writing with Marcus Hazelberg and discussions on the eccentricities of life

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.