The death of the baby girl is emphasised by the dialect that is used such as ‘wee lassie’. This emphasises the fact that she is small and the ‘ie’ on the end of ‘lassie’ makes her seem even smaller because lass is just a girl and lassie is a small girl. Helen looks at the girl without shedding a tear. This shows how upset she must be, because she can’t even cry when her daughter dies. This also shows that she is shocked by the amount of tragedy in her life. First her husband dies and leaves her pregnant with a farm to run, then she realises that she can’t afford to run the farm and look after the child that she already has and the child that is on the way. She realises also that she has no time or money to do this, even though her sister is there to help her. She has no way of making money because all the animals on the farm had died or were dying.
Then when Gregory was born ‘she cried day and night, day and night’. The use of repetition in this sentence makes the sympathy deeper. The repetition is effective.
Her eyesight eventually began to fail and it seemed like nothing could help anymore. Later on she was forced to marry William Preston. William Preston was an old bachelor. He was older than forty and was fairly wealthy. Helen had no love for him at all but he promised to look after her and her child. She could not refuse and offer like that. Helen showed love for only Gregory. William Preston began to get jealous of this. We feel sympathetic for Helen at this point because she is doing something that she doesn’t really want to do but she is doing it because she is doing what is best for her child.
Helen becomes pregnant again with William Preston’s child. An argument between Helen and William Preston causes Helen to go into premature labour. Helen did not wish to live any longer and she let herself die away. This suggests that she is living an unhappy life and she wants out of it.
Helen’s death was quite fast. The language that is used to show the emotion of Helen’s death is effective. One of her last requests was to have Gregory laid next to her holding the younger half brothers hand. This makes it emotional because of the way the three of them are laid together, like Helen does not want to leave them yet she knows she has no choice. A pun is used to describe the gaze that Helen gave to the half brothers. It is described as ‘a grave sort of kindliness’. When gazing at the two half brothers, she looked up and gave her first smile to William Preston. When the story arrives at Helen’s actual death, the sentence that is used to say that she was dead is very short and abrupt. ‘In an hour she was dead’. The words in the sentence are all one syllable long this makes it emphatic and final.
Gregory is the first half brother. He also has sympathy made for him in the story. From the time he was born, sympathy was created for him. Gregory’s mum, Helen, became helpless and married William Preston. Helen then had another child and died shortly after she gave birth. Gregory was blamed for his mother’s death even though he had nothing to do with it. He became an ‘orphan’. He had none of his own family left. Gregory was left to look after his half brother. Gregory was being looked after by his stepfather, William Preston. He was made a ‘scapegoat’ by his stepfather and the rest of the family that he lived with. They all treated him badly and described him as ‘lumpish’ and ‘loutish’. The use of alliteration in these words gives a hard feeling to the sentence. He was also described as ‘awkward’ and ‘ungainly’. The syllables in these words go together to make a clumpy sort of sound and make him seem clumsy. The people that live on the farm with him are always shouting at him or telling him off. This was quoted as ‘sharp scolding did he get from the people about the farm’. The use of alliteration again in this sentence makes it seem more blunt and makes us feel more sympathy for Gregory. ‘Silent and quiet’, ‘sullen and sulky’ and ‘stupid’. These are other words used to describe Gregory by his family. Alliteration is used a lot in these sentences too. The fact that William Preston and his family don’t look after Gregory properly and hit him without reason is emphasised with the word ‘flogging’. This word is a very harsh word and shows how badly Gregory was being treated. From this, Gregory shows low self-esteem. This is not surprising, as Gregory has been treated really badly by his stepfather and other people on the farm. People abuse him so much and call him so many different names, he begins to believe what people are calling him and what they are saying to him. Gregory is presented as religious. He shows his devotion to Christianity by not reacting to William Preston and the family when they are horrible to him. Towards the end of the story, the younger half brother has got stranded in the mountains. Gregory went out to help him and he was described as ‘an unearthly grey figure’. This makes him seem supernatural. Gregory sacrifices himself for his brother. This brings back devotion to Christianity because he would risk his own life for someone else. He rescues his brother and sympathy is then created because he gives his brother his coat to keep him warm whilst he suffers being cold. Gregory is described as ‘saintly’. Sympathy is created from this because he is such a good person and his family treat him as though he is bad, horrible person. The language that is used to describe Gregory shows that he is a kind and caring type of person ‘ roll thee in my maud, lad’. Gregory has heroic qualities. These show through when he rescues his brother by giving him his coat. Again we are brought back to the Christian point of view when he is dying. He says ‘anyhow, Gods will be done’. He turns to God when he is dying because he believes that he can help him. Even though it is extremely cold a sense of warmth is brought from the two brothers because the younger half brothers ‘arm thrown over’ Gregory makes them seem warm. When Gregory dies he has a quiet smile. This makes us think back to Helen because she had a smile on her face when she died.
William Preston is the man whom Helen marries because he promises to look after her and Gregory when Helen dies. He is an old bachelor who is very lonely and has never had a female partner before. He is very wealthy and can therefore afford to look after Helen and Gregory. When he is talking to Helen, he is nervous. We can tell this from ‘twirling his hat’. These points make us have respect for him because when Helen shows love for the baby he is ‘turned sour’ because he is jealous that Helen shows the baby attention and love yet she does not show either to him. Emotive language is used. ‘Sour’ is used because he changes so quickly into an angry person. He gets a really bad temper and shouts at Gregory. The fact that Helen did not like him doing this makes her go into premature labour. Because Helen dies in childbirth, the child gets blamed for her death. William Preston has a ‘grudge’ against Gregory, the child. Sympathy is created for William Preston when he tries to save Helen. He goes to any extreme to save her. We think that William Preston maybe just wants something to love. Because he is really horrible to Gregory after Helen dies, he regrets what he has done. The regret only comes when Gregory dies. William Preston is ‘deeply sorry’ to God for what he has done. This makes him a repentant sinner. Gregory dies and this has an impact on him because there is a physical change. ‘His hair had gone white’. William Prestons last request made us feel sentimental towards him. ‘God forgive me and my hardness of my heart towards the fatherless child’. From this we know that he really is sorry for the way he treated Gregory.
This story is sentimental. Many parts of the story are sentimental. One that makes the story particularly sentimental is the amount of deaths. At the beginning, Helens first husband dies, then Helens baby daughter, next was Helen and then lastly Gregory. This makes four deaths, which is enough for anyone to cope with in such a short space of time. Another sentimental point is all the things that happened to Helen, such as her losing most of her family and becoming helpless. Sentimentality is formed from William Preston’s last request. We know that he really is deeply sorry for the way he treated Gregory. The description of Gregory’s body when he dies is very easy to make a picture in your head because it is described so detailed.
I don’t think the story is over-emotional or exaggerated. It is written very well and the sentimental parts of the story are brought out and expressed well. Sentimental means that something is dear to you and that it means something to you. The things that happen to Helen in the story are very closely related to things that happened in Mrs Gaskell’s life and therefore are sentimental to her.