![]() ![]() Hale decides to leave the Church and his home in Helstone. The real story in the novel begins when Mr. ![]() Nicholas Higgins is portrayed as the lead character in this theme of religious doubt, taking Mr. Hale’s crisis of faith serves as a catalyst to move the family to the industrialized town of Milton-Northern, where they integrate themselves into the working-class society that has an even lesser sense of belief in things beyond the physical world. ![]() Gaskell’s work shows a definite change, a change toward modernity and industrialization, which carries the burden of changing the religious ideas of nineteenth-century society. ![]() Although they are not necessarily moved to doubt by an anti-Christian movement of ideas, they have no reason to believe. The working class is rooted deeply in the Victorian crisis of faith, a movement not solely held by those with access to privileged ideas and philosophers. However, the more pressing issue in the novel is that of religious doubt, which the difference of northern and southern England exposes. One can clearly see the distinction of the working class and the middle class in Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South, and many would note that as the novel’s theme. ![]()
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