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Chapter 31
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in North and South, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Nostalgia and Identity
Female Agency and Strength
Religious Diversity and Conscience
Class Antagonism
Personal Character, Environment, and Change
Education
Summary
Analysis
Margaret agrees to accompany Frederick to the train station the next day. She says she won’t mind walking home in the dark, as she’s gotten “very brave and very hard.” The two arrive twenty minutes early at the train station and have a tender last exchange. Suddenly they spot Mr. Thornton riding past, scowling. Margaret also notices a young man staring impertinently at her when she goes inside to buy Frederick’s ticket.
Margaret no longer doubts her own courage as she did before the riot; she now feels at home and able to fend for herself in Milton, proudly referring to herself now as “very brave and very hard.”
Themes
Just before the train arrives, a rough-looking porter comes up, shoves Margaret, and seizes Frederick’s collar, identifying him as Hale. Somehow, by “some sleight of wrestling,” Frederick trips the man—presumably Leonards—and the man falls a short distance off the platform. Margaret then rushes Frederick onto the train. Sickened by the near miss, Margaret looks for Leonards on the ground, but he is gone. As she buys her ticket to catch the opposite train home, she hears the railroad workers talking about Leonards’ drunken boasts that he would pursue Frederick.
Frederick’s narrow escape, the fall, and Margaret’s witnessing of the whole thing will prove to have enormous consequences for the rest of the story, and for Margaret’s development.
Themes
