North and South

Richard Hale, Margaret’s father and Helstone’s village priest, is a kindhearted and educated gentleman. Richard’s moral crisis is the impetus behind the family’s move to Milton and the first of many successive crises that endanger his family’s well-being and force Margaret to abandon her adolescence to care for parents. Richard finds joy in tutoring his Milton students but relies heavily on Margaret to make household decisions. Gaskell casts him as a more feminine male character, particularly in his sensitive nature. This is an admirable personal trait, as it allows him to have more compassion and sympathy toward others though it challenges the gender norms of the era: “Richard treated all his fellow-creatures alike: it never entered into his head to make any difference because of their rank” (307). His charitable and docile nature, however, leaves his family without a leader. Once Maria dies, he turns despondent, and Margaret assumes the role of father, mother, and household manager all in one.

Richard is an example of a principled character who is led by his moral conscience. He is bound more by his ethics than to the institution of the church or the happiness of his family. Less principled men like Lennox question his decision, but in the end, Richard is justified in learning his closest friends and fellow scholars respect his decision. He serves as a stark contrast to the citizens of Milton, men and women of action, and his character is a reminder that effort and enterprise are sometimes needed in place of education: “[W]here the green gloom and delicious quiet of the place had conduced, as he had said, to a habit of meditation, but, perhaps, in some degree to the formation of a character more fitted for thought than action” (534). Richard’s lack of action becomes the catalyst for Margaret’s coming of age. In the absence of dependable parents, Margaret is forced to become an independent adult. She takes the place of the head of the household and launches on a journey toward self-rule.

Bessy Higgins is Nicholas’s daughter and Margaret’s first friend in Milton. Though both young women are the same age, their circumstances are contrasting in every way. Margaret is educated and healthy, and comes from a well-respected, middle-class family. Bessy, raised by her father, is poor and slowly dying from lung disease, the result of years of unregulated child labor in a cotton mill. Though her circumstances are dire, Bessie holds fast to her faith. As a devout Methodist, Bessy’s religion is her source of hope. Though she does not shy away from scorning the work that is killing her, she focuses her eyes on the better life to come in eternity:

if this should be th’ end of it all, and if all I’ve been born for is just to work my heart and my life away, and to sicken i’ this dree place, wi’ them mill noises in my ears for ever, until I could scream out for them to stop, and let me have a little piece o’ quiet- and wi’ the fluff filling my lungs (139).

Bessy’s greatest fear is that her suffering will be for naught, but she is gracious in her friendship with Margaret, despite suffering greatly.

Through Bessy’s character, Gaskell shows the consequences of the Industrial Revolution. Beyond the toxic smoke, polluted water, and choking, fiber-filled air, the rapid industrial growth also carries a human toll. Forced to work in the mill to support her family Bessy is robbed of her childhood and her health. She is invisible to the mill owners, one of many cogs in a wheel of capitalistic greed. Bessy does not want nor asks for Margaret’s pity or charity. She simply desires a friend to comfort her through her final days and to look after her father and sister when she is gone. In Bessy Higgins, Gaskell delivers her strongest indictment against the mill owners and the lack of care or concern for the health and well-being of those who keep the mills running.

John Thornton is the owner of Marlborough Mills textile factory in Milton and the male lead in both the romantic and industrial plot lines of the narrative. Having worked his way out of poverty, Thornton is now a successful and well-respected mill owner. When Margaret first sees Thornton, she describes his physical characteristics as unremarkable. It is his forthright personality that first intrigues Margaret. Like Milton itself, Thornton is powerful, energetic, and dynamic: “Man of action he was, busy in the world’s great battle, there was a deeper religion binding him to God in his heart, in spite of his strong willfulness, through all his mistakes” (376). His proud yet plainspoken manner is a good match for her regal pride. Though the fraught romance between Thornton and Margaret adds narrative drive, Gaskell uses the love story to ease the reader into the more challenging social criticisms Thornton’s mill presents. Thornton’s character undergoes a meaningful change because of his relationships with Margaret and Higgins.

Thornton also creates change in Margaret’s personality. Despite his ardent love for her, he never hesitates to chastise her pride and call into question her choices: “She liked him more for having mastered her inner will” (270). Thornton challenges her ego, and as a woman who delights in defying authority can conventions, he captivates her. Yet he maintains tender care for her and her family supporting them through illness and death and even protecting Margaret from prosecution in Leonards’s death. Thornton’s most transformative relationship, however, is with Higgins. After Higgins waits for five hours to humbly ask for work to support himself and the orphaned Boucher children, Thornton becomes intimately familiar with the life of a worker. Higgins bridges the gap between master and man in approaching Thornton and it begins a process in Thornton that will improve not just the life of Higgins but all the workers in Marlborough Mill. Nicholas comes to a better understanding of mill owners like Thornton through the relationship: “[T]hat’s how I know the chap that’s a man, not a master” (461). North and South is a novel about recognizing the humanity in others, and the friendship developed between Thornton and Higgins exemplifies the way all people can find common ground despite rank, social class, or ideology.