North & South by Elizabeth Gaskell | Book Discussion

Added: 2026-05-11

[00:00:00]Hi, welcome. Today, I am discussing North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell. We recently finished this book with my book club, and most of us had very similar feelings.

[00:00:15]I really admire this work. I also think that Gaskell was extremely talented, and I completely understand why it's still a classic and why it is still in print today. Unfortunately, the book didn't resonate with me as I hoped it would, but that's okay. I'm really happy that I've read it.

[00:00:36]I just probably will not pick it up again in the near future. A little note on this edition, this work was originally published in English, and I got the Penguin Classics edition, which I bought last year in Shakespeare and Company in Paris. It is this edition, and it has a little stamp in it, which I absolutely love.

[00:01:01]It looks like this. If you see my cat's tail, he's lying right there, so I apologize. Okay, let's look at my notes.

[00:01:08]So, in this book, we follow Margaret, and she is forced to move from a provincial town called Helstone to Milton, which is an industrial town. And of course, this new life comes with challenges. Helstone is really romanticized, and I will give you an example. Helstone is like a village in a poem in one of Tennyson's poems, but I won't try and describe it anymore. You would only laugh at me if I told you what I think of it, what it really is.

[00:01:41]Margaret's father is a man of the church, and he the the main reason why they are moving is because he has opposing views. Um, we don't know what views they are, but he becomes a private tutor.

[00:01:59]He teaches the classics, and of course, there are a lot of references to classical authors, which I always enjoy, which I always love. They're reading Plato's Republic and Homer and other works as well. Here's a line. He took up one of the books lying on the table. It was the paradise of Dante in the proper old Italian binding of white vellum and gold by it lay a dictionary and some words copied out in Margaret's handwriting. The fact that Margaret's father is a private tutor gives Gaskell the opportunities to also talk about the importance of the classics, because there are two sides in this novel. The industrial town people think that the classics are, well, kind of useless, a waste of time. Um, they don't have time to read, and they'd rather make money.

[00:02:52]And Margaret and her father, of course, are on the other side and argue that the classics should be read by everyone. And I found this dialogue so interesting that I really want to share this with you. It's a bit longer, so you can skip it if you want to, but it really sparked an interesting discussion, and I was really reflecting on this for myself as well, and maybe you will, too. So, here we have the dialogue between Mr. Hale, who is Margaret's father, Margaret, and then and another woman who is against uh reading the classics. I am sure they are equally agreeable to me, said Mr. Hale.

[00:03:32]It makes me feel young again to see his enjoyment and appreciation of all that is fine in classical literature. And the reply is, I have no doubt that classics are very desirable for people who have leisure, but I confess it was against my judgment that my son renewed his study of them.

[00:03:51]The time and place in which he lives seem to me to require all his energy and attention.

[00:03:58]Classics may do very well for men who loiter away their lives in the country or in colleges, but Milton men ought to have their thoughts and powers absorbed in the work of today. At least, that is my opinion.

[00:04:13]This last clause she gave out with the pride that apes humanity. And then Margaret replies, but surely if the mind is too long directed to one object only, it will get stiff and rigid and unable to take in many interests, said Margaret. And the woman replies, I do not quite understand what you mean by a mind getting stiff and rigid. Nor do I admire those whirligig characters that are full of this thing today to be utterly forgetful of it in their new interests tomorrow. Having many interests does not suit the life of a Milton manufacturer. It is or ought to be enough for him to have one great desire and to bring all the purposes of his life to bear on the fulfillment of that. It is always interesting to have different points of views, and that is what we really get here. There's also a lot of detail in the differences between the manufacturer families or the industrial families, if I can um say it like that, and the uh family of Margaret. Let me see if I can find it, because there was like this really great description of this. Oh, here it is. The room altogether was full of knickknacks, which must take a long time to dust, and time to people of limited income was money.

[00:05:41]So, I really appreciate these details that she put in, because Milton people would say, this room is is just filled with knickknacks, and I would have to dust it, and I don't have time to dust, because I need to work.

[00:05:57]Okay, so next, I want to talk about Margaret Hale. She's our protagonist, and I really did not like her.

[00:06:05]And it's not really a problem for me to have unlikable characters, but in this kind of novel where you have these socialist themes, and where you should be invested and care for what Margaret stands for, her learning process, and so on, it kind of is necessary to be invested and to care for her. Um, and so I had some issues with that. Um, she is very proud. She's offensive. She's often childish in her reactions, and I think it's safe to say that Gaskell was aiming to create a protagonist, a female protagonist that was different from all the other Victorian protagonists at time. She's protective. Um, she always takes cares of others, never of herself, and she really must stay strong throughout the novel, um because she gets this leading role, and she's getting challenged all the time. There's a lot of death and drama, as well. And yes, she is just going through a lot of stuff. Here is a description of Margaret that paints a pretty clear picture of who she is.

[00:07:17]I decline [snorts] any attempt to justify myself for anything. You must allow me to leave the room. And she swept out of it with the noiseless grace of an offended princess. And here is how John Thornton, the love interest, describes Margaret. The only time I saw Miss Hale, she treated me with a haughty civility, which had a strong flavor of contempt in it. She held herself aloof from me as if she had been a queen, and I her humble, unwashed vessel. I think it's pretty clear who she is as a person. Um, she believes she knows best.

[00:07:57]She takes care of everyone around her, and she herself doesn't have room to be uh young or playful. A lot of hardships are waiting for her, and she is being tested all the time. As for John Thornton, he is on the industrial side.

[00:08:14]Um, she is on the aristocratic side.

[00:08:16]They're both equally stubborn, uh equally proud, and Thornton believes that um a master should have absolute authority, and he is against strikes.

[00:08:28]Here is a description of Thornton. He had a tenderness in his heart, a soft place, as Nicholas Higgins called it, but he had some pride in concealing it.

[00:08:39]He kept it very sacred and safe, and was jealous of every circumstance that tried to gain admission. Both their opinions flow from the life that they have lived until now, and both their views have to change. This was also one of my issues, because I feel like the characters didn't change enough, and the story really demanded a kind of change, because they're both very locked in their opinions at the beginning of the book, and it really it really asked for change, and I didn't find that satisfying enough. Now, the love story, Gaskell uses uh romance to explore the class conflict in this novel. The love story was really the most important part in this book, and I would also really describe it as a love story. The socialism part wasn't really that present, but maybe my disappointment flows from the fact that I was uh thinking too much of Germinal by Émile Zola, and I have it here with me, because I really want to recommend it if you enjoy reading uh novels with socialist themes, novels where workers and the higher class are colliding, and I just this novel had such a great impact on me. It was it's just phenomenal and I highly recommend it.

[00:10:07]And maybe this is the reason why I kind of felt disappointment because the socialist themes weren't as present as I hoped they would be.

[00:10:20]I felt like everything that happened was there to to advance the love story and also the way that the love story was written and was evolving wasn't working for me. I feel like I really have to care for at least one of the protagonists to root for a love story to blossom and I am of the opinion that there are too little scenes of value between Margaret and John. I think they are two opposites. I think they shouldn't be together. I was constantly thinking they don't belong together. They shouldn't be together because they just don't work together. I did really love the writing. It is accessible. It is vivid. It is detailed and I would absolutely recommend this book for beginners in classic literature because it is so accessible and it's also not very big. I think John Thornton got the most interesting lines in this book. For example, he says things like I am a man. I claim the right of expressing my feelings and for example, no one loves me. No one cares for me but you mother and I just I really loved his lines. So yes, the negatives for me was that I wanted to see more socialism. I wanted to see a love story that I cared for more and I just I wanted to see more character development in this type of story. Would I recommend this novel?

[00:11:56]Absolutely. So many people call it their favorite novel. They also really like the TV show in general. It's by the BBC and I watched it. We watched it with the book club after we finished the book and discussed the series as well and I would say I had the same feelings with the TV show and the the opening of the TV show really bothered me somehow. It's very similar to the book but opening scene and it's not a spoiler because it's just it opens with it.

[00:12:32]John Thornton he beats up one of his workers.

[00:12:37]And this is so out of character that I made me think I'm just not going to watch this. It's horrible but the other scenes were just like in the book so it's it's very similar. They really decided to portray him as a villain there but yes, overall very similar the show and the book. Beautiful cinematography, beautiful costumes, everything is just amazing. I want to end the video with some quotes from the book. I hope you enjoyed it and we will see each other next week. What other people may think of the rightness or wrongness is nothing in comparison to my own deep knowledge, my inner conviction that it was wrong.

[00:13:18]In the streets, there were few loiterers, none walking for mere pleasure.

[00:13:23]Every man's face was set in lines of eagerness or anxiety. News was sought for with fierce avidity and men jostled each other aside in the march and in the exchange as they did in life in the deep selfishness of competition.

[00:13:39]Those who are happy and successful themselves are too apt to make light of the misfortunes of others.