North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell

*contains spoilers*

Although not as laden with aptronyms as Dickens’s social novel Hard Times, which was notably serialised just before Gaskell’s North and South in Dickens’s own publication Household Words in 1854, the two bear some rather striking resemblances. And though the one would be considered more matter-of-fact and to-the-point than the other (not surprisingly Hard Times over North and South, taking into account Dickens’s literary and social prestige), Gaskell’s credentials as a genuine Northern Lass should be sympathised with and given most credence, narratives aside.

As the title suggests, Gaskell takes us from the North to the South, back and forth, to and fro, and not just between London and Darkshire (which stands in for an industrial Manchester of the nineteenth century), but Hampshire and some small towns in between. Starting in the neutral zone of aristocratic London, Gaskell gives us scope for the different modes of bourgeois and working-class toil either side of the metropolis, where the snoozing and dress twirling in the plush parlours of the first few chapters becomes more and more ridiculous the more devastating the trials elsewhere become. Margaret Hale, who is born a modest clergyman’s daughter in Hampshire, though raised alongside her spoiled cousin Edith in the nursery of her wealthy aunt Shaw’s Harley Street townhouse in London, breaks free of her acquired haughtiness revealing the goodness beneath only a few days into her stay in the oppressive Milton; “…acting on a sudden impulse, Margaret offered [the flowers she’d just picked] to her.” In a town where tall chimneys are forever pumping out bilious clouds created by the seemingly endless, grimy labour, cases such as Betsy Higgins, whose feeble constitutions are rendered so by the exposure to such atmospheric pollutions, as well as the architected poverty held in place by the aspiring mill managers, are a common occurrence – and Margaret’s class-transcending kindnesses are considered strange and intriguing to the locals.

In juxtaposing the varying degrees of wealth and power not only within but also between the towns, Gaskell shows immense poise and strength in creating such a beautiful balance across the cultural landscape. The colourful characterisation (think Mrs Thornton’s bourgeois pride, Mr Hale’s humbled affability, Edith’s aristocratic ignorance, and Mr Bell’s intellectual pragmatism) makes the dialogue sting and soar in equal measure, particularly when the complexities of the conflict between the mill managers and the unions present themselves, and Margaret cannot help but intervene on both sides of the argument, noticing how the masters hope their labourers possess “’a blind, unreasoning kind of obedience’” without knowledge, wisdom, or a trace of an education, without any savings put aside, “’living in the present’”, so that they are unstable and thus controllable. Even as someone who, along with Dickens, wasn’t all that convinced by the collective power wielded by the unions, Gaskell shows a remarkably open mind to the society-wide benefits unions can offer to the powerless majority, and the selflessness truly implied by the partaking in union activities; “’John Boucher…as live next door but one, wi’ a sickly wife, and eight childer, none ‘em factory age…’” As Nicholas Higgins bemoans the strife of his neighbour, whom he actually doesn’t even like, he also exemplifies why he does what he can, though the strikes are commonly painted as selfish by those pocketing the profits of the labourers’ hard toil. On the other side of this, Mr Thornton, the hard-nosed, aspiring, bourgeois mill manager, chastises Margaret’s handouts to the starving families of the striking men, though he himself “had never known…any kind of society but that which depended on an exchange of superb meals…” Margaret’s efforts to bring the parties together, however, are not in vain, though they rather realistically fail to resolve all the problems that spring up, before and after ceasefires are called and understandings reached.

Struggles are sometimes forgotten in moments of peace, and Gaskell can be a master of atmosphere, particularly when Margaret contemplates her own isolation beneath the likewise peaceful night sky; “…she sate long hours by the open window, gazing out onto the purple dome above, where the stars arose, and twinkled and disappeared behind the great umbrageous trees before she went to bed.” The vast, open and infinite space of the star-speckled sky is paradoxically what seems to be trapping Margaret to a destiny she can’t decide; she sits alone and cooped up in what feels like some glass orb prison, though its endlessness is what is in the end most frightening. On reflection, it’s kindness that is the antidote; it always is, and always should be. Notably, Margaret passes on the goodwill and charity she receives, refusing to pull the ladder up after she’s herself been hoisted above the murky cloud into the fresh air.