North and South Characters

The Proud Every main character needs to be flawed in some way. After all, who's going to care about a main character that's perfect? No one, that's who. And when it comes to flaws, the first th...

The Capitalist If pride is the first trait we notice about Margaret Hale, then impatience has to be what we notice about Mr. John Thornton. For a writer like Elizabeth Gaskell, Thornton is a class...

Let's face it. John Thornton can sometimes be a bit of a mamma's boy. And how can you blame him, seeing as how his mother takes an interest in every aspect of his life? First on her list of priorit...

Mr. Hale means well, and you have to admire him for sticking to his principles and resigning from his job. But the dude is pretty weak-willed and not really the most supportive father. When he expl...

Mrs. Hale doesn't do a whole lot in this book other than complain. Like her husband, she mostly just puts pressure on her daughter Margaret to fix the family's problems and to take care of everythi...

Nicholas Higgins is Margaret Hale's main connection to the working class folk of Milton. She first meets him when she offers a bouquet of flowers to his sickly daughter, Bessy. She even offers to v...

Like Tiny Tim in Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, Bessy Higgins' main role in this book is to just be a sick child who tugs on our heartstrings and gets our sympathy. She knows that she'll never...

Cousin Edith isn't the roundest of characters in this book. She's basically a superficial princess who likes to brag about being married and having a beautiful baby. That being said, she and Margar...

Margaret Hale's Aunt Shaw isn't in much of North and South, but she's worth mentioning because Gaskell makes the effort to make her a fairly round character. We might want to think at first that Mr...

Like the rest of the London crowd, Henry Lennox shows up only at the beginning and end of this book. He is an ambitious young lawyer who looks forward to climbing the ranks of London society. We ca...

Frederick isn't in the book for very long, since he only shows up at his mother's death. But he still plays a big part in the plot of this novel. For starters, he is constantly on the minds of his...