The search for home in North and South - Margaret's quest

It could be said that Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South is largely about Margaret Hale finding her home.

The word 'home' has rich meaning and conjures the same deep emotions as the word 'love' -- simply because the two concepts go hand in hand. Home is a center for love. That home means different things to different people who live in the same place, shows that our sense of home is also very individual. We each have a sense of what home feels like in our hearts, of what we hold most dear to our sense of purpose and place.

Home is something you treasure, and it's not the same for everyone. It can be difficult to put into words or make someone else understand what home means to us -- what home is to us. Margaret can't explain her home when Henry asks her to describe Helstone:

"...I cannot tell you about my own home. I don't quite think it is a thing to be talked about, unless you knew it."

Poor Margaret is thrust from one home to another three different times in the book: from London to Helstone, from Helstone to Milton, and from Milton back to London again. Through all these changes, the reader gets a good glimpse of how Margaret operates in three very different environments. And Margaret has the chance to experience contrasting cultures and venues. As she moves about from place to place, she is all the while developing her own individual values and sense of purpose. She is learning what it is that she really wants to create a satisfying home.

So what are the qualities of home she seeks? The sense of 'home' that she longs for changes as she matures, but the core values she wants to live don’t really vary. She wants to be where she can be free, where she feels a connection with the people around her, where she is valued, understood, and has a voice. In short, she's looking for a place where she is free to love and is loved in return.

The longing for home a powerful desire to belong -- to find a place where you feel needed and accepted, a place where you can shine. We find the most comfort and support in surrounding ourselves with people who think and feel the same and are involved in a deep-felt purpose.

The Margaret we first meet in the book is in a surrogate home. Contained by formalities, moving within the protected well-bred social circles of London, Margaret acts as an auxiliary to Edith, who is the true center of all activity at Harley Street. Margaret doesn't seem fully alive here, where the primary purpose of life is entertainment and social display. There's a side of her that is shut down while she's in London, a side of her that Edith and Henry do not know. 

We see Margaret come alive when she arrives Helstone. She is loves to roam the forest and enjoys visiting and helping the people of her father's parish. She's happiest outside in the wide-open beauty of nature, going wherever she likes. She doesn't miss the luxuries or social scenes of London at all. She is perfectly happy fulfilling "the important post of [the] only daughter in Helstone parsonage."

Here in Helstone she finds great freedom and purpose. She feels genuinely part of the community around her. The beauty of nature found everywhere in Helstone inspires a sense of happy freedom in her. It's no wonder she calls Helstone "about as perfect a place as any in the world.”

She resists coming to Milton, where the scenery is bleak and everyone seems so busy. But what begins to draw her out of her unhappiness is finding a connection with the Higgins family. Margaret loves engaging with humanity and the larger world. She’s passionate about supporting those around her.

In Helstone, she was used to visiting and helping the poor country people that lived in her father's parish. In Milton, she becomes interested in supporting the working poor. She finds the energy of the town engaging. The future of England is being forged in the factories of Milton, and Margaret develops a fondness for the spirit of its people.

When she returns to London, she feels the oppression of being caught in her cousin's sphere of elegant security. She is once again relegated to nurse-maid and social assistant. There's no engagement with the broader community of humanity and nothing of any great purpose is being accomplished, until she is made an heiress and makes the firm decision to do what she believes is important.

Margaret begins to fill her need to live a more purposeful life by becoming involved in helping the poor in London. This gives her a sense of freedom and fills some of her time with meaningful activity. But she still isn’t truly “home” in London, surrounded by a family who doesn’t comprehend her values. She won’t be home until she’s partnered with the one person who understands and cherishes her strong desire to help improve the lives of others. She finds her home with John Thornton, in Milton.

It’s ironic that a girl who loves the country so much finds her true home in dirty and smoky Milton, isn’t it? But heck, I think a girl could live just about ANYWHERE as long as John Thornton comes with the “home” package!

Next time we’ll talk about the Thornton side of the search for home.

Why did Thornton visit Helstone?

"Were you ever at Helstone?" Mr. Bell asks Thornton in Gaskell's book, North and South.

"I have seen it. It was a great change to leave it and come to Milton."  

John admits that he's been there, but he doesn't explain why and it doesn't occur to Mr. Bell to ask. If Bell had been a bit more alert, Thornton's answer should have piqued his curiosity --because you don't just swing by Helstone! It's not on the way to anywhere. It's not on the railroad schedule. To get to Helstone you would need to take the train to Southampton, and then take a cab of some distance. 

Clearly, John has made a deliberate effort to visit the remote hamlet where Margaret grew up. If nothing else, it's a romantic gesture that shows how much he still thinks of her. He even picks a few flowers to save as a treasured symbol. [He pressed those flowers and kept them with him. How romantic is that?! There's a fantastic post about this here.]

--I've always asked myself what he is thinking when he plucks that one remaining rose from the hedgerow, and I can't quite define it. I wonder what Richard Armitage would say?

Before we talk about John Thornton's reasons for visiting Helstone, let me point out that the book and the BBC mini-series place John's journey to Helstone at different points in the story.

In the book, John goes off on a business trip to Le Havre about the same time Mr. Hale goes to Oxford. And it's on John's way back home to Milton when he apparently makes a point of stopping to see Helstone. It's been about nine months since he declared his love, and he's still struggling with the pain and loss of Margaret's rejection. He meets Mr. Bell on the same train to Milton and discovers that Mr. Hale has died. 

At least in the original storyline John expects to see and interact with Margaret again after secretly visiting Helstone, even though he expects that they will continue to have a distanced relationship. In the film adaptation, John runs off to Helstone for no apparent reason -- certainly he has no commercial affairs to conduct, because he has just closed his mill. Margaret has been gone from Milton for months already. When John is on that train home from sunny Helstone, he expects he may never see her again. That's pretty powerful. 

The BBC adaptation gives us a lovely visual of John walking through the sun-drenched open greenery of Helstone. It's such an astounding contrast to see the Master of Marlborough Mills, dressed in his usual sober work clothes, surrounded by the lushness of nature -- with not a brick or sooty wall in sight.

And here he is, tromping around the grounds of Helstone in southern England, without a word to his mum of where he has gone! I wonder how long he was away. Did he stay overnight in Helstone at all? That really would have troubled Hannah! Or was it just a long day trip? It would be at least 3-4 hours to get there from Milton, as far as I could figure, given Victorian train speeds. (In the book, he stays at the local inn.)

So why did he go there and what did he gain? Did it give him some closure, or did it only intensify the pain of his loss?

I believe he is gaining some closure by taking this pilgrimage. He doesn't intend to ever be 'cured' of his love for her. He absolutely knows that this is the great love of his life. He only longs to understand it better -- to understand her as completely as he can. That's why he goes to see where she grew up, to understand how her environment might have shaped who she is and what she must have experienced in giving up Helstone to come to Milton. 

It's this quote from Gaskell that illuminates the depth of his connection to Margaret:

He had known what love was - a sharp pang, a fierce experience, in the midst of whose flames he was struggling! but, through that furnace he would fight his way out into the serenity of middle age, - all the richer and more human for having known this great passion.

(And note Gaskell's punctuation - the exclamation point after 'struggling' really socks you in the gut.)

What do you think of that quote? He's bound and determined to get through this, although he knows it's going to be a tremendous struggle, he expects he will nevertheless be enriched by this experience. He can never see his love for her as a negative thing, even though he's not able to have that love returned.

Here's another quote to elucidate his feelings on that score:

Yes! whatever happened to him, external to his relation to her, he could never have spoken of that time, when he could have seen her every day - when he had her within his grasp, as it were - as a time of suffering. It had been a royal time of luxury to him, with all its stings and contumelies....

So his walk in Helstone was to understand more of this great love. For though he could do nothing to lessen it or forget it, he could try to understand what it was -- who Margaret was -- and why she had affected him so.

I think it speaks of great maturity to seek this understanding. He's not wallowing in despair or self-pity. He's trying to move on by understanding what has happened to him.

How wonderful that all his steadfast devotion to what Margaret means to him is rewarded at the end of the story! His love is certainly profound. No garden variety type! Maybe that's what the one precious wild rose symbolized -- that unique beauty and glorious character that was Margaret.

[If you remember some of these words, you may have encountered these exact remarks before! This post is largely taken from my own comments on this topic from the C19 discussion board.]