2018 Reading Group - January: North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell - *Spoilers from 25 January*

Did Margaret tell the lie about being st the station to yry to give Frederick time to leave rather than lie because she would have looked bad for being out with a man?

I thought the lie was interesting. How we feel when we fall short of the standards we set ourselves. And how we feel when someone we respect (and she does respect Thornton by then) catches us in that failure to meet standards we both expect. I would have found it unbearable that Thornton should have caught me in that lie.

I felt it had quite a dickens-ish feel about it so that makes sense. The deaths were all rather convenient, which is something of dickensian attribute.

I think my feelings towards Margaret definitely changed throughout the novel - I thought she was bit of a pillock for much of the first half...

In some ways it's difficult looking at it from a 21st century perspective and I wonder if Margaret might have been perceived as a more sympathetic character at the time it was written. I was almost wanting her to fall down at some points in the book. At times she seems so deliberately spiteful.

Part of it is, I think, the change in standards - I couldnt conceive of getting so upset and anxious about a bloke who I wasn't in love with seeing me at the trainstation with another man after dark..... Particularly when she's not over fussed about the man who was killed. After all she seems so much more concerned about the lie she told than the death.

Having said all that, it was nice to read a classic where the girl has a bit of character about her. She seemed much more human than many other protagonists from that time.

Novels were definitely not massively respectable in Victorian times, particularly those written by women. They were seen as fripperies, the light entertainment of the day. You couldn't really call in chick lit though, as there weren't as many genres around - novels were generally all lumped in together, except those with noticeably different themes, such as gothic fiction.

I wish I had a rich godfather like Mr Bell! Loved him as character...he was quite pithy.

Perhaps at the time it was more in the light reading genre. So the magical rich Godfather and the finally getting together with the Hero are all just in the spirit of light fiction. Whereas to me, it's old and a classic so I expect it to be more highbrow.

I wondered for a bit if she was going to disappear to Spain and never see Thornton again.
I guess that was the dramatic tension though. Will they get together or not? Romantic fiction of the time.

that's funny Airey it did feel like she suddenly reached her word limited.

It was published in sections and was edited by Dickinson. The story goes he was getting fed up and told her to hurry up which is why the ending is so abrupt ...

I felt that Thornton was battling his background a bit at times-he knew what it was to be poor but before he met Margaret and Higgins and was redeemed a little, he had become hardened towards those he considered as having not bettered themselves as he had-he failed to realise or recognise the importance of luck or circumstance in being helpful
To bettering yourself. Quite Conservative (politically) in opinion by today's standards. Which struck me as being at odds with the modern view of the North as being more Labour in values (represented by Higgins and his belief in the Union).

I think the book was published in 20 odd sections in weekly magazine like Dickinson.

I suppose if she hadn't have inherited she couldnt have married poor Thornton or Henry the poor barrister.

I guess she couldn't have earned a good living at the time.

I didn't particularly like Bessy-I found her bits to be a bit dull...

Agree about Mr Hale and Mrs Hale actually.
Agree the ending was sudden.

At the time the rural poverty must have been shocking too. That's what drove people to the factories.

I guess the Hales' quality of life was much better in Helston though. Although they still had 2 servants even up North.

Agree it seems Mr Hale had doubts about the authority of the church or role of the church rather than a crisis of belief.
I would have liked this to have been expanded on.
Religious doubts seemed to be an ongoing theme, with Mr Hale and Higgins. Higgins viewpoint regarding the difficulty of faith in a life of suffering was very insightful and seemed quite outspoken for the period. We also had Frederick converting to Catholicism.

Did anyone else hate the character of Bessy?

I think Thornton did change, we see the growing relationship with Higgins and his willingness to learn from the mill workers, the canteen idea was very progressive. It was in character though as Thornton was clearly keen to learn from the beginning, thus his hiring a tutor in the first place. So Thornton did seem much more open minded than Margaret.

I agree that Margaret felt more comfortable with the Higginses as she felt comfortably above them.

Were books such as this and Austen ones considered to be slushy at the time of release? Like our versions of chick lit? Or were they given more respect?

I was disappointed in the ending tbh. It all felt a bit Mills & Boon to me - she's rich and she gets her man.

I didn't really fully understand Mr Hale leaving the church, and as a character he annoyed me somewhat-I found him to be quite weak.

I think the prejudice towards the North was definitely a thing at the time the novel was written. And actually still now exists to some degree. Interesting how the idea of the northern powerhouse is still referenced in current political rhetoric-and that when the novel was set it was actually a thing-but not necessarily celebrated.

I thought the book depicted the northern mill town perfectly. I grew up in North Derbyshire and used to Travel to Manchester a lot-through lots of little mill towns-New Mills stands out in memory and seems to fit this book as it sits across a steep valley-and so that's where I pictured the book in my head...

I liked Margaret throughout.I was surprised by how outspoken she was, particularly towards Mrs Thornton. And I'm not totally sure it was realistic that she would so quickly befriend the Higgins', though good for the narrative.

The part I didn't like about the book was the ending-it was too...abrupt...for me. I wanted a bit more romance in the final getting together! For that the BBC version won hands down for me

Yes i think you are right. Margaret felt comfortable when she was doing good deeds.
Maybe Mr Thorton was of a new class, the merchants and manufacturers and that was harder for her to weigh up?

I think you’re right JaimesGoldenHand that’s exactly how it came across

Agreed. It wasn't at all clear. He seemed to still believe in God but to have parted ways with the Church.

Re the question about why Margaret got on with Higgins but not Thornton, I think it was because she was secure in how she stood with him - she was better than him and she was used to being better than the labourers etc in Helstone. Thornton threw her because she felt superior to him (trade) but also felt her family was obliged to him. He reminded her that the family had come down in the world.

I found Mr Hale leaving the church confusing too! It came across as though it was more the interpretation of the Bible that he disagreed with? Especially when later he tries to get Higgins to pray etc with him which makes it appear as though he still believes?

I think at the time class was much more obvious than it is now. Although we still have a class system I think the lines are more blurred than they were at the time. Therefore someone reading it when it was first released might not have noticed it quite as much as we do?

From some of the prompts:
I think Margaret changed the most. I don’t believe Thornton did change at all (or much) more that Margaret got to know him better and as her thoughts were our main source of information that’s how we viewed him too. I didn’t like Margaret at all to begin with but she grew on me by the end as she grew too.

I’ve seen the mini series and they changed Mr Thornton so much! It was strange watching it back. They clearly wanted to give the watcher a reason to actively dislike him which I think was absent from the book. It meant that Margaret appeared much more prejudiced against him purely from where he was brought up.

I loved the Thornton’s back story. I think it helped us to understand why he was so against the workers who striked. He managed to work his way up the ladder so why shouldn’t everyone kind of thing. As a leftie I was more inclined to the workers side of thinking but the way it was described meant I could actually see both sides (which is unusual when it comes to socialism )

Yup. It is hard to imagine what impression it would have made at the time.
Margaret ending up loaning money to John (is that right?) Thornton. I imagine that might have been seen as radical.
1850's so 2 or 3 generations before my grandmother was born.

9. Do you think Mr. Hale was justified in leaving the church and his position?

I wasn't sure why he left alert from some idea about his conscience and a crisis of faith?

It worked both ways, didn't it. I did wonder how a reader at the time would have felt about it. Would it have been so striking?

Jaimes I agree there was a lot of prejudice and sensitivity to class.

Mrs Thornton and Fanny saying that Margaret didn't play piano for example as an example of how unaccomplished or poor she was?