Christopher Booker is a scholar who wrote that every story falls into one of seven basic plot structures: Overcoming the Monster, Rags to Riches, the Quest, Voyage and Return, Comedy, Tragedy, and Rebirth. Shmoop explores which of these structures fits this story like Cinderella’s slipper.
Plot Type : Comedy
While it might seem strange to call a novel with six deaths a comedy, that's exactly what North and South is. A comedy doesn't have to be ha-ha funny; it just has to end in a traditionally happy way, like a marriage. So let's take a look at why this is a comedy, shall we?
Shadow of Confusion
Margaret Hale's life has been thrown into total upheaval by her father's decision to quit his job as a clergyman and move his family to the northern English town of Milton. Margaret is a total fish out of water in this new town, mostly because she's really haughty and her traditional nicey-nice values clash with the values of people from Milton. Miltonites (Miltonians?) tend to measure the value of things with money. Margaret thinks this is way tacky.
One of these super-tacky Milton people is a dude named John Thornton, who owns a factory and is not-so-good to his employees. He proposes to Margaret and she says, "Thanks but no thanks."
Also, Margaret's brother Frederick has been exiled from England because of a mutiny he led while in the Navy. But when Margaret's mother gets super-deathly ill and calls for her baby boy to be at her deathbed, Frederick shows up in the dead of night. If the authorities catch him he'll be hanged. Mama Hale sees her son and dies (sorta) happy.
Things definitely aren't looking good.
Nightmarish Tangle
After her mother's death, Margaret helps her brother Frederick safely escape England. She takes him to the train station. On the way to the train station they see John Thornton. Awk-ward.
While at the train station, Margaret and Frederick encounter a guy named Leonards who tries to arrest Frederick. Frederick pushes him, and escapes. Leonards dies later that night (not from getting pushed, though) and the police question Margaret about whether she was at the train station. Margaret lies and says she wasn't there, even though, yeah, she totally was.
Meanwhile John Thornton knows for a fact that she was at the train station, but keeps his mouth shut. He actually gets her off the hook.
Then Margaret's father dies a few months after her mother does. Frederick is back in Spain, living on a beach somewhere (probably). Margaret is put under the care of her godfather Mr. Bell, but she ends up living with her cousin.
She returns on a visit to her home village of Helstone, feeling totally beaten down by life.
Shadows Dispelled
After moving to London to live with her cousin's family, Margaret realizes that the one thing she needs to learn from her difficult experiences is to be humble. Pride has always been her greatest sin… especially when she turned down John Thornton's proposal because she thought she was too good for him. Hmm, it sounds like she hearts John Thornton.
John Thornton has had a little life lesson, too: he has seen the error of his ways and has become one of the kindest and most compassionate factory owners in all of northern England. Unfortunately, he makes a business misstep and is in danger of losing his factory. Oops.
Luckily (sort of) Margaret's fairy godfather Mr. Bell dies and she inherits all of his money. And it's a lot of money. Margaret offers to loan Thornton the funds he needs to keep his new worker-friendly factory afloat. Thornton professes his love to her once again, and she accepts. They've both changed a lot, and now they are meeting in the middle.
There you go, folks: a marriage. This is a comedy, even though the death toll is pretty dang high.