A little too far

I usually love reading literary criticism. I am not one of the readers who sees political symbolism on the first reading, and though I think extensively about what I read, I cannot always say why I like or dislike a writer's style.

Right now, I am rereading North and South (I usually reread a book after I've seen the movie), and I started it looking forward to the introduction. Sometimes, people who write introductions have weird ideas, but this one made me feel weird. It wasn't that the author was making outrageous claims, but something about what he was saying felt wrong, and I couldn't put my finger on it. Thankfully, he gave me a big clue.

While talking about the symbolism of the Marlborough Mills riot, he declared that the reason Margaret uses herself as a human shield between Thornton and the crowd is because she subconsciously loves Thornton (and is justifying herself when she says that she would have done the same for any man). Suddenly it all made sense. I flipped to the front of the introduction, and just as I suspected, the author was a man. It made sense now why he couldn't understand the motherly and protective instincts that goaded Margaret into action (for which there is much textual evidence), and had to come up with a wild theory (IMHO) for which he had no proof at all.

Which made me wonder, though, why on earth he broached the subject if he didn't have evidence for his claims. I can understand if he just had an opinion—everyone is entitled to one of those—but in a professional critical work, opinions seem totally out of place.

Another thing that comment drew to my attention to was the whole tone of the introduction. Every single comment was on the political bits of the novel, or on the writing style of Gaskell. Do people who write introductions not enjoy good stories? It seems a little too critical to focus only on the inferred parts of a novel that the majority of people read for its wonderful story. Some books (like Animal Farm) should be approached that way, and North and South deserves some political attention, but it rather burst my bubble to read such a stark view of one of my favorite stories. Criticism is all fine and good, but I like introductions to show a little enjoyment in the story as well.