In reading Gaskell’s letters and the leftover chapter from Cranford I have realized that I’ve completely overlooked the role of women, and their role in the story. Since all the central characters are women who live at home, and none of them live an “artist’s life,” the idea of the novel being a commentary about women’s roles in society didn’t strike me. Mainly because they didn’t seem to contribute to the outside world. Gaskell wrote in her letters about one of her “mes” being a wife and mother, and that’s not a self she injected into Cranford.
But I do think the letters she some light on the enigma that has been Cranford. She expresses difficulty in balancing her intellectual and literary life with her family life. Gaskell never struck me as a mother, actually. I imagined her to be more independent, much like Margaret Hale. But on the issue of balancing the domestic and scholarly equation for women, it would not be until 1929 when Woolf published A Room of One’s Own, which I feel was a necessary Feminist treatise to address this question.

“The fascination of the Zulu War is its own confrontation of temperamental opposites, each fighting by their own military standards a war of text-book orthodoxy. If the Ashanti campaign was like an exhibition war, this was like a war in fiction, so wonderfully apposite were its settings, and so faithfully did its shape conform to dramatic unities.” Pg 431
I think I most enjoyed reading the chapters involving the campaigns of the British against the Zulu and the Ashanti (though this one was not required). This is certainly a case of truth being stranger than fiction; and I felt that Morris’ prose illuminated the fear the British floundered in when some 20,000 feathered, black warriors charged the Redcoats over the Isandhlwana ridge, some never having seen Zulus before in their lives. I was even more surprised to find out that despite Chelmsford’s blunders, the British respected the Zulus enough to invite Cetewayo to meet Queen Victoria. I would like to learn more about this encounter. I have noticed that numerous times in Britain’s African theatres of conquest, they always send an emissary to the natives with a list of demands – and promptly attack once the offer is expunged. I am curious to know how they specifically communicated these wishes to the Ashanti and Zulu – just with Brits who spoke their languages? I can only begin to imagine how terrifying that ordeal could be for the messengers – having to enter the thick, jungle base of the pagan enemy, hardly knowing their language, not entirely sure if they will hack you to bits or not.
Also, from completing the reading, I will forever be in awe of the tenacity of Mr. General Gordon. What a tale! I’m interested in reading more of his progressively- messy journal entries from Khartoum.