Characters

Wives and Daughters has been praised for the three dimensional quality of its characters, even those who are less appealing, such as Mrs. Kirkpatrick. How does Gaskell help us understand and sympathize with the novel's less likable characters? How does she reveal the flaws of the more sympathetic characters, like Molly? Is there a character that is too good to be true or too bad to be believable?

I'm not sure. I felt like all the characters were real. I've known despicable people and I've known amazingly good people so I very rarely read someone and think they are too good or too bad to be true.
I think the fact that there are so many characters in this book that are part of each is what makes them so interesting. Like Mrs. Kirkpatrick for example. She isn't necessarily outright evil. She thinks she is being a good step mom. She didn't lock Molly up in the tower and make her do all the chores- but she just doesn't love anyone as much as she loves herself.
-Annegirl

Good comments annegirl! As I read I felt like the characters were so real...and like us all Mrs. Gaskell brought out the personalities of each so well as to see the good traits and not so good traits. Like Mr. Preston...everyone talked about him as not a very nice person but I didn't see anything that made him so bad. He did everything Cynthia asked of him and had a hard time letting go when she decided to break her promise to him. He did give the letters back and if he had been so bad he wouldn't have cared who got hurt by them. Dr. Gibson was such a good man and doctor but sometimes he just wouldn't listen to what Molly had to say...just kind of brush it off. I felt bad for Molly when he was so upset with her and the gossip situation and almost violent with her and even when he found her sincerity to be believable he would not hug her and give her support. These are just examples of dimensions of two characters that I saw.
-Bookworm