At least for me, it’s hard to gauge where Gaskell compared to other writers in the 19th century, especially when you put her besides the beast of women writers in the day, in particular the Brontës and Austen. I love reading the Brontës dearly, hell I love them even without reading them. I think Austen is overrated and her subject matter her fickle as Charlotte Brontë criticised her to be. So I think that if I have to compare, Gaskell sits in between all the Brontës and Austen. Yet is unfair to compare, because all of these women are starkly different authors (even among the Brontë sisters).
You couldn’t mistake the Dickensian influence in Gaskell’s work. She deep dives into the hazards of the industrial revolution, trying to put a humane face to those who suffer the most: the working class and in particular, the females among them. Prior to North and South, I have only read Gaskell’s biography of Charlotte Brontë and Cranford. I really liked the biography, but found Cranford lukewarm and recognised that it’s not Gaskell’s best work. I had more expectations with this book, and I was really rooting for Gaskell so that I can love reading her as much as I do the Brontë sisters, but she fell short. Take nothing away, I thoroughly enjoyed North and South and its place as a classic of its time, and our time, is well deserved.
North is where most of the novel takes place, in the fictional town of Milton which is not too dissimilar to Manchester. South is where Margaret Hale is from, coming from a background of the clergy and a taste of aristocracy where she spent years with her wealthy relatives. North is where industry takes place, a good representation of the new revolution which is driving England’s economic engine at the epoch. South is laidback, old money, where the wealthy resembles Austen’s gentry and the farmers are the closest thing to the working class. It is mainly an aristocratic and hoighty-toighty place though. The North is rough, with workers living with a wage that barely supports their family and the union always on the brim of striking. The South, as chilled as it may be, have the same profundity of friendships struck in Mean Girls and they don’t really care much of each other really.
That is not to say that the North and South can never be reconciled. Gaskell’s message is otherwise. The best of the South is represented in Margaret Hale — sympathetic, has strong attachment to her family, perhaps a little naïve and emotional. While living in the North she adapts quickly but is still tainted by traces of the quiet pastoral and idyll she left behind. The strength of the North is inherent in John Thornton — an industrious man who came from humble origins, pragmatic and forward thinking, not afraid to get his hands dirty with work. Work defines him, the results of his industry is the profit from his work. Reading John Thornton reminds me of Hank Rearden in Atlas Shrugged, but Thornton is much more human, vulnerable and believable. To be fair, I dislike all the characters in Atlas Shrugged.
Where North and South is reconcilable is Hale and Thornton meeting in the middle: Hale has to appreciate the emotional required to deliver the results of industry, where numbers and profit matter, and progress rides in its wave. Thornton must understand the humanity of the people he employs for labour to help him achieve his deliveries. Hale and Thornton’s tug of war is the important battleground for the traditional and modern values clashing, and hopefully at some point, compromising.
North and South also explores the concept of purpose — where all the character struggle to find meaning in their work (and oftentimes the lack of it) and role in the family. Margaret’s father doubted his faith in his vocation as a preacher, and sparked the move to Milton in the off-chance that he can tutor some of the young men there. Thornton is the most single-minded, his work gives him meaning to his life, working overtime to solve issues at work — the labour strike being only one of them. Margaret plays the role of the daughter perfectly to protect her parents from the tempest of their own indecisions. Ironically, none of these characters found success with their purpose — Mr Hale languished as a tutor, Thornton’s factory went into the brink of bankruptcy, Margaret lost both of her parents. It is a harsh judgement, maybe, but it seems that whatever purpose the characters have at the time was only temporal.
And in a way, North and South is a novel about change. England is at the brink of massive changes from the industrial revolution, whether these are truly beneficial for the common people who are caught smack bang in the middle of it is an important component of this book. It is a novel about adaptation, as Margaret adapts to the ways of the North. These changes can come at a cost — it has cost the death of some of the novel’s characters, but those who transcended through these changes may be better off, though not undamaged.
Gaskell’s writing, though not too far distant from the style of Charlotte Brontë, is perhaps closer in purpose to Dickens. Although Dickens position is clear on where he stands on the industrial revolution, Gaskell’s approach is a bit more open-ended, but her message is clear, and something that we can agree on: we cannot neglect humanity in the face of progress.
