From what I understand from the introduction to my edition (Oxford World's Classics), Gaskell wrote the first eight chapters of Cranford, with each installment in Household Words consisting of two chapters, then took a long break to finish and publish Ruth (which she had begun prior to starting Cranford), and then came back and wrote the last eight chapters of Cranford. I have not started the next section yet, but I expect there to be a different tone to the last half of the book.
In this selection, the idea of each pair of chapters comprising one installment is rather clear. Chapters 5 and 6 really fill out the story of the Jenkyns family, while 7 and 8 deal with society in Cranford. To my mind, I thought of these as 'interior' vs. 'exterior' stories.
In Chapter 5, Old Letters, we learn about the deceased members of Miss Matty's family, from her grandparents, her parents, and Deborah. Gaskell presents a contrast between the male and female letters. The men tend to write about more broad and theoretical topics, such as the responsibility of raising children (from the grandfather upon Deborah's birth), romantic declarations (from the Rector to his bride-to-be), and lapses into Latin (later from the Rector). The women speak of more everyday matters, such as the grandmother's specific directions about the care of the infant, the bride-to-be's obsession over her wardrobe, later the wife's concern about the livestock (she wishes that her husband would tell her what to do, rather than write in Latin, which she probably cannot even understand). Later, Deborah's letters fall more into the masculine mold, and Mary gets quite bored with them, and prefers Miss Matty's more feminine letters with news about what goes on in Cranford. With the letters from the prior generations, Miss Matty and Mary each read separate letters and share them, but when it comes to Deborah's letters, Miss Matty chooses to read them all herself. Also, she destroys the letters from her parents and grandparents, since there are few if any people left who actually knew them, while she prefers to keep Deborah's letters as being of more importance since plenty of her friends still exist. In the introduction, the commentator equates this with the transitory nature of time, where old memories of time past lose their importance and fade away.
In Chapter 6, Poor Peter, we learn the story of the long-absent brother Peter Jenkyns. It seems that the Rector had high hopes for Peter, but he was not intellectual (he probably took after his mother in this respect, judging from her letters in the previous chapter). When Peter's academic career did not work out, the Rector turned more to Deborah, who embodied more of the masculine traits that Peter lacked, and obviously took after their father more. Peter was fond of practical jokes, especially when they involved cross-dressing. He managed to take his father in by dressing as a woman and appealing to his pride in his sermons, asking for a copy of a series of them. The father took this quite seriously, and undertook to provide a copy, but it backfired on Peter, who had to copy them out, a task that he did not enjoy. Later Peter crossed the line. When Deborah had been away from home for a while, he dressed in her clothes and walked in the garden with a pillow he had dressed as a baby, causing the neighbors to believe that Deborah had gone away to have an illegitimate child and had returned with it. The Rector beat Peter violently, and Peter ran away, which broke his parents' hearts, causing his mother to weaken and eventually die. At one point Peter, who had gone to sea, came back for a short visit, and he and the father got on very well, somewhat displacing Deborah from her favored status until Peter left again.
I was glad to read this account, because in the miniseries it had not been so clear to me. I had gotten the impression that Peter was mentally ill and that was why he was cross-dressing and pretending he had a baby. Instead, it was a rather cruel practical joke.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Grand Dame of the Land of Oz, Duchess of Fantasia, in the Kingdom of Wordsmithonia; also, Poet Laureate of the Kingdom of Wordsmithonia
Melissa_W
