Opening Line
The dense tapestry of irony which layers this narrative is applied with the smooth swipe of the novel’s opening line. Cranford is characterized in this first image of the village as being “in possession of the Amazons.” The Amazons are, of course, a mythical tribe of women warriors noted for their ferocity and fitness, whereas the “Amazons” running Cranford are, for the most part, aging spinsters.
Feminism
The opening imagery goes much further than simply making an ironically absurd comparison between the spinsters of Cranford and the Amazon warriors. The very concept that the village is “in possession” of these women automatically indicates a subversion of the patriarchy. And any subversion of the patriarchy automatically brings to mind issues of female empowerment and feminism. And issues related to female empowerment and feminism naturally lead directly to progressive political action. In other words, being “in possession” of Cranford seems to automatically situate these would-be Amazons as iconic prototypes of progressive liberal ideology. Ironically, they are devoted to using their power of possession to keep Cranford stuck firmly in the conservatism of what was the past in their own present-day. They are feminists who idealize much of what feminism has fought against.
Tragic Irony
The institutional foundation of the sort of feminism practiced by the Amazons of Cranford is that men simply are not good for anything. At just about every turn, the dependence upon a man in Cranford by any woman winds up a humiliating failure. It is therefore the height of tragic irony that the arrival of one of the few men into the village is killed while proving his worthiness and dependability in the act of saving a child from being run over by a train.
The Ironic Punchline
A recurring feature of the text is the ironic twist to short little anecdotes of the spinsterhood as told by the first-person narrator. A perfect example occurs with the punchline to the tale of one Miss Betsy Barker and her unfortunate cow who fell into a lime-pit and came out “naked, cold, and miserable, in a bare skin.” That useful man spoken of in the previous entry finally has enough of the awful advice being given to Betsy in her pathetic attempt to keep the cow alive and happy. He finally advises her to go ahead and dress the cow in flannel if she so desires, but if she really wants to treat the animal with the love she feels and the respect it deserves, she should kill it at once to put it out of its misery:
“Miss Betsy Barker dried her eyes, and thanked the Captain heartily; she set to work, and by-and-by all the town turned out to see the Alderney meekly going to her pasture, clad in dark grey flannel. I have watched her myself many a time. Do you ever see cows dressed in grey flannel in London?”
Mary Smith
The narrator’s name is ultimately, anti-climactically, revealed to be Mary Smith. It is a such a drab, mundane name utterly lacking in any distinctive character. It is therefore irony itself that someone with such an unfortunately colorless name actually inhabits an identity that reveals itself as being quite colorfully ironic in her narrative commentary throughout the text:
“Peggy came in once more, red with importance. Another tray! `Oh, gentility!’ thought I, `can yon endure this last shock?’”
