How is ‘The Cage at Cranford’ by Elizabeth Gaskell Representative of a Victorian Literary Work?

This question is asking for you to engage with the history of Gaskell’s writing as well as with the given text itself. Incorporating knowledge of other texts that may have influenced Gaskell in her writing of this story, including her own previous works, is another way you can contextualise and add to the reading and analysis of ‘The Cage at Cranford’.
In this introduction, I have written a very short preview listing in order what I will be discussing in my essay, showing an understanding of the literary history of that time period, and mentioning a previous Gaskell text that I will repeatedly be referring to:
Engagement with the past and the attempt to reconcile it with the industrial present; boundary crossing as a comic phenomenon; dealing with bereavement and loss; these are some of the themes that the literature of the Victorian era is preoccupied with. ‘The Cage at Cranford’ is a continuation of the way that Cranford deals with these themes. It suggests change in the town’s attitudes towards some of them, and comic fixedness in its dealings with others. 
Then, I follow with my paragraphs on each theme. The structure of these paragraphs is as follows.
1. Outline theme and point of paragraph.
2. Add one or two pieces of contextual information that add to our understanding of the theme being discussed.
3. Use evidence from our main text and analyse it in accordance with the theme of the paragraph. Sometimes, focusing on one device, such as the instances of repetition in the text, helps to have a focused analysis.
4. Throughout my evidence and analysis, I make small references to Cranford, Gaskell’s previously published novel, almost a ‘prequel’ to this story, to show how the treatment of these themes and devices has evolved, also peppering in small mentions of historically accurate information that adds to this understanding and analysis.
5. Come to an evaluating mini-conclusion about how the text treats this theme.
6. Repeat this structure for each paragraph/theme that I write on, always using points 1, 3 and 5. Points 2 and 4 are used only when they are relevant and actually add to the essay to make an interesting point/exploration.
This is shown here:
The Cranford ladies find it difficult to accept a co-existence of the picturesque past and the commercial present. The scientific advances of the time created a deep anxiety in a lot of people about the price or meaning of that progress, and an uncertainty of knowing that these advances were movements in uncharted waters. In the case of ‘The Cage at Cranford’, the past can be seen to be depicted as the female sphere of provincial Cranford itself, whereas the male sphere of global industrialisation is representative of the ever-changing present. These two realms are juxtaposed in this story, in which fashion is a changing, male-dominated and global marketplace that the ladies remain out of touch with. The story’s proceedings are set off by a male arrival, Mr. Ludovic, and from the first page the reader is told by Mary that ‘there is such a thing’ as ‘too fashionable’. A male arrival being the catalyst for yet another confusing communication with the outside world, and an admission that yet again the modernisation of the fashion industry does not suit Cranford, aligns the males of this story with the global world and a part of the dominant economy of which Cranford is outside.
This exposes Cranford as open to the pressures of economy and modern industry. However, from the outset there is an example of unity between the two realms, in the description of Mrs and Mr Gordon travelling together; this mutual understanding can allow women more opportunities than rejecting the male realm. Likewise, the Cranford ladies’ sufficiency in life is linked to Cranford’s connection to the rest of the world and the relationship between the sexes. Mary’s first mention that ‘only, it’s not a cap’ precedes a conversation in which the word ‘cap’ is repeated, emphasizing the first miscommunication between Cranford and the outer world. After this hurdle is overcome, the parrot’s name ‘Polly’ is then the focus of repetition to foreground another instance of confused expectations. These misled ruminations extend the chasm between women (the rural past of Cranford) and men (the industrial present of the outer world). Gaskell exposes an unconscious hostility to males among the Cranford ladies, alongside an awareness of the pointlessness of such hostility in a predominantly masculine society, much like common ambivalent attitudes to scientific advances and the pursuit of knowledge. Miss Pole and Mary are shown to be still resistant to male influence, describing men as ‘an encumbrance’ and ‘in the way’. Yet these unsympathetic descriptions are alongside a recognition that Miss Pole only speaks to the men ‘out of civility to me’ and because she ‘relied on the sympathy of our neighbours’; she still has fear of men and interacts with them only through other women. There is no man in her household, which may be one reason for the problematic correspondence between Cranford and Paris. Spinsterhood is no longer a source of pride, as it renders Miss Pole dependant on males and women who associate with them, and this change highlights Cranford’s inability to be part of the progressive wider world without men; the ladies must come to terms with reality and be reconciled to the place of males in society. While Miss Pole does indeed listen to Peter and come to terms with this reality at the end of the story, she decides to reject it and resume an activity that makes her feel more comfortable, despite it isolating her from the rest of the world. This activity is taken on when ‘our spirits revived’, and is described as ‘making two good comfortable English calashes’ with ‘a piece of dyed silk’ and the remnants of the cage. This is akin to Victorian domestic handicraft, which began in the late eighteenth century and perpetuated the values of the woman’s sphere of sentimental and emotional connection, an alternative and rival version of the dominant male economy in the public realm. Thus, although there are changes and steps towards unity of the realms in Cranford, Miss Pole is still seen to be regressing to a familiar, feminine craft of the past to comfort herself in the face of them.
This craft of re-purposing and re-using mirrors Gaskell’s re-using of the situation of miscommunication between Cranford and modern industry and shows a different ending; now that men are in Cranford, fatal errors like that of the failed correspondence between Peter and his mother will not happen again and have the capacity to be rectified. The past of not only society but also the novel is being looked at to give redemption and resolution to previous issues.
Moreover, this longer structural logic allows expressions of bereavement and loss, that are often melancholy in Victorian literature and have been experienced as such by readers of Cranford, to be revisited with a sense of comedy in this story facilitated by the crossing of boundaries. The cage is repurposed, much like the too-late shawl Peter sent for his mother was repurposed, but this time Peter gets his redemption. His very presence reminds the reader of the past in which he was driven out by the extreme matriarchal nature of the Cranford before; but now, he is able to cross the gender boundary and be both gentle, having ‘a smooth way of turning off anger’ but also having male capacity to explain the meaning of the cage before removing the ‘boisterous’, ‘vulgar’, and ‘offending’ Mr Hoggins away. These adjectives contrast Mr Hoggins to Peter, emphasizing his feminine affiliation despite his obvious understanding of the male realm. Through giving Peter the reconciling role, Gaskell redeems him and his family of their past tragedies, alongside the humorous idea of a harmless miscommunication in which Cranford is again the brunt of the joke and Miss Pole again regresses; nothing actually changes despite the fuss that has been created. 
Writing a conclusion is equivalent to writing a more in-depth introduction, and driving your evaluation home. Most times, it’s a space to add every mini conclusion that you’ve made at the end of each paragraph into a cohesive, big picture that answers the main question of the essay. Sometimes, while writing, you may even make some new links that you hadn’t thought of before – which can also be incorporated into your conclusion! In mine, I reiterate the judgements I had come to in previous paragraphs, making sure to reference the continuation between Cranford and ‘The Cage at Cranford’, and how that affects or is affected by the themes explored. With this, I answer the essay question definitively.
This is shown here:
Therefore, Gaskell depicts the co-existence of the sexes necessary to the co-existence of the past and the present; they are not mutually exclusive and must be reconciled in the Victorian mind to be rid of anxiety. She suggests that there has been significant progress towards that sentiment, but it is still difficult for some to accept and they provide the comedic content for this story. While the exploration of this conflict in Cranford causes tragic loss to the Jenkyns family, in ‘The Cage at Cranford’ it allows redemption and relief for not only Peter, but also the reader. With the exploration of these themes of bereavement, women’s relation to men, and the reconciliation of the past and the present as well as a preoccupation with the past in a comic light, ‘The Cage At Cranford’ can be argued to be a work that is not wholly but greatly representative of the literary work of the Victorian era.