Analysis of North and South by Elisabeth Gaskell Essays

Analysis of North and South by Elisabeth Gaskell Essays Analysis of North and South by Elisabeth Gaskell Essay Analysis of North and South by Elisabeth Gaskell Essay Galleys novel comes to term with the loss of an idealized rural past, and the ascendancy of the urban. The book has It all: class conflict, policy, religion, womans right, society. Through the story of Margaret Hale, the middle-class Ethernet who moves to the northern industrial town of Milton, Seashell skillfully explores issues of class and gender in the conflict between Margaritas ready sympathy with the workers and her growing attraction to the charismatic mill owner, John Thornton. Although we have quite a few themes to examine In the Victorian age. The working class people, north and south division, class and gender issues will be elaborated especially. It was In Queen Victorians reign that merchants, manufacturers and bankers started to gain political power, and began to exert pressure on the legislative body, he Parliament. We can understand the gravity of the situation through some professional information. Furthermore, Many of the established landed elite not only prospered through the effects of general economic expansion on their estates, which generated buoyant incomes and capital appreciation that were welcome financial sustenance in keeping up their position, but also themselves formed part of the leading edge of economic development by undertaking or encouraging the building of docks, harbors, railways, mines, or housing estates. They did not, therefore, present a blankly hostile OFF or Allen race to ten capitals entrepreneurs, even IT no memoir AT ten relocate would have cared to be classed as a businessman (153). The condition of working and middle class people can be learned from both novels like Galleys and other books examining that time. As Rutgers states in his book; Working class people could make upward or downward movement within their class only. Movement from working class to middle class was almost impossible. Again, the social mobility depended on education. For many working class families, however, education was a luxury. The system of that time is also stated by Mr.. Thornton and Mr.. Hale when they all sit including Margaret; Mr.. Hale states Is there a necessity for calling it a battle between the two classed? And Mr.. Thornton answers It is true ; and I believe it to be as much a necessity as that prudent wisdom and good conduct are always opposed to, and doing battle with, ignorance and improvidence. It is one of the greatest beauties of our system, that a working-man may raise himself into the power and position of a master by his exertions and behavior ; that, in fact, every one who rules himself to decency and variety of conduct and attention to his duties, comes over to our ranks ; it may not be always as a master, but as an overlooked, a cashier, a book keeper, a clerk, one on the side of authority and order'(96). Another theme to argue is gender in North and South In recent years, psychologists and historians have been exploring gender and its effect both men and masculinity should be approached as femininity is. We can see clear examples of this issue in the novel. Mr.. Thornton states that I take it that gentleman is a term that only describes a person in his legislation 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 castaway, lonely as Robinson Crusoe- a prisoner immured in a dungeon for life-nay, even a saint in Pathos, 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, is unacknowledged?that I am induced to class it with the cant of the day (194). And as Ginger S. Frost states in her book Courtship, Class and Gender in Victorian England men were expected to be brave, facing the consequences of their actions. For one thing, men were cowardly to refuse go through with bargain (42). And in the same book she says probably the most interesting insight into masculinity from breach-of-promise cases was the courts reaction to male sexuality. Once a man had sex with a woman, he was responsible for her. In this way the action undermined the harsh Victorian strictures on female chastity (44). We can say that the possible marriage between John and Margaret could be affected by all the gender and social Issues. The last theme we will examine is the north and south divide, while analyzing the social, intellectual and artistic developments in Victorian Britain, we must mainly think of the Industrial Revolution, the economic factors and the rise of the middle classes which radically altered the means of production, the politics, the customs, and culture. In a conversation between Mr.. Higgins and Margaret, she states; You must not go to South said Margaret, for all that. You could not stand You would not bear the dullness of the life; you dont know what it is; it would eat you away like rust. Those that have live there all their lives are used to soaking in the stagnant water. They labor on from day to day, in the great solitude of steaming fields-never speaking of lifting up their poor, bent, downcast heads. The hard spade- work robs their brain of life; the sameness of their toil deadens their imagination; hey dont care to meet to talk over thoughts and speculations, even the weakest, wildest kind, after their work is done; they go home brutishly tired, poor creatures! Caring for nothing but food and rest. You could not stir them up any companionship, which you get in a town as plentiful as the air you breathe, whether it be good or bad (364). In the novel, John works hard to earn the respect of his workers and tries to comprehend the life conditions. This is probably a good idea because Karl Adamant states in his book As the inner city grew more congested, the homes of the manufacturers and merchants, no longer used as places of business, migrated up the hillsides in order to escape the filth disease and noise of the city(103). Consequently, we can say that Elizabeth Seashell combines the themes of that time brilliantly and renders the issues visible for all trying to figure out Victorian Era. Primary Source: Seashell, Clincher Elizabeth. North and South. Oxford University: Chapman and Hall, 1855. Secondary Sources: Frost, Ginger Suzanne.