478 Gaskell, Elizabeth
Margaret rejects him outright, again without the
knowledge or consent of her parents.
Elizabeth Gaskell, the daughter and wife of
Unitarian ministers, really shares the fundamental
belief of Mary Wollstonecraft, author of A Vindica-
tion of the Rights of Woman, that women must be
treated as rational and responsible because subordi-
nation is contrary to Christianity and because only
rational beings can be capable mothers. Throughout
the course of the novel, one senses Margaret—and
Gaskell—bristling at any sense of power or entitle-
ment over women that men may have been taught
or raised to think was their right by social position.
Margaret will not be stereotyped, even to the point
of engaging the businessmen and mill owners, fac-
tory workers and others in a debate about their lives
and responsibilities.
Women in the novel are strong, except for those
who represent typical domestic types: Margaret’s
cousin, Edith, and Fanny Thornton, the mill owner’s
sister, seen also preparing to wed a much older hus-
band who is wealthy and successful. Both of these
women are portrayed as dependent and concerned
with frivolous matters, such as purchasing clothing
and having dinner parties, knowing French, embroi-
dery, piano, and social customs, but not having much
purpose in life. Mrs. Hale, in contrast, feels she has
made a bad marriage since her husband has not
amounted to much, but she is a strong figure who
stands by his decisions, survives the loss through exile
of her son Frederick owing to his role in the mutiny
against an unjust naval captain, and becomes ill with
cancer, dealing stoically with her painful illness. Mrs.
Thornton, John’s mother, lost her husband to suicide
because he had made bad investments and lost his
fortune. She stood behind her son’s climb back to
becoming a mill owner and restoring the family for-
tune. She also spent time on the mill floor, helping
her son to supervise workers—not the common role
for a middle-class woman of means. Ironically, both
women have been strengthened by the hardships
in their lives, benefiting from adversity rather than
being shielded from it as middle-class Victorian
domestic hierarchy would have tended to do.
Part of the gender theme surrounds and is inter-
twined with the working world of the industrial
north, which offers few roles and opportunities,
changing customs and behaviors for women and also
for both genders. Early in the novel, as Margaret
wanders the streets of her new urban home, she is
taken by what she perceives as the “forwardness” of
men and women who actually touch her garments
as they pass, commenting on their quality and on
her fresh, natural beauty, which they admire without
being lewd or untoward. One would never encounter
such behavior in the strict social setting of London,
or the more traditional and deferential agrarian
south where Margaret was raised.
Margaret is open to the change and discusses
it with Betsy Higgins, the factory girl whom she
befriends, and her father Nicholas, the union orga-
nizer and factory hand whom she tries to get John
Thornton to hire after the strike. In fact, Margaret
has been raised and educated by her father on a par
with her brother Frederick. She is versed in the clas-
sics, in biblical themes, and in political economy as
is seen in discussions at the Thorntons’ dinner party,
where her opinions about the need for mill owners
to care more for the welfare of their workers is quite
controversial. Again, Gaskell departs from tradi-
tional gender roles by showing Margaret as a woman
who is able to hold intelligent conversation about
that matter of industry and the national economy,
not restricted to conversations about trends in fash-
ion or who is available for marriage.
Through the death of her parents and the unfor-
tunate turn of events of John Thornton’s mill, Mar-
garet ends up as owner (from the behest of Mr. Bell,
her guardian after her father’s sudden death). She is
ready to assume not only legal ownership, but also a
rightful place as an enlightened owner who knows
the workers, their situation, and the realities of the
industrial world at Milton-Northern. Only then, as
an equal, can she and Thornton consider feelings
for one another. Gaskell’s North and South offers an
expanded and enlightened view of gender that serves
as a model by which other 19th-century heroines and
readers can judge women as rational, capable, and
strong individuals with minds and lives of their own.
Anthony GrassoJuStice in North and South
Gaskell’s concerns over law and justice are squarely
placed within a context of practice: How are laws