North And South Margaret Hale Character Analysis

The Hale family, though not of the working class, also relocates to the dreary and smoke filled city of Milton. Margaret’s father, a former vicar of England “[suffers] for conscience’ sake” and can no longer fulfill his religious duties. They arrive in Milton, and are met with the reality of factories being over saturated with not only men, but some women and children too. The city's true forthcomings originally leave Margaret, and especially that of her mother, distraught; but once she makes the acquaintance of Bessy Higgins, a factory worker’s daughter, she starts to care more for the city and hardworking people in it. Elizabeth Gaskell does a fine job of thoroughly writing the accounts of her character’s, and by doing so, provides a rather realistic window into the working and civilian life among those living in the rush of …show more content…
North and South, written by the incredible Elizabeth Gaskell, provides readers with so much insight, though fictional, into the personal relationships and reactions to many of the themes and event that took place in the middle of the 19th century. In this essay, I argued that through the use of her female heroine, Miss. Margaret Hale, Elizabeth Gaskell has written North and South as a political and social narrative that the layouts the main tensions of the mid-19th century; by addressing the prominent sexism and gender inequality of the time, the massive role of the Industrial Revolution, and by analyzing the dynamics between the social classes. Gaskell is a skilled writer, and she brings to life the very real events of history, and beautifully personates them in works of fiction that allows her to not only provide intimate look at the mid-19th century but also that of her own political, social and economic positions as a