The Political Economy of Dead Children: Fiction and Female Productivity in Harriet Martineau’s Garveloch Tales

Abstract

This essay examines Harriet Martineau’s Garveloch Tales in Illustrations of Political Economy as an experimental form of Victorian writing that reflects the contested formulation of domestic norms amidst rapid capitalist development. I focus on the curious juxtaposition of sentimental tales and economic principles in Illustrations to contend that the tensions generated through such formal and thematic contradictions illuminate Martineau’s perennial investment in redefining female productivity. The Garveloch Tales strategically conjoin the emerging idea of capitalist productivity and the cultural norms of motherhood, while their historical incompatibility manifests through her fictional creations. The seemingly detached political economy of dead children in Martineau’s fiction thus complicates Malthusian economic principles rather than simply endorsing them. By scrutinizing the gendered socio-intellectual context that prompts her creative uses of genre, this study also aims to further our understanding of the genealogy of Victorian fiction and its fundamental affinity with the development of the capitalist economy.