63 pages • 2 hours read
Elizabeth GaskellRuth
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1853A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Volume 2, Chapters 1-5Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Volume 2, Chapter 1 Summary
The next day, when Ruth tells Faith and Mr. Benson about Sally cutting her hair, they realize that Sally must have seen through their story about Ruth being a widow. Faith and Mr. Benson tell Sally the truth, and she agrees to keep the secret since she trusts them and has also “been much softened by the unresisting gentleness with which Ruth had submitted” (112). Mrs. and Miss Bradshaw come to call on them, and Ruth quietly daydreams while the other women chat. Faith embellishes some details about Ruth’s story to them, passing her off as the widow of a young surgeon. On Sunday, Ruth attends church while Mr. Benson celebrates the service. Mr. Benson and Faith are well-liked and well-respected in their community. The townspeople think the Bensons have done a very kind deed by agreeing to shelter and help Ruth.
Volume 2, Chapter 2 Summary
Ruth is surprised to receive a gift from Mr. Bradshaw, a wealthy man in the local community. She is hesitant to accept it. However, Faith urges her to accept the gift out of social decorum. Some months pass, and Ruth gives birth to a baby boy in the winter. Ruth adores her son but is also afraid that some aspect of her sinful past will befall him. She comforts herself with the hope that God will show mercy to both her and her child and is very grateful for “a new, pure, beautiful innocent life” (121).
Volume 2, Chapter 3 Summary
After Ruth has recovered, she raises the idea of living somewhere in humble lodgings with her baby and trying to earn a living. Faith objects to this idea, even though she doesn’t want to admit the real reason: she has become very attached to the infant. Mr. Benson diplomatically suggests that Ruth stay with them until the baby is at least one year old and assures her they would be happy to help her until then. After this agreement is reached, Faith and Sally notice that Ruth seems more depressed. Sally scolds Ruth for letting her sadness show itself rather than focusing on being cheerful and hard-working. As Sally explains, “there’s a right and a wrong way of setting about everything—and to my thinking, the right way is to take up a thing heartily, if it is only making a bed” (131). Ruth takes this advice very seriously and immediately starts to change her behavior. Ruth also begins to read and study with Mr. Benson so that she can supervise her son’s education in later years.
Volume 2, Chapter 4 Summary
When Ruth’s son Leonard is about six months old, the time comes for his christening. Jemima Bradshaw, the eldest daughter of the wealthy and influential Bradshaw family, hears about the christening and begs to attend. She has become curious about the beautiful young widow “whose very reserve and retirement but added to her unconscious power of enchantment” (135). The small group celebrates Leonard’s christening, and Jemima comes to tea afterward, although her parents have cautioned her not to eat too much because the Bensons are poor. Jemima is curious about some of the comments Mr. Benson made during the christening service, but Faith brushes her questions aside. After Jemima goes home, Faith and Mr. Benson speak fondly of her and mention their concerns about her elder brother, Richard.
Jemima continues to be very warm and curious about Ruth and little Leonard; her visits and gifts are encouraged by her father since Mr. Bradshaw feels a duty to help the poor young widow. Ruth even begins to go along with the Bensons when they visit the Bradshaw house. One night, during a visit, they are joined by Mr. Farquhar, one of Mr. Bradshaw’s business associates. Back at the Benson home, Sally mentions that she has heard from other servants that Mr. Farquhar may be hoping to marry Jemima. Ruth is surprised by the idea since Mr. Farquhar is considerably older than Jemima.
Volume 2, Chapter 5 Summary
It has been almost a year since Ruth moved to Eccleston, and she thinks gratefully about how much her life has changed since then. Ruth has greatly matured, and “life had become significant and full of duty to her” (143).
Meanwhile, Faith and Mr. Benson have been pondering how Ruth will eventually earn a living. Faith is surprised and delighted when Mr. Bradshaw consults with her about the possibility of Ruth becoming a governess to his younger children. However, Mr. Benson thinks they have a moral obligation to tell Mr. Bradshaw the truth about Ruth’s past before she takes on the job. Faith strongly disagrees. She argues that they can vouch for Ruth’s character and that Ruth can be trusted in a good household.
Ruth is interested in the job, and she and Faith have figured out a plan for Sally and Faith to look after Leonard while she works. Mr. Benson agrees to withhold the truth from Mr. Bradshaw.
Volume 2, Chapters 1-5 Analysis
How Ruth is welcomed into and contributes to the Benson household and the wider community allows Gaskell to highlight the arbitrary and artificial distinction between married and unwed mothers. There is no functional difference between Ruth’s character and experiences as a woman who was once married but is now a single mother and as a woman who was never married. However, perception and social stigma make this difference extremely important. It also leads to lying and deception; Faith and Mr. Benson believe in the moral integrity of protecting Ruth, but they are conflicted about deceiving their community. This debate begins when they first discuss bringing Ruth to Eccleston and continues as Ruth becomes more and more enmeshed in that community.
The theme of deception is important in the novel, especially as it plays out in a small community where trust between individuals is essential. Interestingly, Faith admits to taking pleasure in this process, telling her brother, “I am afraid I enjoy not being fettered by the truth” (113). Faith’s language of “fetters” (chains) suggests that she finds freedom in breaking with social custom, even if lies are required; Gaskell’s exploration of how lies, rather than the truth, can create freedom, especially for women, allows for a critique of social conventions that limited women’s choices and encouraged deception as a route to autonomy.
The job offer from the Bradshaw family necessitates deepening the deception, and Mr. Benson only reluctantly consents: “‘I do not see any danger that can arise,’ said he at length, and with slow difficulty, as if not fully convinced” (148). This quotation shows the emerging tension in Mr. Benson’s conscience, and the hesitation and delay described in his speech mirror the reticence he feels toward making this decision. Gaskell heightens the narrative tension by describing this moment as a critical step in Ruth’s destiny: “The scroll of Fate was closed, and they could not foresee the Future” (150). The personification of Ruth’s fate as an unreadable document develops the sense that her story is a moral parable as much as it is a representation of individual experiences. These narrative asides—interjected throughout the novel—show Ruth’s future being indelibly shaped by fateful choices, even if the characters are not aware of these consequences at the time. This model helps Gaskell create sympathy for Ruth and other characters by focusing on their intentions rather than outcomes; while Ruth might give up her virtue, and Faith and Mr. Benson might tell lies, they do so with pure intentions and hopes of achieving a greater good.
Alongside being accepted into the Benson household and into the Eccleston community more broadly, Ruth’s character is significantly developed and transformed when she becomes a mother. Ruth is only 16 when she gives birth, and so the narrative of her son’s birth and development comes to mirror her own birth and development as an adult woman. The imagery Gaskell uses in describing the birth carries strong implications of innocence and purity: “The earth was still ‘hiding her guilty front with innocent snow’ when a little baby was laid by the side of the pale white mother” (121). Gaskell quotes a line from John Milton’s poem “On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity” (1629) to evoke the winter setting of the birth, but the allusion references the idea of a woman covering up her shame and sin (just as Ruth’s scandalous past is being covered up by her new identity as a widow), and the Nativity story (in which, according to Christian tradition, Mary was accused of having become pregnant out of wedlock).
After giving birth, Ruth recommits herself to a life of virtue and integrity since she desperately wants to be a good role model to her son and expands her education so that she can teach her son. Through these developments, the baby Leonard is presented as a blessing rather than any sort of punishment; Gaskell even explains that Ruth’s devotion to Leonard leads her to “a more complete wisdom and a more utter and self-forgetting faith” (123), connecting Ruth’s motherhood to spiritual growth and redemption.
Related Titles
By Elizabeth Gaskell
