a conflict between employers and workers, is seen as depicting complex social conflicts and offering more satisfactory solutions through Margaret Hale: spokesperson for the author and Gaskell's most mature creation. Themes Modernity versus tradition The change in title of Gaskell's fourth novel from Margaret Hale to Dickens' suggested North and South underscores its theme of modernity versus tradition. Until the end of the 18th century, power in England was in the hands of the aristocracy and landed gentry based in the south. The Industrial Revolution unsettled the centuries-old class structure, shifting wealth and power to manufacturers who mass-produced goods in the north. Cities such as Manchester, on which Gaskell modelled her fictional Milton, were hastily developed to house workers who moved from the semi-feudal countryside to work in the new factories. The south represents the past (tradition): aristocratic landowners who inherited their property, collected rent from farmers and peasants and assumed an obligation for their tenants' welfare. The north represents the future (modernity): its leaders were self-made men like Gaskell's hero, John Thornton, who accumulated wealth as working, middle-class entrepreneurs. In their view, philanthropy or charity – giving something for nothing – was a dangerous imbalance of the relationship between employers and employees (which was based on the exchange of cash for labour). Authority and rebellion Rebellion against an authority seen as unfair is woven throughout the story. Established institutions are seen as inhumane or selfish, and therefore fallible; Mr. Hale breaks with the church on a matter of conscience, and Frederick Hale participates in a mutiny against the navy and is forced into exile because the law would hang him for what he considered a just cause. His rebellion parallels the strike by workers who take up the cause to feed their children. Both are impotent and engaged in a struggle (a war, in the eyes of the workers) whose terms are dictated by those who maintain their power by force: the law and the mill masters. Margaret rebels in ways that express her liberty: ignoring social proprieties and challenging authority by lying to the police to protect her brother, from whom she learns that arbitrary, unjust, and cruel power can be defied not for oneself but on behalf of the unfortunate. Even Mrs. Hale rebels in her own way; she is "prouder of Frederick standing up against injustice, than if he had been simply a good officer". The