Where It All Goes Down
North and South (Are you Surprised?)
Holy smokes. We're open-mouthed with surprise here. Who would have thought that a novel named North and South would take place in the northern and southern regions of England?
But for realz, this entire book pretty much focuses on the cultural differences that you're bound to run into between southern England's high culture and the more commercial, gritty life of northern England. As Margaret Thornton tells us early in the novel, the southern village of Helstone is "like a village in a poem—in one of Tennyson's poems" (1.1.38).
In Milton, on the other hand, we find that "Here and there a great oblong many-windowed factory stood up, like a hen among her chickens, puffing out black 'unparliamentary' smoke" (1.7.4). It ain't exactly the nicest place in the world, yet it's totally necessary because that's where all of England's textiles and household goods get manufactured. It might not be pretty, but it's useful.
The settings of North and South are a really good way to learn not to judge a book by its cover. Sure, the South is pretty. But it also contains the kind of shallow society living that Margaret grows tired of. Beneath the pretty exterior of cousin Edith lies… uh, not too much, actually.
And sure, the North is grimy. But it contains genuine goodness. Nicholas Higgins seems like a drunken galoot, but he turns out to be a stand-up guy. John Thornton seems like a capitalist pig, but that was just the residue of a hardscrabble upbringing, and he proves himself to be a genuinely good (and class conscious) dude.