Female Agency and Strength Theme Analysis

At the beginning of North and South, Margaret Hale’s first occasion for “usefulness” comes when she passively models some shawls for her Aunt Shaw’s company, an activity she finds amusing but “ludicrous.” While she and her friend Henry Lennox talk about it afterward, she reflects that she is caught up in a “never-ending commotion about trifles” as she helps cousin Edith prepare for her wedding. Upon her return to Helstone, however, Margaret must shoulder an escalating series of non-trifling problems, making serious decisions and taking initiative both at home and in public. Through Margaret, Gaskell models the ideal woman as one who acts, leads, and solves problems. More than that, the ideal woman shows quiet, persevering strength that bears others’ burdens and shields others from harm.

Margaret repeatedly takes on “head of household” responsibilities—such as relaying bad news, planning a household move, making funeral arrangements, and providing spiritual leadership—that would traditionally be expected to fall upon her father. After Mr. Hale tells Margaret about his change of theological views, necessitating his leaving the Church of England, he asks a reeling Margaret to tell her mother that the family must move to Milton. Margaret is aware that “it was an error in her father to have left [Mrs. Hale] to learn his change of opinion … from her better-informed child.” Despite her discomfort with her father’s decision and his handling of the fallout, she faces the dreadful conversation the following day, so that her father doesn’t have to.

Not only must Margaret be the voice of uncomfortable realities, she must also shoulder the responsibility of preparations for their move, because her father is too depressed to make the required decisions. After the relatively superficial duties of attending Edith in London, now every day “startled her into a decision … momentous to her, and to those whom she loved, to be settled.” This role is jarring for Margaret, but she does what is required of her. When a dying Mrs. Hale begs Margaret to write to her exiled son Frederick (a navy mutineer), Margaret acts quickly, despite her fears of Frederick’s capture and hanging if he returns to England. Her father approves her actions, acknowledging that “I durst not have done it myself.” Mrs. Hale recognizes the shifting dynamic in their household and leans on Margaret accordingly. When Boucher, an aggrieved millworker, commits suicide, it also falls to Margaret to tell his widow the news. “If I had time to think of what I had better say; but all at once—” begins the trembling Mr. Hale. Margaret doesn’t need to be asked; by now, assuming such burdens is becoming habitual. After Mrs. Hale dies, Mr. Hale appears lost, stroking his wife’s face and making soft noises like “some mother-animal caressing her young.” Meanwhile, all of the funeral preparations devolve upon Margaret; as her father and brother fulfill the traditionally feminine role of unabashed grieving, “she must be working, planning, considering.” Margaret’s leadership in such matters is now taken for granted within the household; she subordinates her own grief in order to tend to the needs of her family.

Margaret also occupies a kind of priestly role within the household. In the face of Mr. Hale’s and Frederick’s helpless grief, Margaret, “without a word of preparation … with a clearness of sound that startled even herself,” begins reciting the 14th chapter of the Gospel of John. Before her mother’s funeral, Mr. Hale asks for her prayers, and “almost supporting him in her arms,” Margaret recites all the comforting verses of Scripture she can remember. Far from shrinking from such a task, “she herself gained strength by doing this.” Margaret not only tends to others’ needs, but actively bears their burdens and heals their wounds out of her own strength.

Margaret not only assumes leadership at home; she also puts herself in harm’s way in public, showing her willingness to put herself at risk in order to forestall violence. Margaret’s courage is on full display when she faces the mob that has come to confront Thornton, master of Marlborough Mills. When she sees men about to throw their shoes at Thornton, she makes herself a human shield, supposing that the mob wouldn’t dare harm a woman. This is a miscalculation, but the sight of Margaret, bleeding and unconscious after being struck with a pebble, does help persuade the crowd to retreat. The realization that they’ve injured a woman shames the crowd and prevents them from attempting to do further harm. In the aftermath, Mrs. Thornton reacts with scorn to Margaret’s actions, retorting to her son that “a girl in love will do a good deal,” as though such behavior is only comprehensible as an act of love. Later, Margaret, knowing she is being viewed as a “romantic fool,” despairs at this interpretation, but determines that she can bear the insult because, by forestalling greater violence, she has done “a woman’s work.” She later tells Thornton that any woman would “feel the sanctity of our sex as a high privilege when we see danger.” In other words, Margaret believes that, because it’s taboo to strike a woman, women have a carte blanche to insert themselves in dangerous situations; by so doing, they can act on behalf of the defenseless. A similar standoff occurs when, following Bessy Higgins’s death, Margaret stands in front of grief-stricken Nicholas Higgins to stop him from going to the gin-palace, though he looks angry enough to strike Margaret. She then persuades Higgins to accompany her home for tea instead—again, using a feminine prerogative (this time, hospitality) to de-escalate the situation.

It’s worth noting that Margaret’s strength and agency are rooted in Victorian-era gender ideals of quietness, gentleness, and stainless virtue. Nevertheless, Gaskell does present Margaret as an empowered woman whose everyday endurance and courage amidst danger are as indispensable as the raw strength and public prominence of the men around her.