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North and South (Oxford World's Classics (Paperback)) (Paperback)
$11.36 - Save $1.26 (9%) - RRP $12.62 Free delivery worldwide (to United States and
all these other countries) Usually dispatched within 48 hours | |Short Description for North and South'she tried to settle that most difficult problem for women, how much was to be utterly merged in obedience to authority, and how much might be set apart for freedom in working.' North and South is a novel about rebellion. Moving from the industrial riots of discontented millworkers through to the unsought passions of a middle-class woman, and from religious crises of conscience to the ethics of n...
Full description- Publisher: Oxford University Press
- Published: 04 September 2008
- Format: Paperback 496 pages
- See: Full bibliographic data
- Categories: Literary Studies: General | Contemporary Fiction | Classics | Historical Romance | Sagas | Historical Fiction
- ISBN 13: 9780199537006 ISBN 10: 0199537003
- Sales rank: 45,124
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Reviews for North and South
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If Dickens disagreed with her, I agree with Dickens
While originally written in the serialized publication of Dickens' 'Household Words', Gaskell's North and South(1854-55) shows an utter lack of understanding and skill in conforming to the restraints imposed upon this format. She is defective in her ability to condense plot, creating a passive lull when the reader craves action. Although Gaskell does conjure up an array of endearing characters (from the stern Mrs. Thorton to the meek Bessy Higgins), these characters are often refused adequate 'page time' to develop in the novel as the heroine's selfishly stolen introspection is prioritized. Gaskell is also at fault in her choice to delay the romantic resolution that should have naturally come to a climax a hundred pages prior. To compare the pattern of perceived unforgiving sin found in both North and South and in the later work of Thomas Hardy- Tess of the D'urbervilles (1891), North and South is but a crude thought in its infancy. Where Tess Derbyfield is struck with a quivering passion to clear herself of the taint of a fallen woman in the eyes of her husband and to endure with a steady forbearance what suffering he seems fit for her, Margaret Hale finds herself in a trivial position in which she has committed no crime and with no consequences other than facing the lowered opinion of a man she respected. There is, once superfluous words are hacked away, no meat in the 'tumultuous tale' of North and South to provide a substantial meal for readers or indeed to satisfy the slightest pangs of hunger. by Alaina Zimmerman
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