Margaret asked her father if he had looked for lodging yet, noting her mother's poor health. Margaret was glad when her mother fell ill if only to keep her from meddling in the difficult process. The next few weeks were a whirlwind of packing up the house. She rebuked Dixon and sent her out of the room. That evening Margaret was annoyed with the servant woman, Dixon, for criticizing Mr. Hale observed in her husband's face something quite pitiful, and ran to meet him when he entered the drawing-room. Margaret was glad when her mother's mind turned to thoughts of moving furniture, hoping her father would not meet with rage when he came home. Margaret did not want to stand up for them, but explained that they need not have anything to do with such folk. After asking Margaret several questions, she began to ponder the dirtiness of the air and the coarseness of factory town people.

At least her father's intentions were pure, but it was still a blow to Mrs. Her mother was shocked, and Margaret admitted to herself that her mother should have been told, not kept in ignorance. Hale was going to leave the Church and they were to move to Milton-Northern. Summoning her courage, she told her mother that Mr. The next morning her father announced his intention to leave the house to call on several villagers this was the sign for Margaret to speak with her mother. Her father came in her room to interrupt her pensive midnight reverie and prayed with her. That evening she could not sleep, and sat in her window seat, wondering what doubts her father had had to make him a schismatic. Would that contemporary novelists could also take on that challenge.Margaret listened to her mother talk about her plans for the parishioners, feeling inward stabs of pain when she realized she would not be there to help much longer. As Dickens himself found with Hard Times, marrying social concerns with enjoyable storytelling is far from straightforward, but Gaskell succeeds. It's not exactly original, either – there's more than a doff of the cap to Charlotte Brontë's Shirley, and suggestions that it's an industrial Pride and Prejudice certainly hold some water.īut, actually, it doesn't matter. Dickens was apparently infuriated by its lack of focus, only for Gaskell to respond by cunningly reintroducing edited chapters later. There's even a Shakespearean case of mistaken identity, just to make the course of true love run a little less smooth.Īll of which makes North and South far too long.

She becomes part of a clearly signposted will-they-won't-they love story with the outwardly rough-and-ready manufacturer Mr Thornton.

Margaret is torn from the bucolic surroundings of Hampshire in classic fish-out-of-water style. Gaskell's priorities lay with storytelling.

North and south gaskell sparknotes