beauty, Sally explains that “few have been as good and as gentle as she was in their lives” (333).

While Ruth is the protagonist of the novel, the third-person narration and the emphasis on her as a modest and unassuming figure means that she is a relatively flat character, and readers only have full access to her inner emotions in a few key scenes. Notably, after the shock of re-encountering Bellingham, Ruth only breaks down once: “At length she was alone in her own room” (201), and then it is “as if thought and emotion had been repressed so sternly that they would not come to relieve her stupified brain” (201). It is only in the privacy of these moments that Ruth admits that she is “so torn and perplexed” (201) because she continues to have feelings for Bellingham. She will wrestle with the same confusion when she insists on going to nurse Bellingham, telling Mr. Davis, “I do not know—I cannot tell—I don’t think I should love him, if he were well and happy” (326). In addition to giving relatively limited access to Ruth’s inner struggles and emotions, Gaskell also does not give any insight into how Ruth might think about her life as it comes to an end. Ruth dies “never look[ing] at anyone with the slightest glimpse of memory or intelligence in her face” (331), and thus readers never fully know how the arc of her character development concludes.