north and south by elizabeth cleghorn gaskell

Would that contemporary novelists could also take on that challenge. juxtaposes the companionate marriage plot with discussion of political and social agency.

As Dickens himself found with Hard Times, marrying social concerns with enjoyable storytelling is far from straightforward, but Gaskell succeeds. By: Elizabeth Gaskell: Social novel av Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell. Contrast of the Industrial North and Rural South. It's not exactly original, either – there's more than a doff of the cap to Charlotte Brontë's Shirley, and suggestions that it's an industrial Pride and Prejudice certainly hold some water.īut, actually, it doesn't matter. Dickens was apparently infuriated by its lack of focus, only for Gaskell to respond by cunningly reintroducing edited chapters later. An edition of North and South (1855) North and South (Penguin Classics) Abridged edition by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell 4. There's even a Shakespearean case of mistaken identity, just to make the course of true love run a little less smooth.Īll of which makes North and South far too long.

She becomes part of a clearly signposted will-they-won't-they love story with the outwardly rough-and-ready manufacturer Mr Thornton. Margaret is torn from the bucolic surroundings of Hampshire in classic fish-out-of-water style. One of Elizabeth Gaskells best known novels, sometimes called an industrial novel or social novel, about the industrialization of cities in northern. Gaskell's priorities lay with storytelling.

North and south by elizabeth cleghorn gaskell