Paper Summary:

This paper examines how in "North and South", a novel set in England during the late 1840s when the country was experiencing a massive population shift where people left the farms to go work in factories, Victorian author Elizabeth Gaskell uses the symbolism of "railroad time" or universal time, to introduce her readers to some of these changes--in actuality, societal upheavals--that were brought about by humanity's transition from an agrarian-based society to an industrial-biased society. The paper looks at how Gaskell's reference to "railroad time," especially when the reference is juxtaposed with Margaret's life at Helstone, illustrates the impersonal efficiency of an industrial culture based on a clock rather than a calendar.

From the Paper:

"Gaskell's "railroad time" refers to more than just train schedules arranged for the public's convenience. Rather, "railroad time" refers to the way our society has changed from following a natural calendar based on the universe's time to following a clock set to an artificially biased universal time. The difference between the two is enormous. The universe's time cannot be sped up or slowed down. This allows for life to follow a certain rhythm. Universal time, however, is set by humanity, and it can be arbitrarily changed to speed up--forcing us to perform at hectic levels unimaginable to our ancestors from two centuries ago. Gaskell saw the beginning of what has become our nanosecond culture of impersonal efficiency where we have ordered our lives around machines. And while conditions for the wage laborers have improved in the industrialized countries since Gaskell's time, we as a people seemed to have lost something in our inherent human nature when the announced time of the sunset is a novelty."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Gaskell, Elizabeth. North and South. Oxford: Oxford, 1998.
• Means, Howard. Money and Power: The History of Business. New York: Wiley, 2001.
• Rifkin, Jeremy. Time Wars. New York: Touchstone, 1989.

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