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Elizabeth GaskellA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Hester is the “Old Nurse” who narrates the story. In the frame of the narrative, she addresses the children in her care: the latest generation of children she has cared for over a lifetime of service in the same family. Telling a personal anecdote from her younger days in the first-person, she is the story’s heroine who saves her young orphan charge from the draw of malevolent ghosts and also from the danger of being subsumed into a decaying noble family. When Hester admits in the opening sentences of her story that she comes from a poor, northern village, she creates authority for herself as a narrator. Her work ethic, her courage, her savvy problem-solving skills, and her unfailing devotion to her young charge all contribute to a sense of Hester’s reliability as a narrator and also to her moral authority as a character. Her, youth, commonsense, and poor countrywoman’s lack of sophistication combine to create a sense of veracity and naivety.
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By Elizabeth Gaskell