North and South

In the Victorian era, society operated under a strict patriarchal system that viewed women as the weaker sex meant to be ruled by men and bound by a duty to the home and family. Without the prospect of a career or trade, marriage was the only path to economic stability; aside from middle-class jobs as governesses or teachers, women were expected to stay in the home. Victorian etiquette books gave women rules for how to behave, and marriage was seen as a solution to the problem of fragile femininity. Elizabeth Gaskell criticizes this view and sees the lack of education and absence of fulfilling work as damaging to women’s intellectual and emotional development. In her view, women should be active in their community, serving and interacting with people outside their familial unit. Gaskell’s Unitarian faith informs her narrative as she creates a character that is motivated by her conscience, not bound by tradition or customs. Through her nontraditional Victorian heroine Margaret, Gaskell explores the idea of female autonomy in a young woman who goes beyond the boundaries of her gender to find kinship in her community and discover meaning within herself.

Gaskell provides in Edith and Fanny examples of young women following the traditional role of females in the Victorian Era. Edith is beautiful but flighty and self-centered. Fanny is delicate and driveling. Both ladies make advantageous matches and fade into the background as married ladies. They accomplish little except looking lovely and producing offspring. Conversely, Margaret has no plans for marriage and refuses not one but two proposals from wealthy men: “In the first place, Margaret felt guilty and ashamed of having grown so much into a woman as to be thought of in marriage” (44). From the onset of the novel, Margaret shows little regard for the rigid gender rules symbolized by the frequent removal of her bonnet. She takes it off in front of both Lennox and Thornton, a move that the community would see as inappropriate and scandalous but to Margaret, it is as natural as breathing. Though not employed outside the home, Margaret conducts the silent, invisible work of women. Supporting the emotional needs of the household takes a tremendous emotional toll on the protagonist. Her family leaves her to manage the household and she finds herself doing the work of both a man and a woman to keep the Hale family intact.

In contrast to Helstone and London, Margaret finds in Milton women like Bessy and Mrs. Thornton who, like herself, transcend the traditional female stereotype. Life in Milton is harsh and requires women to be brave and resilient. Bessy, though diminished by her illness, is no less strong in her personality. She is not ruled by her father and instead preaches to him about faith and abstaining from alcohol abuse. Though Mrs. Thornton and Margaret do not agree completely on all matters, Margaret sees her strength and admires the pride and resolve she carries for her family. Just the north challenges and disrupts the traditional systems of authority in English society, Margaret asserts herself as a woman of action not content to waste away in a meek existence:

[S]he had learnt in those solemn hours of thought, that she herself must one day answer for her own life, and what she had done with it; and she tried to settle that most difficult problem for woman, how much was to be utterly merged in obedience to authority, and how much might be set apart for freedom in working (565).

Through Margaret, Gaskell shows that society should value women for more than just their looks or ability to procreate. Rather, society should prize women for their ability to be productive, industrious citizens of the community.