69 pages • 2 hours read
Elizabeth GaskellNorth and South
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1854A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 21-24Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 21 Summary: “The Dark Night”
Margaret and her father walk home from the party. Richard thinks Thornton is worried and anxious due to the strike. He suspects Boucher is exaggerating his circumstances. Thornton hides his feelings like Margaret. Richard hopes she can admire him one day. Margaret says she is trying, but he is the first mill master she has ever known. Margaret did not enjoy sitting with the women at the party listening to their pretentious attempts to display their wealth. Dixon is frantic when they return. Maria’s condition has worsened, and she summoned the doctor. Richard is overcome by her diminished state and is angry Margaret hid the truth from him. The doctor has calmed her with a sedative and promises an improvement. He tells Richard they can manage the symptoms but cannot cure the disease. Richard sobs as Margaret comforts him. Everyone goes to bed, but Margaret remains awake recalling all that has occurred in the brief time since she left Helstone. She views her old life there as a distant memory: “She would fain have caught at the skirts of that departing time, and prayed it to return, and give her back what she had too little valued while it was yet in her possession” (231). Maria improves, and Richard sends her to Mrs. Thornton to inquire about a waterbed for Maria. When Margaret arrives on Marlborough Street, a great throng of people gather to protest. The nervous porter allows her inside, and she notices the mill is silent.
Chapter 22 Summary: “A Blow and its Consequences”
Margaret waits in the drawing room with an ominous feeling about the crowd outside. Fanny says Thornton has hidden the Irish hands to protect them from the mob. Mrs. Thornton sees the crowd advancing toward the mill and calls for someone to warn Thornton. The mob is moving like one unit attempting to break down the gates. Thornton arrives looking resolute and orders Fanny and his mother to hide in the interior of the house. Margaret will not go with them wanting to be brave in the face of danger. Thornton has called for military support, but they may not arrive in time. The mob breaches the gate and Fanny faints. Boucher is leading the mob. The sight of Thornton heightens the madness of the crowd: “[T]hey set up a yell, to call it not human is nothing, -it was as the demoniac desire of some terrible wild beast for the food that is withheld from his ravening” (240). Margaret demands Thornton go down and speak to his workers as humans. Margaret bolts the door behind him but notices a group of young men preparing to throw their wooden clogs. Without any thought, Margaret runs from the house, tears off her bonnet, and throws her arms around Thornton hoping the crowd will cease the attack with a woman present. Thornton throws her off, but she stays and pleads with the crowd to avoid violence. The crowd heckles Thornton over the use of Irish hands. Someone throws a shoe and Margaret shields Thornton again. The shoe misses but a rock hits her in the head. The sight of a woman bleeding subdues the crowd, and they disperse as Thornton carries a swooning Margaret inside. She faints again and Thornton confesses his love for her while she is unconscious. Mrs. Thornton calls for the doctor while Fanny frets and is no help at all. Sarah the house cleaner washes Margaret’s face and gives Fanny an account of Margaret’s actions. Margaret’s boldness shocks Fanny. The doctor attends to Margaret’s wound, but she insists on leaving immediately having overheard the exchange between Fanny and Sarah. Margaret leaves in a cab escorted by the doctor.
Chapter 23 Summary: “Mistakes”
Thornton finds guards for the factory and sends the Irish hands to the local pub for a meal. He is upset to find Margaret has left. Mrs. Thornton thinks Margaret went out to Thornton because she is in love with him, but Thornton insists he is not worthy of her affection. Thornton insists on going to check on Margaret, but his mother begs him to stay. Later Thornton tells his mother he must go to her tomorrow as he is bound by duty. Mrs. Thornton knows he will propose to her and admits she fears losing her son. His mother feels he speaks too highly of Margaret although she respects her more now that she has been honest about her feelings for Thornton. After the argument, Mrs. Thornton cries alone in her room.
At the Hales’, Margaret does not tell her parents what occurred. Maria says Bessy has summoned her, but Margaret cannot visit in her present condition. Margaret goes to her room to recount the events of the day and evaluate her choices. She regrets her impulsive show of emotion but feels she acted morally in trying to save Thornton. Margaret is angry the town will view her selfless act as disgraceful but resolves her only duty is to God and in His eyes, she did what was right. Thornton brings the waterbed for Maria and asks about Margaret but the two do not meet. Margaret goes to bed but cannot sleep as shame overcomes her.
Chapter 24 Summary: “Mistakes Cleared Up”
Margaret awakens and sets about helping her mother and planning a visit to Bessy. She is intent on forgetting the events of the previous day. Thornton arrives and as he waits for her, he cannot stop thinking about her arms encircling his neck. He wonders how she will receive him. Their greeting is awkward, but Thornton breaks the silence by apologizing for his thanklessness the previous day. Margaret asserts she was only doing what anyone would do for another human in danger. Thornton breathlessly exclaims he owes her his life and professes his love. Margaret takes offense as he has misjudged her actions. Thornton claims she is denying him the opportunity to express his feelings: “I know you despise me; allow me to say, it is because you do not understand me” (267). Thornton adds he has never loved a woman before her. Margaret asks this not to taint their families' friendship, but he leaves rejecting her handshake. Thornton is emotional as he leaves, but Margaret thinks she is not at fault for upsetting him.
Chapters 21-24 Analysis
Margaret moves from one crisis to another as she leaves the bedside of her dying mother to find a malevolent mob gathering outside the mill dangerously close to Thornton’s home. Gaskell builds tension as Margaret waits in the drawing room hearing the pulse and thrum of the growing rabble outside. Gaskell encapsulates the mob mentality as the group acts and sounds like one being. Ironically, as the pulse and noise of the mob increase, Margaret becomes keenly aware of the eerily silent mill. Gaskell displays a marked difference in the reactions of each of the women in the home. Margaret and Mrs. Thornton both bravely act to respond to the threat. Conversely, Jane refuses to help, and Fanny’s fear paralyzes her. Mrs. Thornton stays true to her stalwart pride in refusing to leave Thornton’s side. Fanny represents the stereotypical Victorian female, weak in her physical and emotional state.
Faced with the horde of his workers assembled on his doorstep, Thornton is at a crossroads. He can react by strong-arming them into submission or he can attempt a humanitarian solution that benefits both sides. Seeing Boucher in the group humanizes it, and Margaret ceases to see them as a soulless mass, but as broken humans. Margaret acts as a voice of conscience and truth in demanding Thornton speak to them face to face in hopes it will reveal his sincerity in finding a peaceable solution. Thornton agrees and moves to address his men, but it comes too late. Fueled with hunger and bitter rage, the group is a powder keg on the brink of ignition. Margaret senses the shift and reacts with little forethought, using her body as a human shield to protect Thornton. In an ironic twist, Margaret hopes the sight of a woman will prevent violence; instead, the bloody result of violence on her face defuses the mob. The skirmish opens Thornton’s eyes to the severity of his conflict with the workers and exposes the depth of his love for Margaret.
In the wake of the catastrophe, Margaret is left physically wounded but realizes later she will face far more injurious scorn and degradation from the community for her heroic act. Victorians disapproved of public displays of affection from women toward men. Margaret feels shameful and humiliated by how the public will perceive her behavior. She uses the religious idea of being “fallen” in the eyes of the community simply because she chose to show emotion and aid a person in need. Margaret braces for the impact of her choice, but she is unprepared for Thornton’s emotional declaration of love. Chapter 24 marks the midpoint of the novel and represents the climax of Thornton and Margaret’s relationship. Gaskell uses the traditional Victorian Romantic trope of a failed proposal to heighten the tension between the protagonist and Thornton; however, this being a second refusal of marriage for Margaret, it reveals more about her character than her suitor’s. Thornton proceeds to her home hoping for a stereotypical Victorian female to swoon in response to his proposal, but deep inside he suspects she will passionately reject him. Her rebuttal is not only a rejection, but she also goes as far as to label his honest declaration of love as abominable. Thornton and Margaret continue to falter under the cloud of misunderstanding. Her proud refusal comes as she assumes he is proposing only to protect her virtue, and he misconstrues her self-preservation as insensitivity. Pride becomes an insurmountable obstacle to true connection. The couple’s discord is symbolic of the clash between men and women of a fundamental lack of understanding between the two sexes.
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By Elizabeth Gaskell
