North and South Themes

Margaret is poor, but she thinks she's too good to marry Mr. Thornton, who is rich. That's mostly because Margaret is educated and cultured and Thornton is not. Thornton's mother, though, doesn't w...

Even the epigraph to North and South suggests that Elizabeth Gaskell would like for the whole world to be a little more compassionate. The book's main character, Margaret Hale, would like the same...

North and South is a book about values, and the source of values for every character in this book is their families. It's clear that Margaret Hale's values have been deeply influenced by her parent...

Love is a funny thing in North and South. It's always hovering around, but it's never really fulfilled until the last half of the last page. Well, maybe that's not totally fair. Family love is defi...

Home is where the heart is… and Margaret's heart is back in Helstone. Much of the plot of North and South centers around Margaret's inability to feel at home in her new town of Milton. The people...

In a lot of ways, the story of North and South is about Margaret Hale's journey from pride to humility. Along the way, all kinds of bad stuff happens to her, but she insists over and over again tha...

Margaret Hale is an independent and outspoken woman, especially when compared to what people would have found "normal" in Victorian England. In fact, when North and South first came out, a lot of c...

One major thing that marks Margaret Hale's transition from the south of England to the north is the move from nature to industry. The village of Helstone was like something out of a fairy tale, wit...