The novel uses the motif of war to characterize the industrial revolution and the resulting employer-employee relationship.
In Chapter 10, Thornton describes the development of industry to Margaret as a technological "war which compels, and shall compel, all material power to yield to science.” This martial language carries over into Thornton's characterization of the relationship between masters of industry and their workers, which is starkly antagonistic. He argues that, nowadays, “the battle is pretty fairly waged between” the two classes. Margaret is repulsed by Thornton's characterization of workers (especially those who, unlike him, make no effort to improve their lot in life) as his “enemies.”
Later, Nicholas Higgins echoes Thornton's warlike language when he tries to defend the union's need to take extreme measures sometimes to ensure fairness for the masses, even when it means ostracizing members who defy union rules; he concedes to Margaret that the relationship between the union and its members sometimes “may be like war; along wi’ it come crimes; but I think it were a greater crime to let [injustice] alone.” Basically, then, in the union's "war" with the masters of industry, men like Higgins's neighbor Boucher (who ends up committing suicide in despair) are collateral damage.
The novel uses a motif of people being described as groups of animals; both sides, employers and employees, do this, showing how class antagonism gets expressed in dehumanizing ways by all parties in Milton.
Mrs. Thornton describes the striking millworkers as “a pack of ungrateful hounds” who want to defeat and enslave their masters, resulting in a perennial “struggle between masters and men.” She also describes the “continual murmur of the workpeople” as “the humming of a hive of bees.” These metaphors suggest, in turn, that her son's employees are vicious animals who can't be trusted, or at best that they're mindless workers, an interchangeable mass instead of a collective of individual human beings.
Later, when John Boucher confronts union leader Higgins, he also uses a dehumanizing simile to describe the union:
[Starve] to death… ere yo’ dare go again th’ Union.’… Yo’ may be kind hearts, each separate; but once banded together, yo’ve no more pity for a man than a wild hunger-maddened wolf.
Boucher acknowledges that union leaders might be good people, but when they start working together as a collective in pursuit of abstract goals, they seem to lose their ability to see individuals and show them compassion—they'd sooner devour a man than help him. While Mrs. Thornton's animal metaphors are based in class antagonism, Boucher's touches on the capacity of crowds to adopt a dehumanizing mob mentality.
The novel uses the motif of individuals versus crowds to suggest that as long as people see each other primarily as groups or classes, they'll tend to be wary or even antagonistic toward one another; it's only through individual, personal connections, the novel suggests, that genuine regard, much less social progress, becomes thinkable.
When Margaret is a newcomer to Milton, she feels overwhelmed each time she finds herself caught in the crowd of workers leaving the mills. The crush of people, and the common people's frank, inquisitive, and often teasing manner throws her off guard and doesn't endear Milton to her, especially compared to the quieter, more genteel settings she's used to. But when particular individuals—Bessy and Nicholas Higgins—emerge from the crowd one day and strike up a conversation with her, and she begins to get to know them as individuals, her attitude about the working class as a whole gradually changes, too.
Similarly, in Chapter 50, Nicholas Higgins and Thornton learn to see each other as individuals, instead of as just representatives of antagonistic classes (worker vs. employer):
Once brought face to face, man to man, with an individual of the masses around him […] they had each begun to recognize that ‘we have all of us one human heart.’
Note that Romantic poets frequently wrote against Victorian-era economic theorists, hence the allusion here to a line from William Wordsworth's poem "The Old Cumberland Beggar." The allusion—about everyone having "one human heart"—underscores the novel's point that when people get to know each other as individuals, they ideally come to recognize their common humanity.
Near the end of the book, in Chapter 51, Thornton even states the conviction that:
no mere institutions … can attach class to class as they should be attached, unless the working out of such institutions bring the individuals of the different classes into actual personal contact.
This statement reflects a notable change in Thornton's view of the relationship between classes. Earlier in the novel, he seems unable to conceive of that relationship in anything but the most combative, even warlike terms. Yet, now, he advocates for the classes to be "attached" through "personal contact." Significantly, this change of view comes about, in large part, through his personal contact, even friendship, with Higgins and leads to Thornton conducting his business with greater human sensitivity.
The novel uses the motif of individuals versus crowds to suggest that as long as people see each other primarily as groups or classes, they'll tend to be wary or even antagonistic toward one another; it's only through individual, personal connections, the novel suggests, that genuine regard, much less social progress, becomes thinkable.
When Margaret is a newcomer to Milton, she feels overwhelmed each time she finds herself caught in the crowd of workers leaving the mills. The crush of people, and the common people's frank, inquisitive, and often teasing manner throws her off guard and doesn't endear Milton to her, especially compared to the quieter, more genteel settings she's used to. But when particular individuals—Bessy and Nicholas Higgins—emerge from the crowd one day and strike up a conversation with her, and she begins to get to know them as individuals, her attitude about the working class as a whole gradually changes, too.
Similarly, in Chapter 50, Nicholas Higgins and Thornton learn to see each other as individuals, instead of as just representatives of antagonistic classes (worker vs. employer):
Once brought face to face, man to man, with an individual of the masses around him […] they had each begun to recognize that ‘we have all of us one human heart.’
Note that Romantic poets frequently wrote against Victorian-era economic theorists, hence the allusion here to a line from William Wordsworth's poem "The Old Cumberland Beggar." The allusion—about everyone having "one human heart"—underscores the novel's point that when people get to know each other as individuals, they ideally come to recognize their common humanity.
Near the end of the book, in Chapter 51, Thornton even states the conviction that:
no mere institutions … can attach class to class as they should be attached, unless the working out of such institutions bring the individuals of the different classes into actual personal contact.
This statement reflects a notable change in Thornton's view of the relationship between classes. Earlier in the novel, he seems unable to conceive of that relationship in anything but the most combative, even warlike terms. Yet, now, he advocates for the classes to be "attached" through "personal contact." Significantly, this change of view comes about, in large part, through his personal contact, even friendship, with Higgins and leads to Thornton conducting his business with greater human sensitivity.
