North and South shows a number of changes that took place during the nineteenth century, such as the movement to cities, social mobility, the emergence of the middle class, class conflict, and unionization, that all derive from the heavy industrialization occurring during this …show more content…
The title itself shows how changes are occurring due to the growing differences between those places that are industrialized and those places that are not. The south of England represented the “old world” in the book. It was a rural place filled with two distinct classes, the upper class aristocrats, Margaret’s family in London, and the lower class rural workers, like many of Helstone’s poor villagers. These two classes had been set in stone and sense there was no means for upward social mobility these classes stayed the way they were. As the novel moves north to Milton there is a different feeling to the classes. Industrialization has spread rapidly in Milton and from the social mobility allowed in this new system a middle class emerged. This class came from people who were previously were in the working class and had worked their way to a higher level that separated them from the other workers. Mr. Thornton is an example of one of these people. He describes how that his father died while he was still in school and that he was pulled from school and had to go to work to provide for his family. This shows that, like the people who work for him now, he has been at a point where he has had to work for his money. He then describes that his mother made him put away a part of the money that he made every week and made him,