The 19th century was an age of fast-paced changes throughout England and Europe. Following the great shifts happening in society as a whole – from technology to economy, from public to private life –, art could not be left out of this movement. Many writers were testing the limits of fiction and literature, both in form and content. If some of them turned to the realm of poetry – such as Elizabeth Barrett Browning, with the verse novel Aurora Leigh –, others engaged in novel-writing and consolidated it as widely respected form of art.
This led to the theorization of what novels were and should be, of what their goals and themes were and should be. When reading about Victorian theories of the novel, one may find many now-canonical authors engaged in this discussion. Walter Scott defended novels should exist for more than just leisure and recount of the manners of the wealthier classes; Dickens believed in the social function of the form; Trollope thought that entertainment was a major function of the novel, but novelists had to recognize that their works should also instruct. The Realist movement saw the author as a narrator of facts; George Eliot said that “[h]er goal as a novelist was to help her readers to be better able to imagine and feel ‘the pains and joys of those who are different from themselves in everything but the broad fact of being struggling erring human creatures’.” (CHILDERS, 2002, p. 412)
Although one cannot say this was a homogenous school of thought, it is not hard to see a pattern: the novel was not a frivolous and shallow pastime. In fact, as Rancière would later argue, if before stories were told based on the difference between active and passive men, in which action and great events were carried out by the former and the latter would only see things happening to them and to the world, the 19th-century novel changes that. It brings what he names a “Novelistic Democracy” (RANCIÈRE, 2006), i.e., the belief that all beings are equal, all things are equivalent, all details are equally important; characters and their environment become equally important and significant. More and more, common people would become characters of novels. One may even think this could be a hindsight view if it were not for George Meredith’s stand on the structure of the novel, as he stated that “examining the interiority, the psychology, of characters must be as important as the intricacies of the plot” (CHILDERS, 2002, p.411). Dickens advocates that novels “could do important work by changing public opinion and opening the eyes of the public to social and political abuses” (CHILDERS, 2002, p.410); Henry James even states that “the novel searches for and reveals truth as much as does history or philosophy” (CHILDERS, 2002, p.413) – although History would turn its eyes to common people in the beginning of the 20th century, so we could even argue that novels were years ahead of it.
Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South is a masterpiece of this movement and the Novelistic Democracy. The journey the Hales go through from beginning to end can be seen as a tale of the British landed gentry. It is noteworthy that the Hales’s somewhat precarious position only reinforces the argument that these realist novels aim to address the lives of common people: Margaret is not the prettiest or wealthiest of her class. In fact, at the beginning of the novel, we see how she is always second to Edith, in the end of it we can see how Edit sees her almost as her own personal lady’s maid. The central character of this novel is never the center of her own life. Margaret leaves London and Helstone to live in Milton Northern with far fewer resources than she was used to. She is forced to know and live with people she considered below her: “shoppy” people, as she defines them. By doing so, she and her family are affected by a great shift: they go from a family of great prestige where they resided to a family that is looked down on by wealthier members of society.
If, at the beginning of the novel, Margaret sees herself as better than everyone in that northern town, as the plot develops, she gradually faces reality: she is a normal person, just like any member of the Thornton or the Higgins family. She is no different from factory owners or workers.
As the narrator follows mostly Margaret throughout the novel, we are more acquainted with the people she meets in Milton, and this also reveals a great deal about how Gaskell sees the world and, more specifically, England. If she becomes somewhat close with Mr. Thornton, it happens because her father is his tutor. That forces her into unlooked-for conversations with him. When she meets his mother, she becomes no fonder of her. Margaret’s mind begins to change when she meets the Higginses.
She meets Bessy Higgins, a 19-year-old who is sick due to her work in the cotton mills, in the streets of Milton and they become friends. Margaret promises to visit her but doesn’t go when she said she would. When meeting her again, Bessy complains and makes it clear she was very disappointed, and here we are presented to a very important characteristic of the Higgins family: they are not apologetic, they do not act differently when talking to people who would traditionally be above them. Margaret apologizes, they become very good friends and talk regularly until Bessy’s death. As someone who we see as representative of the new England, Margaret Hale feels closer to Bessy than she feels to Mr. Thornton.
Nicholas Higgins, Bessy’s father, is one of the most interesting characters in the story. As a member of the worker’s committee, Nicholas is very engaged in the labor movement, being one of the strongest supporters of the strike. A huge part of his participation in the plot is made of discourses in favor of the workers and against mill owners. But this is not the only resource Gaskell uses to address the issue and she makes him no less important than the aristocratic or wealthy characters. If we see this novel as an attempt of conciliating opposite views, opposite national and philosophical projects, there is more to Nicholas Higgins than class struggle.
After being introduced by Margaret, Higgins and Mr. Hale develop a curious friendship, having a few meaningful conversations throughout the story. Despite eventually revealing he believes in God, Higgins’s whole take on life is based on firsthand experience: suffering, poverty, struggle. His ideas regarding life and work are quite materialistic, thus clashing with Mr. Hale’s religious background and philosophy. This is where, once again, old England meets new England. Modernity does not come only from new machines and labor relations, but also from new religious and philosophical concepts.
Gaskell is praised for not making the workers a homogeneous body in the novel. While Nicholas despises religion based on materialistic philosophy, his daughter, Bessy, relies on afterlife as a way to bear her suffering. In this sense, another dissonant character is John Boucher, another worker who somehow antagonizes Nicholas regarding the strike. Boucher struggles to feed his children during the strike and considers the union a coercing tyrant. After instigating a riot in Marlborough Mills – which works as a narrative resource to bring Margaret Hale and John Thornton closer –, he dies by suicide.
This is one of the greatest turns in the plot. Here we must point out that not all deaths in the novel are as central as this one, as it impacts nearly all main characters. It changes Nicholas, Margaret and even John Thornton’s attitudes. It is very significant that the death of a worker should affect members of all three classes represented in the novel. Of course, Mrs. Hale’s and Mr. Hale’s deaths change the course of the novel, but only as long as they affect Margaret’s actions and life, second-handedly impacting the other characters as would be expected in any novel, since she is the main character. The same goes for Mr. Bell’s death. On the other hand, Boucher’s death impacts, more than anyone else, Nicholas Higgins, and that is going to affect other characters in the novel in a way that probably wouldn’t be regularly expected from such a character.
Nicholas Higgins feels guilty, thinking he might have driven Boucher to suicide because of the strike. Because of this, he embraces the responsibility of providing for the deceased worker’s children. As he can’t find employment in Milton, Nicholas tells Margaret that he is going to the South to find labor. In this moment, it becomes very clear to the reader that Margaret no longer holds such idealized memories from her hometown. For the first time in the novel, she starts talking about the negative side of Helstone, of its cold and hard life. Although Margaret’s growth has been evident, this is the first time it becomes obvious to the reader she is no longer attached to the place where she came from.
After he manages to find employment with Mr. Thornton (not without Margaret’s help), they gradually leave their harshest differences behind and find a way to coexist. In fact, this represents a shift in John’s mind towards a more flexible relationship with his workers, ultimately ending in him having a closer cooperation with them, experimenting new management methods.
Finally, if we assume Margaret Hale stands for the landed gentry and Nicholas Higgins for the workers, John Thornton stands for the bourgeoisie: this new and powerful class in England. As a self-made man, he embodies this rising class seeking to establish itself as the ruling class in modern society. Aware of his educational deficiencies, he turns to Mr. Hale for tutoring on literature and culture, to improve his own formation. This shows Thornton’s tension between the old and the new world. While he still values art and culture as an important part of one’s education, he does not value old classifications such as “gentleman”:
‘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.’
As previously mentioned, the individual is becoming increasingly important. However important class relations might be – and they clearly are, as far as Gaskell’s work is concerned –, man himself should have a greater value. This individual-oriented tension can be further observed in John Thornton’s feelings as the novel develops and he relates not only to Mr. Hale but also to John Boucher and Nicholas Higgins.
Thornton’s father died by suicide because of gambling debts, which forced John to start working very early. While he nurtures what we would currently call a meritocratic take on life and his own personal story, he only gives Nicholas Higgins a job after he learns the truth about Boucher. In fact, Higgins’s dedication to Boucher’s children appears to be the final deciding factor in Thornton’s decision. One may suppose his own personal story could have influenced his final decision, despite all the trouble Higgins had caused for him. A short analysis presented by the narrator in one of the last pages of the novel summarizes what this essay has tried to say. It refers to Thornton’s and his workers’ relationship:
“He and they had led parallel lives – very close, but never touching – till the accident (or so it seemed) of his acquaintance with Higgins. Once brought face to face, man to man, with an individual of the masses around him, and (take notice) out of the character of master and workman, in the first instance, they had each begun to recognize that ‘we have all of us one human heart’.” (GASKELL, 1994, p. 388)
REFERENCES
CHILDERS, Joseph W. Victorian Theories of the Novel. A Companion to the Victorian Novel, v. 85, p. 406, 2002.
GASKELL, Elizabeth. North and south. Wordsworth Classics, 1994.
RANCIÈRE, Jacques. The lost thread: the democracy of modern fiction. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2016.