Cranford

第一章

Chapter I of Cranford introduces the fictional town of Cranford and its distinctive social order. The chapter, titled “OUR SOCIETY,” presents an all-female community of genteel ladies who govern the town with their own rules of etiquette, dress, and conversation. Against this backdrop arrives Captain Brown, a half-pay military man whose blunt acknowledgment of poverty initially scandalizes the residents but whose manly frankness and practical good sense gradually earn him a respected place in Cranford society. Through a series of vignettes—visiting customs, the famous red silk umbrella, genteel poverty, and an evening card party—the chapter establishes the town’s character and its gentle, comic tensions.

Cranford’s Amazonian Society

Cranford is described as an “Amazonian” society: all the principal householders are women, and any married gentleman who settles there soon disappears—either frightened away by being the only man at evening parties or accounted for by regiment, ship, or business in distant Drumble. The ladies themselves tend gardens, scold boys, settle questions of literature and politics, keep maid-servants in order, dispense charity, and comfort one another in distress. One lady’s remark—“A man is so in the way in the house!”—captures the prevailing attitude. Although each lady has strongly individual and even eccentric opinions, good-will reigns, with only occasional peppery little quarrels to enliven the even tenor of their lives. Their dress is independent of Cranford fashion but lags far behind London styles.