Elizabeth Gaskell "North and South"

 

Elizabeth Gaskell

North and South takes place against the background of the industrial north, in mid-nineteenth-century England. It tells the story of Margaret Hale, a beautiful, intelligent, proud young woman from an upper-class family, admired and loved by everyone who knows her. Margaret's father is a clergyman in the south of the country, but when the family's circumstances change, they move from their beautiful, isolated village to Milton-Northern, a dirty, smoky city in the north, where cotton manufacturing is the main industry.

There, Margaret meets a wealthy mill owner, Mr Thornton. Margaret, who has been brought up to despise people who make money from commerce, dislikes him immediately, and finds him hard and unsympathetic towards his workers. But the mill owner, while seeing Margaret as unpleasantly proud, cannot stop himself from falling in love with her. The novel follows the ups and downs of their relationship as Margaret undergoes a series of personal tragedies and the mill workers strike, with dramatic consequences for Mr Thornton. The changes in outward circumstances are mirrored by great changes in both Margaret and Mr Thornton. Another man, a clever lawyer called Henry Lennox, is also in love with Margaret. Is it possible for either man to win her?

 

 

  

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