by EJourney
In both novels (Gaskell’s and EJourney’s), Margaret is more independent and rebellious than we would expect of a Victorian woman, ignoring some of the social restrictions on women of that time, challenging authority when she sees injustice including Thornton’s initial disregard for the rights of his workers. It may even be argued that in Margaret of the North, she uses her sexual power on him to lead him to change some of his views and the actions he takes toward his workers. Margaret helps found a clinic for the medical needs of the workers—in this aspect of Margaret’s growth, this author may have had in mind Gaskell’s admiration for Florence Nightingale. Margaret also tries to give children some education, helping them to escape their impoverished lives. You can see in these actions that Margaret continues to leave the sealed off world of feminine domesticity to engage also in the masculine public world through philanthropy. She directs and manages her inherited fortune by using it to protect and help others less fortunate.
The tender, sensitive, loving side of Thornton is also shown throughout the novel not only in his encounters with Margaret. His caring for his workers develops further. This softening or blurring of roles for both Margaret and Thornton has led them into a new way of meeting each other, more as persons than rigid role players. But Thornton’s world also increases and becomes more open, and the author shows this using the benefit of her art training: The lead characters visit Paris to witness the great upheavals of the reconstruction of the city. There, the author adds the element of historical artistic developments to upheavals caused by industrialization. In describing what the newlyweds saw in Paris and the lively Parisian cafes, she brings her understanding of the birth of modernism in art that was also happening at the time to demonstrate not only Thornton’s admitting that “careless ease” has a purpose but also that rapid changes are clearly taking place in other cities.
Margaret of the North: a romance, yes. But a romance situated in changing times, in changing social and sexual roles, in social and artistic upheavals.
Dainotto, Roberto Maria (2000). Place in Literature: Regions, Cultures, Communities. Cornell University Press. pp. 178.
Richard Journey, Ph.D., wrote his dissertation on “Married Women’s Changing in the Context of Changing Social Possibilities.”
Connect with the Author
To my readers:
I hope I have contributed a little to your reading pleasure. I crafted this book with as much care as I am capable of. Doing illustrations for it was particularly satisfying and helped prevent me from giving up on the writing.
My sincere thanks for your interest.
EJourney
If you’re a little more curious, you can find me at:
www.margaretofthenorth.wordpress.com or
www.goodreads.com/E-Journey/
Or, read my blurbs on art, travel (mostly Paris where I have stayed for months), eating, and state of being and see some of my other paintings at:
www.eveonalimb.com