Of Worldliness and Limitation:
Intertextuality and the Country Versus City Debate in Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South Master Thesis
by
Jasmijn V. Vervat
Table of Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1: Methodology
Chapter 2: Locations in North and South
Chapter 3: Epigraphs, and the Country versus City Debate 3.1 South of England
3.2 North of England
Chapter 4: Country and City Imagery in Charles Dickens’s Hard Times Conclusion
Jasmijn V. Vervat
Professor Ben Moore MA Thesis, Literary Studies University of Amsterdam 26 June 2018
Of Worldliness and Limitation:
Intertextuality and the Country Versus City Debate in Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South From 1854-55, Elizabeth Gaskell’s novel North and South was first published in Household Words, an English weekly magazine edited by Charles Dickens. The novel was published in
instalments, but in 1855, after the publication of North and South’s last instalment, Gaskell argued in a letter to Anna Jameson that she was not satisfied with the way the novel worked through the use of instalments (see Appendix A), and noted that it would soon be published in two volumes. Due to the restrictions and limitations of the serialised form which Gaskell observed, she also voiced her thoughts on editing the story as she would have liked to have seen it published before, thus altering and adding certain events in the novel, as well as including epigraphs to each chapter. The serialised publication of North and South in Household Words only included an epigraph for the first chapter of the first instalment, namely the poem “Will Waterproof’s Lyrical Monologue” by Alfred
Tennyson (1809-1892).
The addition of epigraphs for each chapter in the two volume publication in 1855 is
interesting for various reasons. For one, many of these epigraphs are in the forms of poems or songs from the Victorian and the Romantic periods, thus emphasising the influence of these literary periods on the novel. Furthermore, the topics of the epigraphs can be divided into 3 major categories, namely emotions, nature, and religion; all of which are rooted in Romanticism. The
overall theme of the novel, however, is the supposed binary opposition of the country versus the city. Or, as becomes clear within the novel, the North of England versus the South during the Industrial Revolution. This dichotomy depends on one’s perception of the country and the city and all they have to offer, and this is a division we still see today, especially in England. Think of television shows such as Escape to the Country, where English men and women who live in a city want to buy a property in the countryside, often because they want to escape the hustle and bustle of their daily lives. This suggests that the country is more often associated with tranquility than the city is. Whereas this may be a desirable quality for some, others could experience life on the countryside as dull and devoid of social communication opportunities. Personal experience and personal preference therefore shape one’s perception of the country and the city.
Gaskell’s North and South has been examined by many critics over the years, resulting in articles about, for example, female representation in the novel; Wendy Parkins’ “Women, mobility and modernity in Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South” focusses on “possibilities and limitations of women's agency” (507), Jessica Ray Lymberopoulos’ “A Byronic Heroine in Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South” considers Margaret Hale as a Byronic heroine, and Anna Longmuir’s
“Consuming Subjects: Women and the Market in Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South” discusses the notion of consumption in relation to the role of women in connecting “the public and private spheres” (238). However, female representation is not the only subject to has been examined in relation to Gaskell’s novel. Melissa Schaub, for instance, in her article “The Serial Reader and the Corporate Text: Hard Times and North and South” discusses “what relationships and
correspondences might have existed in the minds of Victorian readers as they consumed novels in serialized parts” (182), and compares Charles Dickens’s Hard Times and Gaskell’s North and South due to the relationship between the novels.
The addition of the epigraphs in the two-volume book publication has been analysed as well, focussing on the change in textual forms due to Gaskell’s decision to add the epigraphs, and
discussions about Gaskell’s development as a writer. In the span of this thesis, however, I would like to argue that intertextuality not only allows the epigraphs to form a vital part of the meaning of the text, but that it influences the country versus city debate within the novel. The addition of the epigraphs links the North and the South of England together, as well as the country and the city. Furthermore, a thorough analysis of the imagery of the North and the South, and the country and the city, will be used to establish that what seems to be a dichotomy is in fact an interdependent
relationship consisting of a wide variety of villages, towns, and cities that cannot all be indicated as either representative only of the country or of the city.
Country and City
The English country and city are both phenomena that rely on visual context. The first impressions of the country and the city depend on what you see. The image of the country, on the one hand, is shaped by the rural landscapes that provide an abundance of space and a focus on nature. An emphasis on farmland, fields full of flowers, and myriad trees often signify this concept. The industrial city, on the other hand, is associated with the image of terraced houses or apartment buildings, large factories, and smoke hanging in the air. However, the rural area does not inherently indicate one specific sort of village, nor can one speak of the city by solely mentioning the presence of industrial buildings. Aside from the visual context, both phenomena are also established by the specific daily routines, values, and cultural details that are inherent to each side of the supposed dichotomy. As Raymond Williams argues in The Country and the City: “On the actual settlements, which in the real history have been astonishingly varied, powerful feelings have gathered and have been generalized” (1). He continues by naming the characteristics that are associated with each side: “On the country has gathered the idea of a natural way of life: of peace, innocence, and simple virtue. On the city has gathered the idea of an achieved centre: of learning, communication,
light” (Williams 1). These positive traits, however, are not the only traits that are ascribed to the country and the city. Williams also names the negative characteristics that belong in this picture:
Powerful hostile associations have also developed: on the city as a place of noise, worldliness and ambition; on the country as a place of backwardness, ignorance,
limitation. A contrast between country and city, as fundamental ways of life, reaches back into classical times. (Williams 1)
Upon considering these images and ways of living, as well as keeping the aforementioned characteristics associated with these places in mind, the country and the city appear to be direct opposites. The ‘worldliness’ of the city and the ‘limitation’ of the country not only signify the negative qualities that are associated with these areas, the terms also establish the temporal
dimensions that are associated with the country and the city. The country is regarded as part of the past, which is challenged by the future of the rise of the industrial city of 19th century England, and both areas meet in the present. In Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South, this idea of the two
opposites, the country and the city, plays a vital part. The opposition is even denoted in the title, where the South represents the country, or the rural communities, and the North represents the city, or the industrial communities.
Margaret Hale, the main protagonist of the novel, moves from a fictitious countryside village called Helstone to the equally fictitious industrial city called Milton-Northern. Margaret grew up in Helstone, and regardless of the approximately ten years she spent with her aunt in London, she is shown to have a strong, passionate desire to live her life in the beautiful English countryside. Due to circumstances that I will discuss in more detail later, Margaret nevertheless decides to move with her parents to Milton-Northern, where she is confronted by the different way of living that one encounters in an industrial city compared to the rural village she hails from.
However, in line with Raymond Williams’ conclusion that the country and the city’s “real history, throughout, has been astonishingly varied” (1), I would like to argue that the many types of cities, towns and villages make up a grey area between the country and the city instead of functioning as a black-and-white dichotomy. Moreover, as Williams states, the country and the city are codependent:
In the long history of human settlements, this connection between the land from which directly or indirectly we all get our living and the achievements of human society has been deeply known. And one of these achievements has been the city: the capital, the large town, a distinctive form of civilisation. (Williams 1)
Thus, without the country, the city could not have been established, and in its creation it shares the same foundation as the countryside which it arose from. The similarities to be found between the country and the city in Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South are emphasised by the use of epigraphs in the novel. To discuss the importance of the epigraphs, we must first establish the meaning of epigraphs in general. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, epigraphs are: “A short quotation or saying at the beginning of a book or chapter, intended to suggest its theme.” The insertion of these epigraphs therefore functions as a way to foreground the theme of each chapter. The epigraphs will be examined using Julia Kristeva’s notion of intertextuality as a starting point, as I will be focussing on the different levels at which texts can function, and how the context determines the understanding of a text, and vice versa. I will also briefly touch upon Mikhail Bakhtin’s Dialogism, which Kristeva draws from to coin the term intertextuality.
In the case of North and South, most if not all epigraphs fit into the Romantic genre, and fall within the aforementioned categories of emotions, nature, and religion. In the case of religion they often deal with innovation in the relationship between God and the individual, which is a topic that is touched upon in North and South regarding Mr Hale’s decision to abandon his position in the
church, and the consequences of this decision on the family. The Romantic influences in turn
function as a way of linking the epigraphs together as a narrative rather than setting them apart from one another, contrary to the implied country versus city opposition in the novel. Similarly, upon reflection, the title suggests a link between the two, as it is called North and South, rather than ‘North or South’, or the ‘North versus or against the South’. However, it should be said that this is the result of Charles Dickens’ choice to publish the instalments under this title, whereas Elizabeth Gaskell had initially planned to call the novel ‘Margaret Hale’ in accordance with the protagonist’s name.
Chapter Content
This paper consists of four chapters. In Chapter 1, the influence of Romanticism, the Victorian period in literature, and the Industrial Revolution will be discussed with reference to the novel. Secondly, Julia Kristeva’s notion of intertextuality will be explored in more depth to underpin the theoretical framework that will be used to examine the epigraphs.
In Chapter 2, I will discuss the locations in North and South, including the depiction of Helstone, Heston, and Milton. These descriptions will be analysed to establish the type of imagery that is used in North and South.
The analysis of the epigraphs can be found in Chapter 3, where I will elaborate on a select number of epigraphs in relation to the chapter content. This thesis will set out to examine the epigraphs on three levels:
1. The function and meaning of the epigraphs within the novel
2. The function and meaning of the epigraphs in their cultural/historical context 3. How the epigraphs change the understanding of the text, and vice versa
The epigraphs that will be examined were chosen based on the importance of the chapter content or the remarkable qualities that were found in certain epigraphs. The emphasis will be on the relation between the content and context of the epigraphs and the chapter content in terms of the country versus city debate.
As previously mentioned, the epigraphs consist to a large extent of poems and songs from the Romantic and Victorian periods, but that is not the sole focus of the discussion of the epigraphs in a cultural and historical context. In its definition, an epigraph represents the themes of the chapter it precedes. Consequently, I have taken several factors into account for discussing the epigraphs. These factors include:
1. The cultural and historical background of the author
2. The cultural and historical background of the poem, song, or other text that the epigraph in question was taken from
3. The content of the original text
Each of these categories can provide valuable information on how the epigraph relates to the country versus city debate by posing questions such as: Is this author writing during the Industrial Revolution in England, and does he or she advocate for or against the changes caused by the revolution? Does the original text that the epigraph stems from deal with subjects such as the
representation of the country or the city, or the Industrial Revolution, or does it discuss a completely unrelated topic? In answering these questions, I would like to establish what kind of influence these epigraphs have on each chapter, and, more importantly, on our understanding of the novel as a whole. Subsequently, the epigraphs will be divided in two categories, namely epigraphs that focus on the country and epigraphs that focus on the city. The analyses of the epigraph will be used to determine whether the epigraphs broaden the gap between the countryside and the city, when put in
relation to the chapter content, if the epigraphs connect the countryside and the city, when put in relation to the chapter content, or if it is possible for the epigraphs to achieve both.
Chapter 4 will be dedicated to a comparison of the city and the country imagery in North and South with Charles Dickens’ Hard Times. Directly before North and South’s serialised
publication in Household Words, Dickens published his novel Hard Times in the same manner. This novel, much like Gaskell’s North and South, deals with the Industrial Revolution and its effects on certain areas of England. Where North and South has Milton, Hard Times has the fictional industrial city, Coketown. Both of these cities are based on Manchester, and I will therefore briefly draw a connection between the two novels and their representations of the country and the city. I will, however, take into account that Hard Times’ Coketown was only partially based on Manchester. Dickens also drew inspiration from Preston in his description of the fictional city.
By the end of the thesis, it should be clear that through the use of an intertextual approach to the epigraphs and the examination of the scenery, the country and the city are defined as
interdependent and consisting of a myriad of forms instead of functioning as a direct binary opposition.
Chapter 1: Methodology
Romanticism, the Victorian Period, and the Industrial Revolution
Around the mid-eighteenth century in Great Britain, a revolution commenced that would alter England significantly; a revolution that we know as the Industrial Revolution. Many areas saw the rise of great cities, including large factories and terraced houses. To make way for industrialisation, countless countryside towns and villages were transformed. The new cities created job opportunities and divided the social classes further, but the disappearance of more and more countryside
landscapes soon evoked a clash between those who were glad to see the new changes appear and those who preferred to keep England the way it had been until that point in time. Starting with the end of the eighteenth century, Romanticism appeared as a literary reaction to the Industrial
Revolution in England, and the literary form was at its height from the start of the 19th century to approximately the 1830’s.
In Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South, literary characteristics stemming from Romanticism function as some of the major influences on the novel, including the focus on nature. However, North and South is not generally seen as a Romantic novel, but as a Social Problem novel, which is a genre in literary history that denotes, according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, a “work of fiction in which a prevailing social problem, such as gender, race, or class prejudice, is dramatized through its effect on the characters of a novel”. Other examples of novels from this genre include Shirley (1849) by Charlotte Brontë, Sybil (1845) by Benjamin Disraeli, and Hard Times (1854) by Charles Dickens. The genre stems from the mid-nineteenth century, which links it directly to the Industrial Revolution and the prominent visibility of its effects during this period of time. The Social Problem novel, in the case of Gaskell’s North and South, deals with the effects of the revolution on the various classes in England, and this subject is present all throughout the novel. Notwithstanding, the use of poetry and songs from the Romantic period in the epigraphs to the
novel’s chapters indicate the influence of Romanticism on the novel’s content. The novel includes at least eighteen epigraphs by authors from the Romantic literary period, or ones that were published during the height of Romanticism and which make significant use of the subjects generally
discussed in Romantic literature and poetry. Epigraphs by authors of the Romantic period include well-known names such as Samuel T. Coleridge, George G. Byron, Felicia D. Hemans, Anna L. Barbauld, and Robert Southey.
However, Romanticism is not the sole literary period from which the epigraphs originate. There are various epigraphs by authors of the Victorian period, with no fewer than 5 poems by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, a poem by Matthew Arnold, and a poem by Alfred Tennyson which makes for one of the longest epigraphs in the novel. Furthermore, a common theme in the Victorian literary period is the beauty of nature, and this is a theme that is also essential in literature and poetry from the Romantic period. The theme of the beauty of nature, in relation to the country versus city debate, draws attention to a subject that is more closely linked to the country imagery than the city. Another major theme that is often explored in Victorian literature and poetry is a renewed appreciation for the past. In the context of the Industrial Revolution, the renewed appreciation for the past emphasises the desire to leave England unchanged, thus indicating a preference for the country, which is often associated with the ‘old’, whereas the city is generally associated with the ‘new’.
In the 1854-55 serialised publication of North and South in Dickens’s Household Words, the single epigraph that precedes the entire novel is an extract from a poem by Alfred Tennyson:
Ah, yet, though all the world forsake, Though fortune clip my wings, I will not cramp my heart, nor take Half-views of men and things.
Let Whig and Tory stir their blood; There must be stormy weather; But for some true result of good
All parties work together. (qtd. in Gaskell 437)
The original poem is called “Will Waterproof’s Lyrical Monologue”, and it was published in 1842 in a two-volume collection of poems by Tennyson (see Appendix B). The decision to use a poem by a Victorian poet as an epigraph to North and South thus designates the Victorian literary principles as important appeals to the novel’s content. Furthermore, this particular stanza of the poem vouches for all parties to work together. In the original context of the poem, this request refers to a political divide. In the greater context of the novel, however, the request can be understood as a symbolic urging for the different classes, the North and the South of England, or the country and the city, to work together; for these supposed opposites to bridge the gap. The focus here is not on the
differences but the likenesses and the necessity for understanding one another.
Intertextuality
Before analysing the content of the chapters, the epigraphs, and the way in which these two interact with one another, it is useful to consider Julia Kristeva’s notion of intertextuality. In Kristeva’s essay “Word, Dialogue and Novel”, she takes Mikhail Bakhtin’s work on literary structures as a basis for developing the notion of intertextuality. Bakhtin uses the term Dialogism to describe the connection between different texts and how texts from the past still influence our understanding of more modern texts. On Bakhtin’s ideas, Kristeva states that:
What allows a dynamic dimension to structuralism is his conception of the ‘literary word’ as an intersection of textual surfaces rather than a point (a fixed meaning), as a dialogue
among several writings: that of the writer, the addressee (or the character) and the contemporary or earlier cultural context. (Kristeva 36)
Each part of a novel is therefore part of a broader context, and these contexts influence one another. The different layers of texts are especially relevant for the discussion of Gaskell’s North and South, due to the addition of epigraphs. The epigraphs hail from a range of contexts, and they add specific elements to the meaning of the chapters. Kristeva continues by defining three dimensions of textual space, namely: writing subject, addressee, and exterior texts. Concerning these dimensions, she claims that “[t]he word’s status is thus defined horizontally (the word in the text belongs to both writing subject and addressee) as well as vertically (the word in the text is oriented towards an anterior or synchronic literary corpus)” (Kristeva 36-7). The majority of the epigraphs are from exterior texts, and thus demand a vertical reading. In turn, this vertical reading imposes an altered reading of the chapters each epigraph belongs to, which will be shown through the analysis of the epigraphs in Chapter 3.
The most important term that Kristeva uses in her essay, however, is the notion of
ambivalence. She explains the term by saying that: “The term ‘ambivalence’ implies the insertion of history (society) into a text and of this text into history” (Kristeva 39). Later in the text, she clarifies this definition and states that “the writer can use another’s word, giving it a new meaning while retaining the meaning it already had” (Kristeva 43). In this light, one can analyse the epigraphs as a primary example of ambivalence, as they function exactly according to Kristeva’s description. They often suggest a new reading of the accompanying chapter, thus making the novel ambivalent
Chapter 2: Locations in North and South
One of the themes that becomes increasingly interesting upon analysing the novel and its ambivalent status is the country versus city debate. The country is represented by the South of England, more specifically the description of Helstone and its surrounding areas, which is where Margaret Hale grew up. The city, more specifically the industrial city, is represented by the North of England, in the case of the novel Milton-Northern. The majority of the novel takes place in the latter area, but that does not mean that the novel is devoid of country imagery. A couple of these descriptions will be withheld, as they will be discussed in combination with the analysis of the epigraphs and the chapter contexts in Chapter 3 of this thesis. Nevertheless, North and South
includes an abundance of country and city imagery, which will be discussed below, starting with the country village, Helstone.
Helstone
The first chapter of the novel, ‘Haste to the Wedding’, is situated in London, where Margaret has been staying with her aunt, Mrs Shaw, for approximately ten years. It is soon after Mr Henry Lennox is announced, the brother of Captain Lennox who is to marry Margaret’s cousin, that a conversation between him and Margaret ensues, and Margaret touches upon the subject of Helstone:
‘ … Is Helstone a village, or a town, in the first place?'
'Oh, only a hamlet; I don't think I could call it a village at all. There is the church and a few houses near it on the green—cottages, rather—with roses growing all over them.’ (Gaskell 12)
This makes for one of the first descriptions of Helstone as a relatively small area, where the importance of religion and nature are emphasised. However, upon being provided this description, Mr Lennox does not seem wholly convinced that it is given from an objective point of view. On the contrary, Mr Lennox’s response alludes to the romanticised imagery that is evoked in this first introduction to the country:
'And flowering all the year round, especially at Christmas—make your picture complete,' said he.
'No,' replied Margaret, somewhat annoyed, 'I am not making a picture. I am trying to describe Helstone as it really is. You should not have said that.'
'I am penitent,' he answered. 'Only it really sounded like a village in a tale rather than in real life.’ (Gaskell 12)
Some time before this conversation, Margaret had been “on the point of telling her cousin of some of the plans and visions which she entertained as to her future life in the country parsonage, where her father and mother lived” (Gaskell 5-6). It can therefore be concluded that Margaret’s perception of Helstone and her desire to spend the rest of her life there are romanticised by her time spent elsewhere, regardless of the fact that Helstone is “where her bright holidays had always been passed” (Gaskell 6). On the one hand, even upon her return to Helstone in Chapter 2, conveniently called ‘Roses and Thorns’, which refers back to Margaret’s description of Helstone, her opinion of the place has not altered. Through the indirect narration of Margaret’s thoughts, it becomes clear that Helstone has remained as perfect as she had thought it to have been before. On the other hand, Margaret is confronted by the empty space the departure of her brother, Frederick, has left in her mother’s life, and the tensions this event has imposed on the family’s interactions with each other indoors. Nevertheless, where Helstone itself is concerned, Margaret’s fondness remains:
She was so happy out of doors, at her father’s side, that she almost danced; and with the soft violence of the west wind behind her, as she crossed some heath, she seemed to be borne onwards, as lightly and easily as the fallen leaf that was wafted along by the autumnal breeze. (Gaskell 19)
The focus of many indirect thought processes from Margaret’s perspective is nature, and this draws attention to the countryside imagery. Furthermore, the influence of her father’s presence later becomes evidently important in the fondness Margaret holds for Helstone, which will be examined in Chapter 3 of this thesis.
Heston
Another place that is briefly described in North and South is a town called Heston. After the decision has been made that the Hale family will be moving away from Helstone, the journey in Chapter 7 leads them to this town in the North of England.
It had a character of its own, as different from the little bathing-places in the south of England as they again from those of the continent. To use a Scotch word, everything looked more ‘purposelike.’ The country carts had more iron, and less wood and leather about the horse-gear; the people in the streets, although on pleasure bent, had yet a busy mind. The colours looked grayer — more enduring, not so gay and pretty. There were no smock-frocks, even among the country folk; they retarded motion, and were apt to catch on machinery, and so the habit of wearing them had died out. (Gaskell 58)
Where the South is represented by material that comes from trees and cattle, Heston and the North are represented by metal. Nature is directly related to the country, whereas iron is what is produced by the factories in the North. Similarly, the narration emphasises the difference between the North and the South by stating that Heston overall appears to be more efficient, with its busy-minded people, and the lack of bright colours. In the last line of the quotation, these differences are attributed to the Industrial Revolution. The increase of work involving machinery has altered the choice of clothing. The type of clothing described in the narration, the smock-frocks, are typically loose garments, resembling a long shirt, which were used to protect the wearer’s clothing
underneath. Smock-frocks were a symbol of the rural labourers, and the fact that this clothing item fell into disuse suggests that the Industrial Revolution caused certain aspects of originally country-oriented places to disappear in favour of social habits more suitable for work that involves
machinery. The conclusion to be drawn from this alteration seems to be that there is no grey area between the norms of the country and the norms of the city. However, the very first sentence establishes that within the North, or the South, there are different types of cities, towns, and villages. There is no one-to-one relationship between all the cities or all the rural communities. Heston, as an example, cannot be categorised as belonging to the country or the city, whether it belongs to the North of England or to the South, and thus draws attention to the fact that no village, town, or city is exactly alike and easily identifiable as belonging to either category.
The chapter continues by attributing its point of view to Margaret, who notices the
differences between the North and the South of England not solely in appearances but in the ways the inhabitants live their lives.
In such towns in the south of England, Margaret had seen the shopmen, when not employed in their business, lounging a little at their doors, enjoying the fresh air, and the look up and down the street. Here, if they had any leisure from customers, they made
themselves business in the shop—even, Margaret fancied, to the unnecessary unrolling and rerolling of ribbons. All these differences struck upon her mind, as she and her mother went out next morning to look for lodgings. (Gaskell 58)
In this extract, too, the focus is on the difference between enjoying being outdoors and the slower pace of life in the South, or the country in general, and the tendency in the North to keep busy. Differences between certain features of places in the North and places in the South are undoubtedly present. By stating that Heston is one of such towns in the North of England, and contrasting it with “such towns in the south of England”, the North and the South seem to become two separate
categories with no variation in between (Gaskell 58). Nevertheless, the differences between them do not support the idea that every town is categorisable as typically part of the North or the South, or solely exemplifying the country or the city. On the contrary, the description of Heston instantly sets it apart from Milton and London, but it is also not similar to Helstone. Heston, therefore, is an example of a place situated between the city and the country, as it does not completely belong to either category.
Milton
The differences between Heston and Milton become increasingly evident when Milton is described in Chapter 7. As the Hale family approaches Milton, the town is signified by a cloud of smoke in the air, witnessed from afar:
For several miles before they reached Milton, they saw a deep lead-coloured cloud hanging over the horizon in the direction in which it lay. … Nearer to the town, the air had a faint taste and smell of smoke; perhaps, after all, more a loss of the fragrance of grass and herbage than any positive taste or smell. Quick they were whirled over long,
straight, hopeless streets of regularly-built houses, all small and of brick. Here and there a great oblong many-windowed factory stood up, like a hen among her chickens, puffing out black 'unparliamentary' smoke, and sufficiently accounting for the cloud which Margaret had taken to foretell rain. (Gaskell 59)
The smoke is mistaken by Margaret to be a cloud predicting rain, instead of the result of the exhaust fumes coming from the factories. What had been characterised as grayer and duller in Heston takes on a new, more prominent form in Milton. The “deep lead-coloured cloud”, “the taste and smell of smoke”, and the ensuing terms used to exemplify the industrial town set it apart from the previously described towns and villages, such as Helstone and London (Gaskell 59). Notwithstanding, the comparison of the factories with “a hen among her chickens” draws a connection between imagery that is more regularly used for the country than the city and an industrial city landscape (Gaskell 59). The comparison with the chickens represents Margaret’s way of thinking, but it succeeds in showing possible resemblances between the supposedly dichotomous areas, and links the two opposites together. In Chapter 4 of this thesis, these descriptions of Milton will be compared to the imagery used for Coketown in Charles Dickens’ Hard Times.
Furthermore, upon their arrival in Milton, Margaret observes the differences between the people in Milton compared to the people in London: “People thronged the footpaths, most of them well-dressed as regarded the material, but with a slovenly looseness which struck Margaret as different from the shabby, threadbare smartness of a similar class in London” (Gaskell 59). Not only does the style of clothing differ from area to area, it is also associated with status. Although
Margaret assumes the people in her observation are from the same class, it is clear from the
description of their clothing that the people in Milton are considered better dressed than the people in London. However, aside from the difference in material, the “smartness” of the people in London appears to make a better impression on Margaret than the “slovenly looseness” of the people in
Milton (Gaskell 59). These aspects therefore support the argument that large cities such as London and Milton do not fall within the same category of cities. On the contrary, Margaret’s “repugnance to the idea of a manufacturing town” indicates the vast contrast between London, which she had begun to consider a home, and her first impression of Milton (Gaskell 59).
Margaret’s lingering preference for the country, or the South, finds a counterpart in a number of people who hail from the industrial city, who ascribe fewer positive qualities to the country than to the city. In some cases, people living in an industrial city show a lack of interest in people from smaller villages, or deem them less important. This can be understood from the
interaction between Mr Hale and the landlord of the Hale family’s new house in Milton: “There was no particular need to tell them, that what he did not care to do for a Reverend Mr. Hale, unknown in Milton, he was only too glad to do at the one short sharp remonstrance of Mr. Thornton, the wealthy manufacturer” (Gaskell 65). A wealthy manufacturer is respected more in Milton than a reverend who is unknown in the city, and this reflects the disparity in norms that can be found between these places. The discussion of the different types of imagery used for some of the most important places in Gaskell’s North and South will serve as a foundation for examining the relationship between the country versus city debate and the ambivalent status of the epigraphs in this novel. These topics will be explored in the following chapter.
Interdependency
The discussion of these different types of scenery in Gaskell’s North and South, particularly the presence of towns like Heston, reflects the existence of variety within the categories of the city and the country, which make some places more easily identifiable than others as part of the country or the city. Similarly, the North and the South of England are not divided by a straight line that indicates the North as the city and the South as the countryside. They are linked through an extensive grey area that consists of various forms of cities, towns, and villages. The variation that
can be found in these places is further emphasised by their interdependent relationship; an idea that is explored in Claire Warden’s article “Ugliness and Beauty: the Politics of Landscape in Walter Greenwood's Love on the Dole”. In Warden’s article, Warden addresses the notion of beauty in the countryside and the city landscapes in England. Although the article focusses on the descriptions of scenery in Walter Greenwood’s play Love on the Dole from 1934, the discussion of the “diverse topography, and particularly the relationship between Manchester–Salford and the countryside that surrounds it” establishes a relationship between these places that is equally relevant in Gaskell’s North and South (Warden 35).
Warden begins this part of her argument by taking a scene from Greenwood’s play which involves two characters travelling from the city to its surrounding countryside. The two admire the beauty of the countryside, but it is the sunset that prevails as the most beautiful aspect of this particular area. In the play, the question arises why the sunset is so red, and one of the characters concludes that it is due to the smoke coming from the city. Warden takes this answer as a basis for her argument, and concludes that:
One might expect the city to make the country more attractive only by contrast; that by comparing the polluted cityscape to the clean country air, the latter
necessarily becomes all the more beautiful. Yet here the city directly impacts the countryside, making the already striking sunset more beguiling. (Warden 44)
The direct impact Warden speaks of is tangible in North and South, as Margaret’s opinions of Milton, Helstone, and other places relevant in the novel are dependent on her experiences rather than observations alone. An example of the influence of experience and circumstance on one’s opinion of a place is Margaret’s altered feelings towards Helstone when she returns to her hometown at the end of the novel, having lost both of her parents and having the experience of
living in Milton. This instance will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 3. The discussion of the imagery in combination with the intertextual influence on the understanding of the novel will emphasise the interdependent relationship between the country and the city, and the myriad ways in which the places in between these two categories can be examined.
Chapter 3: Epigraphs, and the Country versus City Debate
In this chapter, I will focus on the analysis of the epigraphs from North and South in relation to the chapter content. From the numerous epigraphs in the book publication of North and South, I have chosen to discuss a select number on the basis of available information, relevance to the novel, and relevance to the country versus city debate. Sally Shuttleworth’s explanatory notes for the Oxford World’s Classics edition also comment on the addition of these epigraphs:
The epigraphs, which were added for book publication, illustrate the range and interest of Mrs Gaskell’s reading; those presented as anonymous and a few others in the guise of ‘From the Arabic’ and so on, unless identified, I take to be of her own composition (or possibly of her husband’s) on the model of Scott. In identifying quotations I only note major changes from the original. (Shuttleworth, explanatory notes 437)
As most of the anonymous epigraphs and the few epigraphs ‘From the Arabic’ provide no background information on the author(s) and/or the original context, these epigraphs will not be examined here, unless the chapter such an epigraph accompanies is especially relevant to the country versus city debate, and the epigraph provides ample material to analyse. The discussion of the epigraphs will be divided in two categories:
1. The representation of the South of England 2. The representation of the North of England
Subsequently, through the analysis of the epigraphs and the chapter content, I will argue that the novel does not separate the countryside and the city, or the North and the South, but rather joins them together.
2.1 South of England
One of the most relevant chapters in the novel concerning the country is Chapter 6 (Volume 1), ‘Farewell’, which contains the departure of Margaret Hale from the countryside village, Helstone. The stanzas preceding the chapter stem from a poem called “In Memoriam A.H.H.”, written by the English poet Alfred Tennyson, who was given the title Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom. He completed the poem in 1849, and it consists of 133 cantos. Although Tennyson is a poet writing mostly within the Victorian period, he also draws inspiration from Romanticism. The poem deals with an abundance of subjects, especially loss and grief, but I will focus here on canto ci that the epigraph was taken from, in addition to canto cii. The first and last stanzas of canto ci from “In Memoriam A.H.H.” function as the epigraph to Chapter 6:
Unwatch’d the garden bough shall sway, The tender blossom flutter down, Unloved that beech will gather brown, The maple burn itself away ;
Unloved, the sun-flower, shining fair,
Ray round with flames her disk of seed, And many a rose-carnation feed
With summer spice the humming air ; * * * * * * Till from the garden and the wild
A fresh association blow,
And year by year the landscape grow Familiar to the stranger’s child ;
As year by year the labourer tills
His wonted glebe, or lops the glades ; And year by year our memory fades From all the circle of the hills.
Tennyson. (qtd. in Gaskell 52)
The first observation to be made concerning the epigraph is that the third and fourth stanzas of canto ci were left out. This is understandable in light of the length of the entire canto ci, which would have made it too long to fit the space of an epigraph, but regardless of this alteration it remains one of the longest epigraphs in the entire novel. In the first two and the last two stanzas Tennyson writes of a garden, flowers, and a labourer at work. In the third and fourth stanzas, on the other hand, a babbling brook and a creek are described. Although the third and fourth stanzas are not included in the epigraph, the whole of canto ci uses imagery that is characteristic of the countryside landscapes, and it reflects the imagery used for Helstone in North and South.
In the context of this chapter, the epigraph functions as an implied summary of what will come to pass after Margaret has moved to Milton-Northern. The “unwatch’d garden” and “unloved sun-flower” in the first two stanzas will be unwatched and unloved because Margaret will no longer be there to enjoy the rural area of Helstone. Nevertheless, the garden and the sunflower will
continue to exist, as “year by year the landscape grow[s]“, even if Margaret is not there to witness it herself.
After her departure to Milton, Margaret still associates certain moments with the
countryside. In Chapter 24 (Volume 1), ‘Mistakes Cleared Up’, the memory of Helstone and the feelings this evokes in Margaret are brought up due to a minor occurrence:
A little breeze was stirring in the hot air, and though there were no trees to show the playful tossing movement caused by the wind among the leaves, Margaret knew how, somewhere or another, by way-side, in copses, or in thick green woods, there was a pleasant, murmuring, dancing sound,—a rushing and falling noise, the very thought of which was an echo of distant gladness in her heart. (Gaskell 192)
Some time has passed since the Hale family moved to Milton, yet Margaret’s association of the breeze with the effects it would have on the greenery in another place is not mentioned as a direct link to Helstone, nor is it imagery that is solely used to describe areas in the South of England. However, the words ‘echo’ and ‘distant gladness’ refer to a sense of nostalgia for the past. The ‘echo’ and the ‘distant gladness’ are related to Helstone, and this links to the sense of loss in Tennyson’s poem through the ambivalence of the epigraph. Although Margaret appears to be fond of the memory of that place, the emphasis on a ‘distant’ gladness indicates feelings of sadness due to being so far removed from it. In this way, it is Margaret’s absence from Helstone that makes the village and its surrounding areas more attractive to her, and yet also binds it to a sense of loss for having left Helstone.
In Chapter 8, ‘Home Sickness’, the Hale family has successfully moved to Milton, and one of the places that is described indicates a radically different side to the argument that there is a lack of countryside areas in the North:
it was early spring, and she had gathered some of the hedge and ditch flowers, dog-violets, lesser celandines, and the like, with an unspoken lament in her heart for the sweet profusion of the South. (Gaskell 72)
Margaret serves as a biased source of information, and the mention of picking flowers in the fields near an industrial town like Milton-Northern is tinged with her preference for what she was used to in the South. The area in the North of England does, however, offer spaces containing flowers that are associated more with the country than the city. This brief addition to the imagery of the
industrial city and its surrounding areas therefore exhibits the variety of imagery that is, in contrast with the established norms of the country and the city, applicable to places both in the North and in the South of England. Following this brief mention of the fields and flowers near Milton, Margaret comes across a father and daughter who she has seen on several occasions before. When Margaret gives the flowers she had gathered to the girl, her father thanks Margaret and concludes:
‘ … Yo’re not of this country, I reckon?’
'No!' said Margaret, half sighing. 'I come from the South—from Hampshire,' she continued, a little afraid of wounding his consciousness of ignorance, if she used a name which he did not understand.
'That's beyond London, I reckon? And I come fro' Burnley-ways, and forty mile to th' North. And yet, yo see, North and South has both met and made kind o' friends in this big smoky place.’ (Gaskell 72-3)
The use of the word ‘country’ in this context stands out, referring to a region rather than the
countryside. Furthermore, Margaret’s fear of wounding the father’s “consciousness of ignorance” is interesting, as ‘ignorance’ according to Raymond Williams is more often associated with the
countryside, whereas this man is from the industrial city in the North (Gaskell 72). More
importantly, it is the father figure from the North who establishes that the North and the South meet on friendly terms. This conclusion is symbolic for the country versus city debate, and it shows that either category does not inherently exclude the other. On the contrary, the country and the city are able to meet half-way. Similar to Margaret, and Nicholas and Bessy Higgins, the father and daughter, the North and the South do not inevitably clash.
The introductory lines to Chapter 17 (Volume 1), ‘What Is a Strike?’, take this reconciliation of countryside and city even further. At the beginning of the chapter, Margaret is headed out in Milton, but the description of her walk that follows is in stark contrast with the manner in which the observation of the city’s streets are first presented:
Margaret went out heavily and unwillingly enough. But the length of a street — yes, the air of a Milton Street — cheered her young blood before she reached her first turning. Her step grew lighter, her lip redder. She began to take notice, instead of having her thoughts turned so exclusively inward. (Gaskell 131)
Margaret’s impression of Milton is not as favourable as her opinion of Helstone or other
countryside places, nor does the experience end with a growing desire to walk through those streets again soon. For a brief moment, however, she indulges in the positive side of life in a city, and it is evident that there is the possibility to enjoy what the city has to offer, regardless of where one hails from. The protagonist does not show the same level of flâneur-like tendencies as Charles Dickens would have deemed preferable. Dickens took pleasure in roaming the streets of London, for example, to observe the people and the spaces as they are. Although Margaret’s initial reason for walking through the streets of Milton is not for similar reasons, her conscious decision to observe the Milton streets as they are does take her out of her countryside-oriented comfort zone.
During this walk, Margaret decides to visit Bessy Higgins, a Milton resident, whereas she had previously meant to go for a “quiet country walk” (Gaskell 132). Not only does Margaret willingly choose to remain in the city instead of choosing an activity that she has mentioned to be exceedingly fond of on many occasions during the novel, she chooses to visit someone from the North. The friendship she builds with the Higgins family bridges several gaps. First of all, it bridges the gap between landed gentry and the working class. Secondly, it symbolically represents the ‘meeting on friendly terms’ of the North and the South of England.
Upon returning to the last stanza of the epigraph from Chapter 6, one can take the second to last line as a negative thought Margaret might have about forgetting what it was like to live in Helstone, the place she dreamed of spending the rest of her life in. However, it could also be perceived as a prediction of what many people feared the Industrial Revolution would give rise to: the gradual disappearance of the countryside. The industrial cities were being built in a great variety of areas, and for countless people this meant a new opportunity for work, thus leaving the rural communities and, metaphorically speaking, forgetting about them.
The stanzas from canto cii that follow discuss the childhood home and the conflicting feelings surrounding such a place:
We leave the well-beloved place Where first we gazed upon the sky; The roofs, that heard our earliest cry, Will shelter one of stranger race. ………
I turn to go: my feet are set
To leave the pleasant fields and farms; They mix in one another's arms
To one pure image of regret. (Tennyson Canto cii; 1-4; 21-24)
Tennyson speaks of his own childhood home in relation to his deceased friend, to whom the poem was dedicated, but it is equally relevant for Margaret’s feelings of love for her childhood home and the feelings of regret, because she has to leave it behind. When asked to describe Helstone,
Margaret mentions that “Helstone is like a village in a poem—in one of Tennyson's poems” (Gaskell 12). This answer is given in Chapter 1 of the novel, which, in the book
publication, is accompanied by an epigraph that was not originally by Tennyson. In the serialised publication in Household Words, on the other hand, the entire novel was preceded by a stanza from a poem by Tennyson, thus emphasising the significance of the imagery used in Tennyson’s work. As Shuttleworth explains in the explanatory notes to North and South: “In Household Words, Ch. I was headed by an epigraph for the whole novel from Tennyson’s ‘Will Waterproof’s Lyrical
Monologue’, ll. 49-56, stressing the need for social co-operation” (437). This epigraph was analysed in Chapter 1.
Nevertheless, it is also useful to consider the intertextual relationship between Margaret’s reference to Tennyson in Chapter 1 and the use of Tennyson’s “In Memoriam A.H.H.” as an epigraph to Chapter 6. As Chapter 6 signals Margaret’s departure from Helstone, the use of one of Tennyson’s poems as an epigraph to this chapter is especially relevant due to the fact that Margaret uses Tennyson’s poetry as a gateway for describing Helstone. The reference in Chapter 1 is
accompanied by her love for Helstone, thus her feelings about leaving her hometown behind would be most accurately described by the subjects of loss and grief in Tennyson’s “In Memoriam
A.H.H.”.
An author whose poetry was used for more than one epigraph in Gaskell’s North and South is the English Romantic poet Felicia Hemans (1793-1835), often cited as “Mrs. Hemans”. The first
poem by Hemans that the reader encounters is the following epigraph from Chapter 2 (Volume 1), ‘Roses and Thorns’:
By the soft green light in the woody glade,
On the banks of moss where thy childhood played; By the household tree, thro’ which thine eye First looked in love to the summer sky.
Mrs. Hemans. (qtd. in Gaskell 15)
“The Spells of Home,” as the poem is called, was published in 1828 as part of Hemans’s book Records of Woman: With Other Poems, and it consists of five stanzas. The poem explores subjects such as nature and an appreciation of the childhood home, and these subjects fit the Helstone imagery, thus inserting the world of the poem into the world in the novel according to Kristeva’s notion of ambivalence. As Margaret describes it, Helstone is enveloped in greenery and other representations of the typical rural imagery, such as cottages and the feeling of nostalgia that is often associated with these areas. In the accompanying chapter, these descriptions of Helstone become a prominent feature of the novel, as it builds up the expectations of the countryside life that Margaret envisions as ideal. Due to the use of the the novel’s style of narration, the all-knowing voice presents these expectations and descriptions as a combination of opinions. On the one hand, there are the opinions of Margaret and her father, Mr Hale, who both show a passionate fondness of the rural community and all it has to offer. The epigraph is therefore in line with their opinions of the countryside.
On the other side of the spectrum, one can find Mrs Hale, whose dislike for the countryside life makes for one of the most prominent features of her as a character. In Chapter 2, she is said to consider the place as unhealthy, due to the “near neighbourhood of so many trees” (Gaskell 18). The
dislike for Helstone on the part of Mrs Hale, however, appears to be related to the social aspects of the village more than the surrounding landscapes:
'It is undoubtedly one of the most out-of-the-way places in England,' said Mrs. Hale, in one of her plaintive moods. 'I can't help regretting constantly that papa has really no one to associate with here; he is so thrown away; seeing no one but farmers and labourers from week's end to week's end. If we only lived at the other side of the parish, it would be something; there we should be almost within walking distance of the Stansfields; certainly the Gormans would be within a walk.’ (Gaskell 18-19)
In this passage, it becomes clear that it is not the location itself that makes Mrs Hale unhappy in her home, but the distance between herself and the people she wishes to socialise with. Where Margaret contents herself with drawing and reading in a peaceful and quiet area, Mrs Hale does not find pleasure in either activity, and instead finds herself feeling isolated and out of place. Moreover, the company that is available to them in Helstone is not the sort of company Mrs Hale prefers. The preference is veiled in her comment, as she speaks of it in favour of what should be beneficial to her husband, but having established Mr Hale’s own fondness of Helstone it can be concluded that it is Mrs Hale’s desire to associate with different people that is described here.
Margaret, by contrast, responds to this statement by arguing in favour of the Helstone villagers.
'Gormans,' said Margaret. 'Are those the Gormans who made their fortunes in trade at Southampton? Oh! I'm glad we don't visit them. I don't like shoppy people. I think we are far better off, knowing only cottagers and labourers, and people without pretence.’ (Gaskell 19)
The mother and daughter here exemplify the two sides of the countryside that Raymond Williams refers to in The Country and the City. Margaret’s opinion stands for the positive, if not patronising, representation: “peace, innocence, and simple virtue” (Williams 1). Mrs Hale’s opinion, on the other hand, stands for the negative side: “backwardness, ignorance, limitation” (Williams 1). Although the novel provides these two sides to the countryside image early on, it is abundantly clear which side is favoured over the other. Margaret’s view on Helstone, and thus of the countryside, is continually referred to throughout the novel. Mrs Hale’s opinion is not referred to as often, and therefore easily fades into the background, emphasising the beauty and idealistic side to the country image rather than the negative traits.
Mrs Hale’s background is alluded to in Chapter 2, and it is implied that she is used to
grander, more social circumstances than she has available to her in Helstone. Although the narration refers to Mrs Hale and her sister as “the belles of Rutlandshire”, it is never stated explicitly in what type of village, town, or city she grew up in this small county (Gaskell 21). If we are to assume that Mrs Hale’s aversion towards Helstone originates from a desire to live a wealthier life, and not due to the possibility that she was raised in an industrial city, her opinion creates part of the foundation for concluding that the country versus city dichotomy is, in fact, not a binary opposition. On the contrary, there is a multitude of varieties that range from the smallest country village, such as Helstone, to the larger industrial cities, such as Milton-Northern, with countless options in between. Mrs Hale’s preference, for instance, would then be a town like a Heston, which combines the closer proximity to other people with the surrounding nature areas that Helstone has to offer, and thus forms one of many places situated in between the country and the city.
Margaret’s initial fondness of Helstone is even more grounded due to it being her childhood home. After spending the first eight years of her life in Helstone, she moves to London to live with her aunt, Mrs Shaw, for the benefit of her education. At the end of her stay there, approximately ten
years later, she still prefers Helstone over London. Margaret is however not unkind in her opinion towards the big city, showing that her fondness of London too, has grown substantially during her stay. She has reason to think positively of London, but she perceived her life in Helstone as nearing perfection, thus influencing her preference for the countryside village. The relationship with her father further influences her preference, and accordingly Margaret’s childhood home is favoured due to the presence of Mr Hale.
In Chapter 2, Margaret’s return to Helstone provides the first in-depth account of what Helstone looks like:
The forest trees were all one dark, full, dusky green; the fern below them caught all the slanting sunbeams; the weather was sultry and broodingly still. Margaret used to tramp along by her father’s side, crushing down the fern with a cruel glee, as she felt it yield under her light foot, and send up the fragrance peculiar to it, — out on the broad commons into the warm scented light, seeing multitudes of wild, free, living creatures, revelling in the
sunshine, and the herbs and flowers it called forth. (Gaskell 17)
The focus here is on the landscape of Helstone and the surrounding areas, using idyllic descriptions that are almost fairytale-like, and which are also reflected in Felicia Hemans’s “The Spells of Home”. Once again, it creates the image of “peace, innocence, and simple virtue” (1) that Raymond Williams refers to, and which, from Mrs Hale’s point of view, would not have been described as such. Margaret then continues to elaborate on her life in Helstone, and refers to both the past life she’s lived there and the implied expectations she has for the continuation of this way of living when she returns to her hometown.
This life — at least these walks — realised all Margaret’s anticipations. She took pride in her forest. Its people were her people. She made hearty friends with them; learned and delighted in using their peculiar words; or read with slow distinctness to their old people; carried dainty messes to their sick; resolved before long to teach at the school, where her father went every day as to an appointed task, but she was continually tempted off to go and see some individual friend — man, woman, or child — in some cottage in the green shade of the forest. (Gaskell 17)
Although the narration is positive in every aspect, the way in which Margaret behaves in relation to the Helstone residents indicates a certain distance between them and herself. Describing their speech as “their peculiar words”, for example, suggests that Margaret does not talk in a similar way, and that the people she refers to here are not of the same class as she is (Gaskell 17). The class difference constitutes a layered view of society even within the category of the South, or the countryside, thus making it impossible to describe all residents of these areas as one and the same; e.g. not all people in the South are ignorant farmers, and not all people in the North are loud factory workers.
Margaret’s return from London to Helstone sees her fondness of her hometown unchanged. After the Hale family’s move to Milton, her fondness remains intact, too, but it becomes a difficult subject for Margaret, as in Chapter 13 (Volume 1), ‘A Soft Breeze in a Sultry Place’, it is mentioned that Margaret “had never spoken of Helstone since she left it, except just naming the place
incidentally” (Gaskell 100). Margaret still considers Helstone to be a perfect place, but this is in stark contrast with her experience upon returning to Helstone at the end of the novel. In Chapter 21 (Volume 2), ‘Once and Now’, Margaret visits Helstone for the first time since they moved to
Milton. She is accompanied by Mr Bell, a dear friend of her father’s, who suggested the trip, but the description of her thoughts shows how the death of her parents, especially the death of her father,
has affected her: “It hurt her to see the Helstone road so flooded in the sun-light, and every turn and every familiar tree so precisely the same in its summer glory as it had been in former years. Nature felt no change, and was ever young” (Gaskell 385). It is not made clear initially that any aspects of Helstone have changed, which could cause Margaret’s opinion to change along as well. Her
associations with Helstone, however, have changed. In Margaret’s experience, Helstone was connected to her father, Mr Hale, and the return to Helstone therefore reminds her of his absence, thus negatively influencing her opinion of Helstone itself.
However, after her first day spent there and the new impressions fresh on her mind, she notes that: “There was change everywhere; slight, yet pervading all. … A great improvement it was called; but Margaret sighed over the old picturesqueness, the old gloom, and the grassy wayside of former days” (Gaskell 394). Nostalgia is at play here, and this feeling influences Margaret’s perception of Helstone. At the end of her stay, she puts into words the thoughts that both underpin and undermine the country versus city debate:
‘And I too change perpetually — now this, now that — now disappointed and peevish because all is not exactly as I had pictured it, and now suddenly discovering that the reality is far more beautiful than I had imagined it. Oh, Helstone! I shall never love any place like you.’ (Gaskell 401)
The change is what many people fear. It can be the result of various causes, but it all inevitably comes down to time. The Industrial Revolution in this case is also a consequence of time, and a sign of moving forward. It does not influence Helstone as directly as it does other places, but the
nostalgia about what used to be is the foundation for Margaret’s ever-lasting fondness of Helstone as well as the sadness she feels upon being reminded of how it has changed. Change occurs in the city and the country, in the North and the South, yet through personal experience a place can retain
its positive or negative traits in comparison to other places, therefore bringing forth a sense of country versus city experience. The serialised publication of North and South does not include include Chapter 21 altogether. It was added later in the book publication, thus underlining the importance of Margaret’s altered feelings towards Helstone, as she observes the disappearance of the old cottage she once drew, the changes in her childhood home, and the idea that progress will further alter the village.
In Chapter 2 (Volume 1), the importance of experience and circumstance are emphasised as well, when the narration describes Margaret’s feelings towards Helstone early on: “Her out-of-doors life was perfect. Her in-doors life had its drawbacks” (Gaskell 17). Although it is said from
Margaret’s perspective that her life outside of her family home is perfect, it is noted that her life with her parents is not. However, when Margaret returns to Helstone by herself at the end of the novel, she finds the village thus altered that she does not feel at home anymore, nor does she view the area and its people the way she did during most of the duration of the novel. The absence of her parents, as well as her experiences in Milton-Northern, have changed her opinion on Helstone as a perfect place, therefore inevitably changing the representation of this particular countryside village. Consequently, the negative qualities, “backwardness, ignorance, limitation” (Williams 1),
henceforth become more tangible in the narrator’s description in the final chapters, as it relies on Margaret’s voice.
Margaret’s experience is also portrayed well by the last stanza of Felicia Hemans’ poem “The Spells of Home”:
Yes! when thy heart in its pride would stray From the pure first loves of its youth away;
When the sullying breath of the world would come O'er the flowers it brought from its childhood's home;
Think thou again of the woody glade, And the sound by the rustling ivy made, Think of the tree at thy father's door,
And the kindly spell shall have power once more! (Hemans ll. 33-40)
The cottage where the Hale family used to live has been altered significantly, and the influence of her father’s absence is emphasised both in the novel and in the poem. Margaret’s conclusion that the thought will always be dear to her, but that visiting again would be a painful reminder of losing her father links together Margaret’s return to Helstone in Chapter 2 (Volume 1) and her return to Helstone in Chapter 21 (Volume 2) through the understanding of Hemans’s “The Spells of Home” as an epigraph to Chapter 2 (Volume 1).
2.1 North of England
One of the results of the Industrial Revolution is the rise of the factory as a place of business. The men in charge are often referred to as the ‘Masters’, whereas the workers are often called the ‘Hands’. The factory as a working place during that time came with a series of issues. Although it provided countless people with jobs, the working conditions were harsh. Many Hands fell ill, or suffered due to the low pay rate they were offered, and this occasionally resulted in a strike. In Chapter 17 (Volume 1), ‘What is a Strike?’, Margaret visits the Higgins family in Milton, and the topic of a strike comes up. Margaret asks Mr Higgins what a strike is, saying: “You must not
wonder at my ignorance; where I come from I never heard of a strike” (Gaskell 132). Margaret thus indicates that strikes are uncommon in the area she comes from, but in stating her ignorance on the matter it is also implied that she did not witness or hear of any strikes during her time in London. The implication can be ascribed to an absence of such a memory, the lack of interest of London in the North, or it could be understood to mean that she has heard of a strike before and has simply
never inquired after its meaning. However, this would underestimate Margaret’s curious nature, and it is therefore more likely that during her stay in London strikes were less common, if not less public or rowdy, than the ones in Milton. Thus, the statement directly emphasises the differences between Helstone and Milton, as well as indirectly indicating that London and Milton do not fall into the same category of the city.
Mr Higgins’s response to Margaret’s ignorance regarding strikes touches upon the opinion of various people from the North about the people from the South of England:
I know nought of your ways down South. I have heerd they’re a pack of spiritless, down-trodden men; welly clemmed to death; too much dazed wi’ clemming to know when they’re put upon. Now, it’s not so here. We known when we’re put upon … (Gaskell 133)
From the way in which Mr Higgins’s opinion is described, it is made clear that he has not formed the opinion based on his personal experiences. It is from hearsay that he has formed a mental image concerning the labourers from the South, and he establishes from thereon out that the hands from the North and the hands from the South differ immensely. The focus of his statement is on the ‘ignorance’ that Raymond Williams also refers to in his explanation of the generalised opinions that have formed of the country. Whereas the people from the South, and therefore implicitly the people from the country, do not know when they are being fooled, Mr Higgins notes that the people from the North, and thus the people from the city, know it all too well. However, the foundation of this opinion, therefore the foundation of the established difference between the country and the city, or the North and the South, is what Mr Higgins has heard from other people about the South, because he states that he, himself, knows “nought of your ways down South” (Gaskell 133). Nevertheless, the generalised opinions formed on either side are enough to convince him that the hearsay about
