Story summary
North and South 줄거리
- 8분 읽기
- 10 parts
- 오디오 곧 공개
A clergyman's daughter from the south meets a mill owner in a smoky northern town, and neither will give way.
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North and South 한눈에 보기
요약: 읽는 데 8 min 소요
- 읽는 시간
- 약 11 h 55 min9 h 25 min fast, 14 h 10 min slow
- 길이
- 169,700단어52 chapters
- 쪽수
- 509쪽
- 도서관 난이도
- 읽기 어려워요 long sentences, a rich vocabulary
- 최초 출간
- 1854by Elizabeth Gaskell
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). 고전을 읽는 데 걸리는 시간 · 업데이트
3개월 무료
North and South의 전체 요약을 무료로 받아보세요
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North and South in short
North and South follows Margaret Hale as she is taken from a quiet southern parsonage and set down in a smoky cotton town. Her father gives up his church post for conscience, and the family faces poverty, illness and loss. In Milton she meets the mill owner John Thornton and the weaver Nicholas Higgins, and she learns to see the world through their eyes without giving up her own.
What North and South is about
Would you rather live in a rose-covered village or in a town where chimneys blacken the sky? Margaret Hale has to find out. Her father, a country parson, gives up his church post over a matter of conscience and moves the family from the soft south of England to Milton, a cotton town in the north. There she meets John Thornton, a mill owner who rose from poverty and trusts only strength and work.
Elizabeth Gaskell wrote North and South in the middle of the 1850s, and she knew the industrial north from her own life in Manchester. The book offers a love story, a portrait of a strike, and a quarrel over what rich and poor owe one another.
이런 분께 적합해요. You will love this if you enjoy love stories in which two proud people misjudge each other, or if strikes and the quarrel between rich and poor interest you.
The story in 10 parts
Key idea 1 · free to read
A London drawing room and a forest village
The novel opens in a drawing room in Harley Street, London, on the eve of a wedding. Margaret Hale, eighteen, lives here with her aunt and her cousin Edith, who is about to marry Captain Lennox and sail to Corfu. Margaret is tall and grave, while Edith is pretty, sleepy and spoiled.
Margaret stands under the chandelier, draped in Indian shawls, while Edith dozes. Henry Lennox, the Captain's brother and a sharp young lawyer, walks in and shares her amusement. Margaret longs for Helstone, the Hampshire hamlet where her father is the parson. When Henry teases that it sounds like a village in a story, she answers sharply that she describes it as it really is.
At home her mother blames the damp air and the small income. Margaret also has her prejudices, and she tells her mother she does not care for people in trade. Gaskell plants this scorn early so that a manufacturing town can test it. The south gives Margaret beauty, and also the pride she will have to unlearn.
- 2무료로 시작해 읽기
Henry Lennox asks and Margaret says no
Henry Lennox turns up at Helstone in October, and his visit looks like friendship.
- 3무료로 시작해 읽기
A father's conscience sends the family north
That same evening Mr. Hale calls Margaret into his study and tells her he is leaving Helstone.
- 4무료로 시작해 읽기
Milton, and two proud people who misread each other
Margaret and her father go on to Milton to look for a house.
- 5무료로 시작해 읽기
Friendship with a weaver and his dying daughter
Margaret's real introduction to Milton comes through people, not buildings.
- 6무료로 시작해 읽기
Masters and men argue over who rules
When Mr. Thornton comes to tea at Crampton, he talks of Milton's rise.
- 7무료로 시작해 읽기
A mob at the mill gates and a stone
The strike goes on, and Irish workers are brought in.
- 8무료로 시작해 읽기
A mother's last wish and a brother in hiding
Dr. Donaldson tells Margaret the truth about her mother's illness.
- 9무료로 시작해 읽기
Class, Union and the need to meet face to face
The book's central question is how people of different classes should live together.
- 10무료로 시작해 읽기
Pride, honesty and the way the story is told
The novel is also about pride.
Read all 10 key ideas now
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Characters, plot and themes
Main characters
- Margaret Hale A parson's daughter from the south of England, proud and honest, who must learn to live in a northern manufacturing town.
- John Thornton A self-made cotton mill owner who believes in strength and firm rule and cares deeply for his mother.
- Mr. Hale Margaret's gentle father, who gives up his church post for conscience and becomes a tutor in Milton.
- Mrs. Hale Margaret's frail mother, who misses Helstone and longs to see her son Frederick again.
- Nicholas Higgins A proud weaver and Union man who fights for his fellow workers and becomes Margaret's friend.
- Bessy Higgins Nicholas's dying daughter, who longs to hear about the forest and trusts Margaret as a friend.
- Mrs. Thornton John's stern, devoted mother, who distrusts Margaret and judges everyone by strength of character.
- Frederick Hale Margaret's brother, a former naval officer in exile abroad who wants to see his mother again.
How it ends (spoiler)
Thornton loses his business after strike losses and collapsing trade leave him unable to meet his obligations. Margaret, now a wealthy woman after Mr. Bell's death, comes to understand her own heart. She offers her money to help him start again, and the misunderstandings between them finally fall away. They admit their love and agree to marry, bringing together the north and the south.
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North and South에 관한 질문
What is North and South about?
It follows Margaret Hale, a parson's daughter who moves from rural southern England to the cotton town of Milton. There she meets mill owner John Thornton and weaver Nicholas Higgins, and the novel traces a love story alongside a strike.
Is North and South a true story?
No, it is fiction, written in the middle of the 1850s. Milton and Darkshire are invented, but Gaskell based them on Manchester and the industrial north, which she knew well, and the strike scenes draw on real conflicts.
Who are Margaret Hale and Mr. Thornton?
Margaret is a thoughtful, proud young woman raised partly in London and partly in a Hampshire village. Mr. Thornton is a self-made cotton manufacturer who rose from poverty. Their clashing views drive the story.
What does the title North and South mean?
It points to the two regions of England, the rural, gentle south and the industrial, busy north. It also describes two ways of life and two people, Margaret and Thornton, who must learn to understand each other.
What is the main message of North and South?
Gaskell suggests that class divisions soften when people meet as individuals and listen to one another. Pride and prejudice make masters, workers and lovers misjudge each other, and sympathy and personal contact begin to heal that.
이 판본 인용하기
Gaskell, Elizabeth. North and South. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/north-and-south.
Gaskell, E. (2026). North and South. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/north-and-south (Original work published 1854)
Gaskell, Elizabeth. North and South. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/north-and-south.
@book{gaskell2026north,
author = {Gaskell, Elizabeth},
title = {North and South},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/north-and-south},
note = {First published 1854}
}
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North and South의 전체 요약을 무료로 받아보세요
- 200,000+권의 고전을 전자책, 오디오북, 15분 요약으로 즐기고, 종이책과 큰글자책은 인쇄 비용만으로 만나요
- 요금제 하나로 가족 최대 5명이 함께 읽어요
