North and South

As an American, it's hard to look at the title of Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South and not think of the American Civil War.  But the North and South of her title refer respectively to England's North (with its mill towns) and South (London and its environs).

In addition, the title tells us that this novel is a study in contrasts and in the conflicts that stem from them.  So we get an opposition of

• town and country
• unions and manufacturers
• nobility and nouveau riche
• rich and poor (different from the above)
• violence and civil disobedience

Gaskell sets up characters who exemplify their different classes, with their legitimate grievances, and then lets us watch them in action.  I don't mean that her characters are simple cardboard cut-outs representing workers or manufacturers, but, rather, that she gives makes them all people acting with good motives.  So she has, in Thornton, a principled capitalist who believes that if he pays his workers too much, he will be undercut by his competitors; in many ways, he reminds me of a modern libertarian.  She has, in Higgins, a union man who believes that, if men are not coerced to join the union, it will lose all its strength.

I'm not done with the novel yet, but it will be interesting to see how (if) she resolves the various conflicts that she's set up.

One side note: I think it's an unfortunate sign of Austen-mania that a lot of the reviews on amazon say something like "this is Pride and Prejudice with social awareness" or "like Jane Austen with a conscience."  Really, I think Gaskell has no more in common with Austen than does, say George Elliot.