What is similar in the two authors’ styles is their use of local dialect in time and setting. The Sexton’s Hero is difficult to read because of this. Gaskell uses many words that would be unfamiliar to many today. For example, when the Sexton was explaining how something had been suggested many times to a man named Jonas who had befriended Gilbert, Gaskell writes : “and as we threeped it many a time to Jonas, [he] would be putting the cart afore the horse, like the French Radicals” (21). The use of ‘threeped’ is very northern and possibly still used today. The word ‘afore’ is an old English word meaning ‘in front of.’ Gaskell’s inclusion of the simile that involves French Radicals suggests the audience understands of the Jacobins from the French Revolution and the mockery that the English felt in the Jacobins tendency to act before one thinks.
There is a similar case of this in To Kill A Mockingbird. Where as Gaskell uses dialect from pre-20th Century England, Harper Lee uses slang and dialect typical of Southern States America of the 1930’s. An example comes in chapter ten, prior to the “mad dog incident”.
Moments before the main events of the chapter take place, Scout asks Jem what he is looking at. He tells her “that old dog down yonder” (98, TKMB). Words such as “yonder” appear quite frequently in the novel. They help to create a more realistic view of the community and the character’s way of living. One can almost hear the drawl of a Southern accent.
One major difference which separates the two works is their geographical and time setting. The Sexton’s Hero is set during the 1800’s in England; To Kill A Mockingbird is set during the 1930’s in the southern states of the USA. Despite these very distant time and geographical settings, there are some close similarities between the two when studied in depth. Elizabeth Gaskell’s work is set in a small village called Lindal. From reading the piece, we find that it is a community in which everyone is familiar with one another and a system is held. However, when something occurs which breaks the peaceful system, everyone becomes suspicious and negative towards the one who caused the problem.
We find that in The Sexton’s Hero, when Gilbert is labeled an outcast, everyone in Lindal turn against him as a community. The Sexton describes this mid-way into the story. After Gilbert becomes an outcast, the town sees him “as if he’d been a monkey for a foreigner” (19) and nobody “wished him good e’en” (19). His presence is no longer appreciated in the town by its citizen’s, who criticize him further as a community, for example, “The men muttered the word “coward in his hearing…the woman tittered as he passed” (19). This is an example that shows the similarities between the two works, as the town in which Boo lives in also turn against him as a community.
In the case of Boo Radley, the community in which he lives is a small Southern States town called Maycomb, “the county seat of Maycomb County” (10). Although the novel is set half way across the world from Lindal, and at a much later date, many similarities can be found between the two. Maycomb is “an old town” where “[everyone] took their time about everything” (11). Throughout the novel, we learn more about the community, and find that within the residential area in which Scout, Jem and Atticus Finch are neighbors with Boo Radley (also the setting for the majority of the novel), the environment is very closed and compact, where everyone is familiar and trusts one another. Whenever the peaceful system is broken, the blame is put upon a suspected person and the entire community turns against them, which is how the town of Lindal treats Gilbert once he becomes an outcast.
In chapter nine, when Atticus, Uncle Jack and the children return from Finches Landing for Christmas, Scout goes downstairs during the night and overhears Atticus talking to Jack about what he calls “Maycomb’s usual disease” (94). This “disease” is that “reasonable people go stark raving mad when anything involving a Negro comes up” (TKMB, 94-95). He hopes that Jem and Scout will come to him for help, instead of “listening to the town” (95).
In this small incident, Atticus helps us to understand further the idea of Maycomb’s compact community and that it is not always a good thing. This kind of “ganging up” is what Boo Radley suffers from Maycomb at times during the novel, and also what Gilbert suffers from Lindal. This is a major similarity between the two, but there are further similarities and differences in way they became outcasts and later heroes.
In The Sexton’s Hero, Gilbert Dawson becomes an outcast through his actions, which is also Boo’s case, only more extreme. Upon arriving in Lindal, Gilbert was “thrown together” with the Sexton, who describes him as “about as strapping a chap as I was” (17), as they both worked for the Liverpool coopers at the bay. The two became friends, though the Sexton wanted to “put [his] best leg foremost to be equal with Gilbert” (17), as he was obviously impressed by the newcomer and wanted to be as much like him as he could. He was also ashamed of his rough nature and didn’t want Gilbert to see it. But at the same, the Sexton had fallen in love with a girl named Letty who Gilbert had also taken a liking. He was angered because Letty seemed to be returning Gilbert’s affection.
From then, the Sexton “[began] to hate him for everything he did”, which destroyed their former friendship, becoming more and more jealous of him “whene’er he did a thing which caught Letty’s eye” (18). After a while, the Sexton decided to challenge Gilbert to an argument, but Gilbert “would not fight no-how” (18). It was this action that caused him to instantly become an outcast of the society for his cowardice. As seen before, the community turned against him, almost immediately, with taunts “as if he’d been a monkey or a foreigner” (19) and calling him names such as “coward” and “quaker” (TSH, 19), as an incident of cowardice had never been seen before in Lindal. He was also rejected by Letty, who married the Sexton.
What is similar between Gilbert’s experiences and those of Boo is that both became outcasts through their own actions. Boo’s actions are among the first thing we learn upon reading To Kill A Mockingbird. Boo is first mentioned in chapter one, and is described as a “malevolent phantom” (14) whom neither Jem nor Scout have seen before. From this we gain the impression that Boo is the unseen eccentric, subject of all rumors and mysterious happenings in Maycomb, whose house is shunned by the community; especially the Finch children and Dill.
The reason for Boo’s outcast from society was a small string of crimes and the mysterious atmosphere of his family. The family was seen as abnormal because the Radleys were rarely seen doing everyday things, such as attending church and because Mr. Radley was not known to work. Boo himself was accused at one point of a series of animal mutations, although the actual culprit was an insane person who drowned himself. What caused Boo to gain such a negative reputation in the town was his involvement in a gang during his teen years. The gang went on a joyride around the town square late one night and locked a policeman in an outhouse after refusing arrest.
After the judge sentenced the gang to a state industrial school, Mr. Radley had his son released, promising to keep him out of trouble. As a result “Mr. Radley’s boy was not seen again for fifteen years” (16).
However, despite his dramatic past, more rumors are developed Boo when he is suspected of stabbing his father in the leg with a pair of scissors and sent into confinement in the basement of the Maycomb courthouse. But he was released for his father’s concern. It is from that point that Boo’s outcast from society began fully, causing him to be the subject to all rumors and culprit of any abnormal activity. Whereas Boo became an outcast through his actions and his atmosphere, we see a similarity with Gilbert Dawson, who became an outcast because of his non-violent nature, considering him a coward. Although Boo’s case is somewhat more extreme, there are still factors which link he and Gilbert. What is different between the two is that Gilbert’s actions are unintentional, where as Boo’s are more due to the fact that he wasn’t thinking of the consequences of his actions. Both are treated badly, and put down by those around them. However, there are some characters who give them support, even though they are outcasts of the local environment.
There are some similar and different ways in which the two characters cope with their negative reputations. In Gilbert’s situation, he finds support and comfort from an old clerk called Jonas, who said that Gilbert “had gospel on his side, and did no more the gospel told him to do” (20-21). This shows that he seeks support from faith and religion to help him threw his troubled times. As time goes on, the Sexton marries Letty, and begins to pity Gilbert and implies a sense of respect for him, remarking that “he’d a bold look about him, as if he were not ashamed” (21), which shows that he is strong character. Gilbert also finds support from children, who do not know what a coward is and therefore respect him, seeing him as someone who can help and love them, as he was “never loud or cross, however naughty they might be” (21). This is a major similarity between Gilbert and Boo, as Boo seeks comfort from Scout and Jem, who unknowingly entertain him with their childish actions.
Boo copes with his outcast status in both similar and different ways to Gilbert. He shows that he is also a strong character and does not react to any taunts or rumors placed upon him. Also, he is comforted by Scout and Jem without them knowing. At several moments in the novel, the children make some kind of physical contact with Boo and begin to realize that he does actually exist, but are not aware that the things he does for them are out of care. Scout does not realize this until the very end of the novel, when she takes Atticus’ advice about seeing things from someone else’s view and realizes that Boo treated her, Jem and Dill as if they were his own children, watching over them from a distance, which is what makes him, in a way, a hero, an idea which is later enhanced.
Boo shows his affection and care for the children in a number of ways. For example, in chapter four, the children begin to find gifts in the hole of a tree in the Radley yard. The gifts become more and more valuable until they realize that it is in fact Boo putting it there for them when a pair of soap figures of themselves appears in the hole. A second example comes later in the novel when Miss Maudie’s house burns down. As Scout watches, Boo actually comes out of his house and places a blanket around her, but she does not realize until Atticus tells her. Although Gaskell does not show specific examples of Gilbert’s affection for the children who befriend him, this is a main similarity in the way the two characters cope with being an outcast.
Boo also receives distant support from Atticus, who disapproves of the children’s actions to try and make him come out of his house, and who is one of the few people to respect his private matters. At several moments during the novel, he stops the children from interfering with Boo’s life and helps Scout to understand by the end of the novel, that he is just a normal human being who has had a hard life. Boo is an important factor to delivering this key message by the end of the novel, that “most people are [good] when you finally see them” (287). Gilbert seeks this kind of help from the bible, which helps him to cope with his difficult life.
The two characters become heroes in different ways, but are similar because both save the life of another character, but pay with their own lives. Gilbert dies a heroic death saving the Sexton and Letty from drowning whereas Boo does not physically die, but simply returns to his normal life, and is never seen again. The two become heroes through these deeds but do not have a chance to be recognized for their act of kindness.
Gilbert proves, by saving the life of the Sexton and Letty, that he is not a coward and shows his courage and bravery. He puts his own life in mortal danger for Letty, who he once loved, and the Sexton, who is responsible for him becoming an outcast in the first place. Although the deed itself is heroic, and he saves his love and enemy, he dies horribly from drowning, along with his horse. Although he is not remembered as a hero by many, the Sexton gains a new and greater respect for Gilbert by the end of the story, even naming one of his children after him in his honor. Letty dies two years after Gilbert’s death, which could be considered a form of pay back for the Sexton. This is similar to Boo Radley’s “death”, as he is never seen again, yet is remembered with a new and better respect.
Whereas Gilbert proves his bravery and courage, Boo Radley helps to deliver Atticus’ important message about people through his act of heroicness. He rescues Scout and Jem when they are attacked one night by Bob Ewell, who is seeking revenge on Atticus for making a fool of him and his daughter at the trial when she accused his client, Tom Robinson, of raping her. The children are saved by an unknown person, but they found out a little while later that is was in fact Boo Radley.
Scout walks him home, no longer afraid of him, and whilst standing on his porch, sees the events of the last few months through his eyes. He is never seen again, and returns to his life, hidden inside his house. Both Atticus and Heck Tate know that if Boo’s heroic deed is made public, then he will not be about to cope with the attention. Therefore, they invent a cover story that Ewell simply fell on his knife, hence leaving Boo to remain safe and unnoticed, which is what he would have wanted. His heroic act is similar to Gilbert’s as he puts his life in mortal danger for those close to him, as he has looked down on Scout and Jem as his own children and friends. Although his actions are not recognized, Scout has a new and better respect for him, as the Sexton has for Gilbert. She tells Atticus that “he was real nice” (287). This theme of a taking a new understanding to people is a key theme to the novel and helps Scout to mature greatly as a result.
Overall, the characters of Gilbert Dawson of The Sexton’s Hero and Boo Radley of To Kill A Mockingbird are very similar in their experiences as both outcasts and heroes, despite the different time and setting of the two pieces and styles of the authors. Both characters are key factors of the works that help to deliver an important moral to the reader. Gilbert’s story delivers a message of courage and bravery, whereas Boo’s is a message about the proper understanding of people. We learn, however, that despite the very distant time and geographical setting of both works, the ways in which human beings react to danger have not changed. Both Gilbert and Boo put their lives at stake to save someone close to them, even though they are outcasts of their local society. But these heroic acts are recognized by the other characters, some more major than others. Even though the characters are no longer heard of, they gain new and higher respect.
Wide Reading
Comparing the works of
Elizabeth Gaskell and Harper Lee
List of works consulted
- Gaskell, Elizabeth – The Sexton’s Hero in
Naylor, Louise (editor) (1997)
The New Windmill Book of Stories from Other Times
Heinemann New Windmills
Pages 14-29
- Lee, Harper (1960)
To Kill A Mockingbird
MB. Heinemann New Windmills, Oxford
- Mary Hartley with Tony Buzan
Teach Yourself Literature Guides
To Kill A Mockingbird – Harper Lee
Hodder & Stoughton
