'There is great need for forgiveness in this world': The call for reconcilation in Elizabeth Gaskell's Sylvia's Lover's and A Dark Night's Work

Ludlow argues that in Sylvia’s Lovers (1863) and A Dark Night’s Work (1863) Gaskell includes scenes of reconciliation that exemplify the wider theological and cultural move away from doctrines of vicarious and retributive punishment and towards a celebration of compassion and co-operation. In detailing how these scenes of reconciliation engage with the Incarnation-inflected teleology that was gaining momentum in the early 1860s, the chapter foregrounds Gaskell’s critique of the type of extraordinary heroism that is performed by the individual and considers her emphasis on the way in which the Christ-like compassion of a parent, spouse, child, or neighbour brings gradual renewal and transformation to the self and to society. Ludlow suggests that, like George Eliot, Gaskell recognises the power of public confession in restoring the interpersonal fictional community and in bringing an individual to a recognition of his or her own fragility and the consequent ongoing need for forgiveness.