Re-Reading North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
All aboard the Thornton train!!
Back in 2012 I was not a reviewer, nor much of a writer; this was one of the first classics I ever read and I gave it five stars. Now that I know better…I still really like this book.
My favorite way to describe this book is, “It’s like Pride and Prejudice, but if Darcy had a job.” This could indeed be broadly classified as a romance story, but the issues between master and worker, and parent and child, are both major elements.
The story starts with Margaret, the protagonist, helping her cousin prepare for her wedding. Everything is fine, and when she returns home, she’s looking forward to the resumption of normalcy. But after an unexpected proposal casts a shadow on her mind, the crushing blow arrives: her father has left his position as clergyman and he’s moving his family to a northern industrial town. There she meets Mr. Thornton, a cotton mill owner, and the clash of minds begins.
The dynamic between master and worker is a major point of conflict in the story. It’s my least favorite part because it’s hard for me to sympathize with something I think should be solved with a few conversations. I don’t fully understand why the two sides couldn’t meet as equals and hash out the details before things imploded. Perhaps that is part of the takeaway: nothing is ever simple when money is involved.
What I do think is interesting is the difference in the relationships Margaret and Thornton have with their parents. Margaret is the arbiter and reluctant leader; she takes on a lot of the burdens of the household because her mother is in a frail condition, and her father can’t face too many harsh things as the reality of what he’s done settles upon them all. Everything slowly falls apart and it’s up to her to stitch things together the best she can. That weight culminates in this:
…Margaret felt how great and long had been the pressure on her time and her spirits. It was astonishing, almost stunning, to feel herself so much at liberty; no one depending on her for cheering care, if not for positive happiness; no invalid to plan and think for; she might be idle, and silent, and forgetful,—and what seemed worth more than all the other privileges—she might be unhappy if she liked. For months past, all her own personal cares and troubles had had to be stuffed away into a dark cupboard; but now she had leisure to take them out, and mourn over them, and study their nature, and seek the true method of subduing them into the elements of peace. All these weeks she had been conscious of their existence in a dull kind of way, though they were hidden out of sight. Now, once for all she would consider them, and appoint to each of them its right work in her life.
Thornton’s mother is quite the opposite to either of Margaret’s parents. She and Thornton had to pull themselves up after his father killed himself and it made them both tough and resilient. Mrs. Thornton is proud of her son’s achievements and critical of those who would disparage his rise—in other words, Margaret. Mother and son are close but not in an overly fond way; it’s more of a bond forged in fire.
The romance is solid (until the weak-ish end), with much more buildup and growth than Pride and Prejudice. It’s rare in these types of books to be in the man’s mind, so hearing Thornton’s thoughts is a nice change of pace. He tries not to think about Margaret and takes long walks to clear his head, only to end up thinking about her and defending her when his mother trash talks her. He wrestles with the pain of his rejection and accepts that he’ll probably never get her. I don’t know why more stories don’t depict this side of romance, because it really adds to the story. (But if they do, it’s very short and couched amidst bro talk.)
Margaret sees Thornton as not worthy of her attention, since back then working a factory-esque job was not cool and, indeed, something to turn up your nose at. As she learns more of her new home and its residents, she changes her mind and comes to see the south as not so faultless and the north as having merits. I do wish we had more time with her and Thornton at the end, but due to the restrictions of the magazine where Gaskell published it, the story had to be truncated.
Margaret as a protagonist is actually pretty good. She has a guileless inquisitiveness that allows her to insert herself into places and conversations that she otherwise might not experience. Like female characters in old books, she does have that slice of frailty which manifests itself in somewhat flighty emotions and feeling faint. But beyond the swooning, she is a woman with a practical mindset and the ability to admit fault and then change. She’s full of flaws and virtues, like snootiness and generosity, and that makes her realistic and interesting.
It was rather dull for Margaret after dinner. She was glad when the gentlemen came, not merely because she caught her father’s eye to brighten her sleepiness up; but because she could listen to something larger and grander than the petty interests which the ladies had been talking about. She liked the exultation in the sense of power which these Milton men had. It might be rather rampant in its display, and savour of boasting; but still they seemed to defy the old limits of possibility, in a kind of fine intoxication, caused by the recollection of what had been achieved, and what yet should be. If in her cooler moments she might not approve of their spirit in all things, still there was much to admire in their forgetfulness of themselves and the present, in their anticipated triumphs over all inanimate matter at some future time which none of them should live to see.
In reference to the wedding preparations:
“But are all these quite necessary troubles? […] I should like it to be a very fine summer morning; and I should like to walk to church through the shade of trees; and not to have too many bridesmaids, and to have no wedding-breakfast. I dare say I am resolving against the very things that have given me the most trouble just now.”
And she swept out of [the room] with the noiseless grace of an offended princess.
Thornton is the best. I love hearing his thoughts and reasonings. He’s got convictions, he voices them well (perhaps too well; he lost me a few times in the lengthy paragraphs), and he has a quiet strength. And he spits straight facts:
“A man is to me a higher and a completer being than a gentleman. […] I take it that ‘gentleman’ is a term that only describes a person in his relation to others; but when we speak of him as ‘a man,’ we consider him not merely with regard to his fellow-men, but in relation to himself,—to life —to time —to eternity. A cast-away lonely as Robinson Crusoe—a prisoner immured in a dungeon for life—nay, even a saint in Patmos, has his endurance, his strength, his faith, best described by being spoken of as ‘a man.’ I am rather weary of this word ‘gentlemanly,’ which seems to me to be often inappropriately used, and often, too, with such exaggerated distortion of meaning, while the full simplicity of the noun ‘man,’ and the adjective ‘manly’ are unacknowledged—that I am induced to class it with the cant of the day.”
“Mr. Lennox knows little about it,” said Mr. Thornton quietly. “Happy and fortunate in all a man cares for, he does not understand what it is to find oneself no longer young—yet thrown back to the starting-point which requires the hopeful energy of youth—to feel one half of life gone, and nothing done—nothing remaining of wasted opportunity, but the bitter recollection that it has been. […] Those who are happy and successful themselves are too apt to make light of the misfortunes of others.”
He alters his mindset, he listens, he perseveres, he doesn’t make rash decisions, and he isn’t some crazy dude nor has he locked his wife in a tower (I actually do like Rochester). I know Darcy is many people’s perfect man, but Thornton is pretty fantastic too.
Another fantastic character is Mr. Bell, who is Margaret’s godfather. He’s hilarious and a bit of an imp, prodding people for answers, a smile and witty remark never far off.
Overall, the characters aren’t caricatures like in Dickens’ work, or unhinged and over-the-top like the Brontës. They seem more genuine than a lot of other people in classics and I appreciate that.
Another thing I appreciate is the description of the scenery isn’t overblown and excessive. It’s fair to compare this to Dickens’ Bleak House, which ended its serialized run the prior year. That book is…well, a lot of things, one being overly long. Dickens goes on and on to the point of distraction and it really doesn’t help the story. Here, not only is the description an acceptable length, but it does a good job of painting the places.
The forest trees were all one dark full, dusky green; the fern below them caught all the slanting sunbeams; the weather was sultry and broodingly still.
Done. Whereas Dickens would’ve been caught up in what kind of trees there are and how the caterpillars were busy chewing the leaves and making their cocoons. I don’t like overwrought passages of descriptions and though this book does have little flickers of that—probably because that’s just how most contemporary books were written—it is not nearly to the extreme that I’ve seen in similar books.
You can take this story as some grand commentary on the working class and social statuses; there’s plenty to parse out and examine. Me? I’m a simple girl with simple expectations. If there’s a good story with good characters and prose, I’m in.
The 2004 miniseries is one of my favorite period dramas, but I will discuss it in a future post.
…it is a common effect of such a room as this to make people speak low, as if unwilling to awaken the unused echoes.
One more zinger from Thornton:
“I believe women are at the bottom of every plague in this world.”
My review for Pride and Prejudice. It’s not my best, but I do not want to reread that book.
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Great review. As always. I think he nailed the man/gentleman thing.