Transgression and Tradition : Redefining Gender Roles in Elizabeth Gaskell´s North and South

Abstract:

This essay argues that Elizabeth Gaskell challenges the limiting gender roles of the Victorian era through giving her heroine, Margaret Hale in North and South, both the traditionally female qualities of virtue and selflessness and the traditionally masculine qualities of independence and action. The essay also argues that Gaskell’s heroine balances between the feminine and the masculine world as to not appear “unwomanly”, but rather subtly influencing the readers and calls for changing gender norms. Concrete examples of the heroine’s gender transgressions are put forward, but also her compliance to the traditional gender roles summed up in three roles or themes: the angel in the house, the female visitor and the refined lady.

This essay also provides a didactic approach on working with North and South and the topic of Victorian gender norms in the upper secondary school. The relevance of and reasons for reading literature in school are also presented. The didactic chapter offers a concrete lesson plan on how to work with the theme of Victorian gender norms, which may develop students’ emphatic skills and also make them aware of ties between themselves and people that lived a long time ago.