Novel Approaches: ‘North and South’ by Elizabeth Gaskell

Close Readings

In North and South (1855), Margaret Hale is uprooted from her sleepy New Forest town and must adapt to life in the industrial north. Through her relationships with mill workers and a slow-burn romance with the self-made capitalist John Thornton, she is forced to reassess her assumptions about justice and propriety. At the heart of the novel are a series of righteous rebels: striking workers, mutinous naval officers and religious dissenters.

Dinah Birch joins Clare Bucknell to discuss Gaskell’s rich study of obedience and authority. They explore the Unitarian undercurrent in her work, her eye for domestic and industrial detail, and how her subtle handling of perspective serves her great theme: mutual understanding.

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Read more in the LRB:

Dinah Birch: The Unwritten Fiction of Dead Brothers

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v19/n19/dinah-birch/the-unwritten-fiction-of-dead-brothers

Rosemarie Bodenheimer: Secret-keeping

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v29/n16/rosemarie-bodenheimer/secret-keeping

John Bayley: Mrs G

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v15/n05/john-bayley/mrs-g

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