NORTH AND
SOUTH
ELIZABETH GASKELL
, SETTING:
Milton (North)
● Equivalent to Manchester industrial.
● A figure for capitalistic values.
● Entrepreneurial skill and self-interest is what lead to its success.
● Margaret finds beauty in the vulgarity(common real honest) of ‘shoppy’ people
● Margaret quickly learns about the positives of northern society, their genuinity, and work ethic.
● North=industrialisation
● “The colours looked greyer - more enduring, not so gay and pretty. There were no
smock-frocks, even among the country folk; they retarded motion, and were apt to catch
on machinary.” This quote shows how Milton focuses on practicality vs finery.
● “There was no comfort to be given.” by Milton and it initially put Margaret in a “stupor of
despair”
● “lead-coloured cloud” hanging over it, and its air “had a faint taste and smell of smoke.”
Helstone (South)
● Very different to the North that it is often seen as a different country.
● Home of the well educated and comfortable middle class.
● Their success is due to the status quo. Commercial success was based on the working class.
● Very minimal work ethic in the south (indicated by the fact that we are never told what Henry
Lennox does for a living, if anything)
● The people of the South make very shallow judgements based on class on wealth.
● Highly idealised by Margaret even though she doesn't know it - however, when Margaret returns,
she recognizes that there is poverty present, easier to overlook. There is no such thing as an
idyllic place.
● “I am not making a picture. I am trying to describe Helstone as it really is.” Shows how
much Margaret idealizes Helstone.
● “like a village in a poem”
Note:
● One would not exist without the presence of the other (North and South)
● Most novels of this time take one side. Either that of the North or that of the South. Gaskell
however, takes no side. She recognizes faults in both and accepts that neither is perfect.
● The novel looks at the colliding of both ways of life and their presiding ideas, and how both are
unable to see where the other is coming from.
● Also looks at how class is judged from both sides. The poor fault the rich for their excess and
wastefulness while the rich fault the poor for their lack of etiquette and sophistication.
, CHARACTERS:
Margaret Hale
● She is originally the symbol of the South with all its detachment and superiority.
● Having led such a sheltered and luxurious life with the Shaw’s, Margaret looks down upon
anyone who leads a different life. Such is the life of an upper-class Southerner. In the North,
however, the people lead much different lives, and because of this Margaret looks down upon
them and the area that they live in. (this is the initial Margaret)
● “What in the world do manufacturers want with the classics, or literature, of the
accomplishments of a gentleman?” - this shows her initial prejudice toward those in the North
● She is transformed by her life in Milton into a different person, both as an individual and as a
woman.
● Milton forces her to decide where she stands on these issues and address her own prejudices.
● Her very presence when she returns to the Southern luxuries of her Aunt’s house is a denial of
the middle-class values and the idea of inevitable class separation.
● At the end of the novel, she embodies the unbreakable link between southern prosperity and
northern misery. She is both North and South.
● She carries the weight of her family's suffering. She is frequently masculinized. She learnt from a
young age that she must put on a facade in order to be the pillar in the household.
● Although Margaret was also exposed to the luxuries in London, she is less sheltered than Edith.
Margaret is their family but is almost like their servant.
● Margaret is very subservient to Edith when she lives with her. If she upsets Edith, she will
immediately dote on her so that she can receive forgiveness.
● She is different from the beginning. Her differences (shown when she speaks of a “calm and
peaceful time” before marriage) is part of the reason Henry Lennox is attracted to her.
● “Sometimes people wondered that parents so handsome should have a daughter who was
so far from regularly beautiful; not beautiful at all.”- She is not conventionally beautiful,
shows how she does not meet the “requirements” of a Victorian woman (subservience is
beautiful)
● “She was ready with a bright smile”- Margaret must always appear calm and collected. This is
due to the fact that she always has to play the role of head of the household. Her father is no
leader and her mother lives in panic/drama, thus, if she is not the one that is stoic, the family will
not function as a unit.
● “The short curled upper lip, the round, massive up-turned chin, the manner of carrying her
head, her movements, full of a soft feminine defiance, always gave a stranger the
impression of haughtiness.” Describes her physicality and also her personality.
● “If she gave way, who would act?”
● Margaret initially lived in the South in her cottage or with her Aunt Shaw. This was wealthy,
isolated living. Therefore, Margaret was initially immune to the normalities of society.
● When Margaret moves from the South to the North, she thinks its a downgrade in society
● Margaret’s initial impression of the North is negative. She initially thinks people in the trade are
“shoppy”
● Margaret is naturally compassionate (shown particularly by her relationship with the Higgins’), a
trait she cultivated in Helstone (it was a very community-based town).
, ● In Helstone, as the village clergyman’s daughter, she had taken her humanitarian role in society
very seriously. However, here in Milton, her attitude is taken for condescending. It's almost as if
the Milton people think she is talking down at them and that she feels that she is better than them.
However, that is not the case.
● “A regular London girl would understand the implied meaning of that speech” Margaret
doesn't search for compliments from Mr Thornton.
● Margaret’s relationship with her cousin Edith revolves around this idea of elite society, and their
emotional connection is only surface deep
● “She seemed to assume some kind of rule over him at once” - Margaret is technically of a
lower economic class than Thornton but still seems to think herself better than him simply
because of her geographic location.
● “It was not the long, bleak sunny days of spring, nor yet was it that time was reconciling
her to the town of her habitation. It was that she had found a human interest” - This quote
shows the shift in Margaret’s attitude towards the North and thus, Milton. It is no longer the bleak,
dirty place that she had heard so much about while living in the South. She is slowly losing her
‘Southern’ ideals and begins to feel more compassion and forms relationships with many of the
Northern people.
● Margaret eventually returns to London after the death of her mother and father.
● While there she continues to realise that the South is not all that she remembered it to be. While
back in London she often thinks of Milton and the life she has left. “Her thoughts went back to
Milton, with a strange sense of the contrast between the life there, and here…There was a
strange unsatisfied vacuum in Margaret’s heart and mode of life” - Margaret is realising that
she no longer identifies with the ideals and views of the Southern people. Her relationships
formed in the North have changed her.
● Margaret knows how to manipulate, (e.g. she changes her tone to be more womanly when
speaking to John.)
● She is almost oblivious at times, she thinks both the proposals came out of nowhere.
