Cranford-Chapter 14

This chapter stuck out for me especially after discussing in last class about Cranford money. Most of the women are poor (which considering things, when women chose not to marry they were often at a disadvantage monetary wise), but even if the women do have money they choose to hide it. We talked about in class that this may be because they are a tight knit group and to talk about money or being poor would make others with less feel bad. In other words, the Cranford group protects the Cranford group.

This comes up again in chapter 13 when Miss Matty discovers that her life savings is gone due to bank issues. For most people this would be devastating, as it is for Ms. Matty. However, not all is lost. The women of Cranford arrange a private meeting in which they discuss how to help her out. Then they each write down a number that they can all pay annually to pay for her rent.

The whole scene is of extreme interest to me. Everyone has good friends and if something bad such as this happened to a friend, you would try to help them as much as possible. But for a whole group of friends to write down an amount to be paid in order to cover their friend's rent. It's amazing to me. The other interesting part is that it was all so secretive. The number they wrote down was placed in envelopes and if the idea was approved by Mary's father then he would open the envelopes and if not then they were going to be returned to the writer.

It is just another extreme example of Cranford protecting their own, by whatever means possible.