North and South: On Social Classes

North and South: On Social Classes
Wendy Vaughon

Source: English 61, Brown University, 1993

Yasmine Ismael


Social Classes:

1.1. In Victorian England, the upper classes claimed that the lower classes “cannot be associated in any regular way with industrial or family life” and that their “ultimate standard of life is almost savage, both in its simplicity and in its excesses.” (Victorian England, 1973: 117-119)
1.2. The disease and malnutrition that ran raging among the poor caused “stunted physique” and pale support, which caused not only economic division between the classes, but also physical division as well.
1.3. In North and South, Mr Hale treated all of his acquaintances alike; it never entered his mind to make any difference because of their rank: e.g., he placed a chair for Higgins and called him Mr Higgins instead of the vulgar Nicholas or Higgins.
1.4. Higgins expressed the opinions of atheists because, as he claimed, he had never found any form of faith to which he could attach himself.
1.5. Margaret was surprised, and very much pleased, when she found her father and Higgins in earnest conversation, each speaking with gentle politeness to the other, in spite of the fact that their opinions might clash.


Gaskell’s Moral Equality of Economic Classes:

2.1. Gaskell meant in North and South to affect a broad audience. Through Margaret, she criticised the British system of social classes.
2.2. She remarks that “it won’t be enough on that awful day that some of us have been beggars here, and some of us have been rich, we shall not be judged by that poor accident, but by our faithful following of Christ.”
2.3. Throughout the novel, Margaret must come to terms with the effect of the class system; her relationship with Higgins and Bessy teaches her that people are people, no matter where they may come from or what social status they may belong to.