1,99 €
Niedrigster Preis in 30 Tagen: 0,99 €
Niedrigster Preis in 30 Tagen: 0,99 €
Mehr erfahren.
- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
In Elizabeth Gaskell's poignant novella, "The Old Nurse's Story," the narrative unfolds through the haunting recollections of an elderly nurse as she recounts a chilling tale of her time spent in a decaying English manor. Gaskell employs a gothic literary style, weaving together eerie atmospheres, vivid imagery, and nuanced characterizations that evoke a sense of dread reminiscent of her contemporaries, such as Charles Dickens and the Brontë sisters. Set against the backdrop of a tumultuous past and interlaced with themes of memory and the supernatural, this work highlights Gaskell's adeptness at blending social critique with folklore, inviting readers into a complex world where the boundaries of reality blur alarmingly. Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-1865), a prominent Victorian novelist and biographer, was deeply influenced by the societal upheavals of her time and the intricacies of human relationships. Her experiences as a writer in a rapidly industrializing England, alongside her personal encounters with loss and memory, profoundly shaped her thematic explorations. Gaskell's rich tapestry of narratives often reflects her empathy towards the vulnerable, and "The Old Nurse's Story" is a testament to her curiosity about the interplay between the past and the present. Recommended for readers who enjoy gothic literature and psychological depth, "The Old Nurse's Story" offers an enthralling journey into the shadows of memory and the supernatural. Gaskell's masterful storytelling and rich prose are certain to captivate those seeking to explore the darker facets of human experience, making this novella a hauntingly memorable addition to any literary collection. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes. - The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists. - A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing. - An Author Biography reveals milestones in the author's life, illuminating the personal insights behind the text. - A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings. - Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life. - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance. - Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.
Das E-Book können Sie in Legimi-Apps oder einer beliebigen App lesen, die das folgende Format unterstützen:
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
Ähnliche
The Old Nurse's Story
Table of Contents
Introduction
In a winter-bound manor, a loyal nurse confronts the past that refuses to stay buried. The Old Nurse’s Story invites readers into a world where memory becomes a palpable presence, and innocence stands perilously close to secrets long concealed. Elizabeth Gaskell’s tale is less about shocks than about the slow, moral pressure of what cannot be forgotten. Through a caretaker’s steady voice, the story entwines love and duty with the chill of the uncanny, suggesting that the domestic sphere—normally a sanctuary—can also harbor unacknowledged wrongs. The result is a haunting that feels both intimate and inexorable, as personal as a lullaby and as vast as winter night.
This story endures as a classic because it crystallizes the Victorian ghost tale at its most humane and artful. Gaskell marries Gothic atmosphere with ethical inquiry, demonstrating how the supernatural can illuminate lived experience rather than merely startle. Its influence is felt in the continued tradition of fireside ghost stories and in countless anthologies that treat it as a touchstone of the form. Readers return to it for its refined suspense, compassionate insight, and carefully measured revelations. By balancing terror with tenderness, the narrative shows how a ghost story can reveal the moral architecture beneath family life, social expectation, and the burdens of history.
Written by Elizabeth Gaskell, a leading novelist of the Victorian era, The Old Nurse’s Story first appeared in 1852 in the Christmas number of Household Words, the magazine edited by Charles Dickens. Composed at a time when seasonal ghost tales were a cherished literary ritual, it was Gaskell’s earliest venture into the supernatural. The piece is framed as an elderly nurse’s recollection of events from her youth, when she accompanied her young charge to a remote manor in the north of England. Without disclosing its mysteries, one may say that the tale centers on music, snow, and a portrait gallery heavy with unspoken histories.
Gaskell uses the familiar intimacy of a fireside reminiscence to create a narrative that is both accessible and uneasy. The storyteller’s practical, affectionate voice grounds the extraordinary, letting dread seep in by degrees rather than by abrupt intrusion. Setting operates as an active force: the bleak landscape, the vast rooms, and an old organ that seems to breathe with its own will. The structure draws readers onward by suggestion, restraint, and the mounting weight of remembrance. Through this design, the tale honors oral tradition while demonstrating sophisticated control over pace, tone, and focalization, keeping readers close to the narrator’s conscience and perceptions.
At its core, the story probes themes of guardianship, loyalty, and the limits of protection—how far love can shield the vulnerable, and where it must face truths it would rather avoid. It contemplates social boundaries and the lingering effects of pride, depicting how reputation and silence can deform a household’s inner life. Gaskell explores innocence not as naivety but as a claim upon adult responsibility. She suggests that the past lives on in the present through habits, rooms, and music, and that moral debts do not vanish even when ignored. In doing so, the tale links personal memory to the weight of communal custom and family legacy.
Stylistically, Gaskell fuses the textures of domestic realism with the shadow-play of Gothic romance. Her descriptive choices are precise—cold corridors, drifting snow, the distant swell of an instrument—yet never overwrought. Sound is a guiding motif, expressing presences that sight cannot fix, and hinting at motives that words will not openly declare. The atmosphere is saturated with restraint: doors close softly; a room is empty and somehow not empty. This measured approach allows unease to gather without the need for spectacle. The reader feels drawn into a house of echoes, where each small detail seems to promise a moral reckoning to come.
Unlike many sensational tales, this one is animated by a quietly insistent ethical imagination. It is concerned less with the mechanics of fear than with the responsibilities that fear reveals. The supernatural—however one interprets it—serves to expose the stubbornness of human error and the consequences of unexamined will. Gaskell’s storytelling refuses cynicism; compassion and duty remain central coordinates. The nurse’s perspective brings humility and steadiness, making the unfolding events not only plausible but morally intelligible. In this way, the narrative achieves its power: it lets readers feel the tension between pity and judgment, and between forgiveness and the necessity of truth.
The tale belongs firmly to the mid-nineteenth-century tradition of Christmas fiction, when families gathered to read aloud and share stories that mingled warmth with a shiver. Published in Dickens’s Household Words, it reflects a culture that embraced communal storytelling as an occasion for reflection as much as amusement. Gaskell, already known for works attentive to social detail, here adapts her realist sensibility to the uncanny. The northern setting evokes older feudal grandeur and the isolation that heightens moral pressure. These elements connect the piece to a broader Gothic lineage while also grounding it in recognizable habits of domestic life and the rituals of seasonal reading.
The Old Nurse’s Story has been repeatedly anthologized, taught, and discussed as one of Gaskell’s most accomplished shorter works. Its continuing presence in collections of Victorian ghost stories attests to its lasting appeal and its exemplary craft. The story demonstrates how a female-centered viewpoint can anchor a haunted-house narrative with uncommon empathy and credibility. By joining a caretaker’s voice to a mansion’s menacing memory, it offers a model frequently emulated: the supernatural as a mirror held up to moral history. Its restraint, clarity, and emotional intelligence ensure that new readers encounter not just fright, but resonance that lingers beyond the final page.
Gaskell’s likely intention was not merely to chill but to instruct through feeling—to let readers sense how love, pride, and secrecy can generate their own specters. The narrative’s framing as an elder’s lesson to the young underscores its didactic current without diminishing its artistry. The nurse speaks as a guardian who has witnessed the costs of silence and the necessity of courage. The supernatural becomes a language for articulating what otherwise resists confession. In this balance of moral seriousness and imaginative power, the story honors the Victorian belief that fiction could cultivate conscience while sustaining the pleasures of suspense.
Readers encounter an experience that is immersive yet controlled: a steady accretion of hints, images, and moods. The pacing is deliberate, the revelations carefully spaced, allowing one to feel both curiosity and foreboding. Gaskell’s prose is lucid, never fussy, with moments of stark beauty that intensify the chill. The narrator’s affection for her charge gives emotional ballast to every uncertainty, so that anxiety is always tethered to care. Even as the tale presses into darker corridors, the voice remains warm and humane. This contrast—comfort beside unease, hearth beside night—makes the story unusually moving as well as unsettling.
The Old Nurse’s Story remains relevant because it treats the past not as decoration but as a living claim upon the present, and because it frames fear within the obligations of love. Its themes—duty and desire, secrecy and accountability, the endurance of memory—speak to contemporary readers who recognize how personal histories shape families and homes. Gaskell’s artistry shows that the ghost story can be both aesthetically refined and ethically grounded. In its measured cadence and moral clarity, the tale continues to invite reflection, sympathy, and a delicious shiver, offering a haunting that endures long after the fire has sunk to embers.
