Elizabeth Gaskell’s novel, North and South, sets the values of Southern England against those of the North in order to examine the principles of Victorian life through its public and private spheres. Gaskell’s characters inhabit a world that is complicated by social change, and through Margaret Hale, the novel’s protagonist, Gaskell is able to compare these spheres and consider the ways in which they become connected. In her article, “The Female Visitor and the Marriage of Classes in Gaskell’s North and South” Dorice Williams Elliott identifies Margaret’s role in the novel as that of a mediator who bridges the public and private spheres. She believes Margaret’s participation in the “social conversations, industrial debates and ideologies of
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As a young woman in an urban environment Margaret’s walking out alone would have been considered inappropriate, and her attempts to find “a nonpareil of a girl . . . [bring to mind] Mrs Shaw’s ideas of propriety” (Gaskell 81). Margaret makes many mistakes while finding her balance within what she perceives as appropriate. She considers the locals to be “boisterous . . . [and] impertinent . . . they amused her even while they irritated her” (82) and the sharp contrast between the working class and Margaret’s “quiet safety of home” (82) highlights the social differences she will have to learn to overcome in her role of mediator. Margaret’s unsupervised visits to the Higginses take her out of the private sphere and allow her to become a part of the social sphere, through them she recognises the incongruity of her benevolent actions. Unlike Helstone where her visits were welcome, here they prove to be “both inappropriate and ineffective” (Elliott 32). Margaret finds it hard to understand the Higginses words and gestures because of their different dialect, attitudes and values. When she first meets Bessy and her father, she is initially surprised at their lack of understanding that “it would have been an understood thing, after the inquiries she had made, …show more content…
Margaret and Thornton’s marriage at the end of the novel, although a convention of this genre, also sits outside the norm. Based on the examples of marriage already given in the novel it is clear that theirs will be different. Married women were placed into a subordinate position, they were unable to own property and their husbands controlled all matters of life “money, labour and sexuality” (Elliott 46). Margaret’s personal wealth allows her to offer Thornton the finances to save his mill in the “light of a mere business proposal” (Gaskell 529), which puts them on a more equal footing, one that is reflected in the “gentle violence” (531) with which she takes the Helstone roses from Thornton. An earlier incident that furthers this equality is the round robin Thornton received from his workers. That they “wish to work for [him], if ever [he] is in a position to employ men again” (526) reveals the changes in Thornton that will enable him and Margaret to enter their marriage with “mutual understanding and affection” (Elliott 47). Their declaration of their unworthiness for each other implies the opposite and the foils provided by Mrs Thornton and Aunt Shaw with their imagined responses of “That man. . . . That woman!” (531) is a
As a young woman in an urban environment Margaret’s walking out alone would have been considered inappropriate, and her attempts to find “a nonpareil of a girl . . . [bring to mind] Mrs Shaw’s ideas of propriety” (Gaskell 81). Margaret makes many mistakes while finding her balance within what she perceives as appropriate. She considers the locals to be “boisterous . . . [and] impertinent . . . they amused her even while they irritated her” (82) and the sharp contrast between the working class and Margaret’s “quiet safety of home” (82) highlights the social differences she will have to learn to overcome in her role of mediator. Margaret’s unsupervised visits to the Higginses take her out of the private sphere and allow her to become a part of the social sphere, through them she recognises the incongruity of her benevolent actions. Unlike Helstone where her visits were welcome, here they prove to be “both inappropriate and ineffective” (Elliott 32). Margaret finds it hard to understand the Higginses words and gestures because of their different dialect, attitudes and values. When she first meets Bessy and her father, she is initially surprised at their lack of understanding that “it would have been an understood thing, after the inquiries she had made, …show more content…
Margaret and Thornton’s marriage at the end of the novel, although a convention of this genre, also sits outside the norm. Based on the examples of marriage already given in the novel it is clear that theirs will be different. Married women were placed into a subordinate position, they were unable to own property and their husbands controlled all matters of life “money, labour and sexuality” (Elliott 46). Margaret’s personal wealth allows her to offer Thornton the finances to save his mill in the “light of a mere business proposal” (Gaskell 529), which puts them on a more equal footing, one that is reflected in the “gentle violence” (531) with which she takes the Helstone roses from Thornton. An earlier incident that furthers this equality is the round robin Thornton received from his workers. That they “wish to work for [him], if ever [he] is in a position to employ men again” (526) reveals the changes in Thornton that will enable him and Margaret to enter their marriage with “mutual understanding and affection” (Elliott 47). Their declaration of their unworthiness for each other implies the opposite and the foils provided by Mrs Thornton and Aunt Shaw with their imagined responses of “That man. . . . That woman!” (531) is a