earticle

영어

This study examines Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South through the philosophical lens of Gilles Deleuze, focusing on the ethics of becoming and deboundarization. Drawing on Deleuze's concepts of becoming, deterritorialization, reterritorialization, and the rhizome, the novel is read as a literary experiment that reconfigures modern subjectivity and ethical thought. Rather than reinforcing Victorian moral dualisms, the opposition between Helstone and Milton is interpreted as a dynamic process of ethical movement, in which stable moral frameworks are unsettled and reconstituted through affective and social transformation. Margaret Hale's displacement from Helstone to the industrial space of Milton exemplifies a process of deterritorialization that reshapes her identity and moral perception, while her evolving relationship with John Thornton illustrates becoming as an open-ended and relational process rather than a teleological moral resolution. The novel ultimately constructs a rhizomatic network of relations among individuals and communities, resisting hierarchical closure and embracing coexistence in difference. From a Deleuzian perspective, North and South articulates an open, affective ethic that conceives human life as a continual process of relationship-building, transformation, and the creation of new forms of life.