
How are the relationships different between master and servant in both the Northern and Southern cultures?ģ. What are some of the immediate differences that Margaret notices between the North and South after moving?Ģ. For more, check out our Resources and Links.ġ. Information gathered from the Gaskell Society. It also attempts to show the change in the significance of religion along with a justification for secrecy and honesty. This social novel highlights the inadequacies of the industrial North from the perspective of a Southern woman. John Thornton and begins to challenge the previously assumed role of women in society.

Among the differences in the two areas, Margaret is exposed to an entirely new social and class structure. Elizabeth Gaskell addresses a number of critical political and social issues stemming from the protagonist Margaret Hale’s relocation from Southern to Northern England. North and South was originally published in 1855 in segments as a part of a weekly magazine edited by Charles Dickens. She is undoubtedly one of the great writers of all time.

Her writing is timeless, seeing that much of her work is still being published, read, and admired some hundred years later. She also challenged the traditional roles of women in society in many of her novels, including North and South, Wives and Daughters, and Mary Barton, but especially through her biography of fellow author Charlotte Bronte, who wrote the famous novel entitled Jane Eyre. Elizabeth Gaskell spread the message for the need for better understanding between employers and workers, and between the highly-regarded and the outcasts, through her writing and her active humanitarian role in society.
