How is the theme developed in the poem ?

Dickens requested that Gaskell change the title of the work from Margaret Hale to North and South, and that difference permeates the entire text. Margaret and her parents represent the South while the Higgineses and the Thorntons represent the North. The South is initially shown to be quiet, pastoral, aristocratic, and idyllic. There are no strikes, no class antagonisms, and no downtrodden masses. Education is valued and business is considered uncouth. Those from the South view the North as dirty, soulless, and hard, filled with men suffering from injustice and interminable work. Those who uphold the merits of the North believe it to be a place of buzzing prosperity and economic autonomy. The workers do not glumly accept their fate but push back when they are unfairly treated. They view the South as filled with men too meek to stand up for their rights. Education is fine but ultimately useless, and Southern life is too slow and dull.

Thornton and Margaret continue to argue these points throughout the novel. Margaret eventually concedes that the South is not perfect, highlighting its cold weather and unlively, toiling farmers. She realizes Helstone in particular is primitive in some ways. Thornton gives up his view that capitalism is unflawed; he learns better business practices and becomes a better specimen of a Northern man, as influenced by a Southern woman. Both the characters are able to finally accept that neither region is perfect.