Abstract

Elizabeth Gaskell, a great female novelist in British Victorian era during the nineteenth century, concerns about the lives and struggles of the working class. Her novels describing workers’ lives distinguish her from other writers. Mrs. Gaskell enjoys a great reputation in the world. Foreign scholars have done a lot of researches on her works, while domestic experts have not paid enough attention to her. This paper is a comparative study of Mary Barton and North and South from the perspective of labor-capital conflict.
This paper is divided into three parts. The first part is a brief introduction to Mrs. Gaskell, the industrial revolution contributing to forming of labor-capital conflict, and Marx’s discussion of the irreconcilable relationship between labor party and capitalist party. The second part discusses the similarities between the two works in both the inevitability of labor-capital conflict and the solutions to it. It is economy and author’s personal factor that lead to these similarities. The third part analyses the differences between the two works from different manifestation and narrative perspectives of labor-capital. It is the social background that causes the differences. The paper also comments on Mrs. Gaskell’s ideas on labor-capital conflict. She attributes this conflict to a lack of communication between capitalists and working class, suggesting that the care of humanity is the ultimate way to solve this conflict.

Key words: Elizabeth Gaskell; labor-capital conflict; Mary Barton; North and South
                       
摘  要

伊丽莎白•盖斯凯尔夫人是十九世纪英国维多利亚时期一位重要的女性作家，她一直关注工人阶级的生活和斗争。在作品中，她描述和还原真实、鲜活的工人生活。国外学者对其作品的研究颇多，而国内相对较少。本文结合时代和作者背景，对其两部工业小说《玛丽巴顿》和《南方与北方》进行劳资矛盾的比较研究。论文分为三个部分，第一部分简述了英国社会生活和阶层随着工业革命的发展产生巨大转变，无产阶级和资产阶级逐渐形成。论文运用马克思主义相关理论对两部作品中的劳资关系进行分析，认为阶级利益不同是双方产生矛盾冲突的根本原因。第二部分从劳资冲突不可避免和解决方式这两方面讨论两部作品劳资冲突的相同性，并分析了资本主义经济制度和盖斯凯尔夫人劳资观对两部作品劳资冲突相同性的影响。第三部分从劳资冲突叙述角度和表现形式对比两部作品劳资冲突的不同性，并分析所处时代阶段和背景是产生劳资冲突差异性的原因。最后论文通过对两部作品的深入探讨，得出盖斯凯尔夫人认为沟通失误是劳资冲突产生的原因，双方道德意识提升是解决矛盾的方法；以及论文对劳资冲突研究的现实意义。

关键词: 盖斯凯尔夫人；劳资冲突；《玛丽巴顿》；《南方与北方》