SOURCE: “Gaskell's Feminist Utopia: The Cranfordians and the Reign of Goodwill,” in Utopian and Science Fiction by Women: Worlds of Difference, edited by Jane L. Donawerth and Carol A. Kolmerten, Syracuse University Press, 1994, pp. 73-92.

In the following essay, Rosenthal considers Elizabeth Gaskell's Cranford as a feminist utopia.

In her landmark essay, “Feminist Criticism in the Wilderness,” Elaine Showalter explains that outside of the dominant male culture the muted women's culture has a space, a “wild zone,” that “stands for the aspects of the female lifestyle which are outside of and unlike those of men” (262). According to Showalter, in an attempt to enlarge and endorse such spaces, “women writers have often imagined Amazon Utopias, cities or countries situated in the wild zone or on its border” (263). In a subsequent list of examples, Showalter cites first, “Gaskell's gentle Cranford” (263).¹ And indeed, when read as an exploration of Showalter's wild...