GEORGE ELIOT

MIDDLEMARCH
George Eliot (1819-1889) is the pseudonym of Mary Ann Cross, nee Evans. She
was born in 1918 in Nuneaton, Warwickshire and went to several schools there and in
Coventry where she moved with her father in 1841. The result of his education is a solid
knowledge of Greek, Latin, Hebrew, French, German and Italian.
In spite of her provincial background she became one of the most remarkably learned
persons of her age.

!!!George Eliot is a remarkable novelist who pushed Victorian literature one

step further into modernism through her method of psychological analysis in an
attempt to reveal and discuss the psychological motivation of her characters acts.
She adopted a strict mental discipline, precision, objectivity and realism of
presentation in novels of intellectual debate, of elaborate but not less credible
structure. Georgess Eliot characters come from different social walks, are of
diverse professions, many are ordinary humble people but nonetheless interesting to
the writer as the source of her interest in life and love. !!!

Middlemarch is considered to be one of the greatest of English novels, a novel of

exploration of moral situations and discovery, of social networking and interaction.

George Eliots social network is a complex and dynamic one materialized in a

local rural community that does not in the least offer an idyllic image or anything
nostalgic. (Neale 55).

! What the novel offers its readers is in fact not only a study of provincial life
as its subtitle says - restricted to a certain territory, but also an epitome of early 19th
century England in which practically every class and quite a lot of professions of
Middlemarch society are depicted - including representatives of middle class, bourgeoisie
and aristocracy, landed gentry and clergy, manufacturers, shopkeepers, publicans, farmers
and labourers. Such people are distributed into several threads of plot cleverly interwoven
to contrast or run in parallel as the novels multitude of characters, about 50 in number,
interrelate with each other and cross these plots in and out. These interrelations are
facilitated by the fact that the network is a closed one, formed within a small community
where people know each other. !

Paramount for such a complex construction is the novels unity and cohesiveness,
skillfully achieved by George Eliots authorial governance not only of the novel but
also of its readers (Neale 55). Her omniscience dominates, supervises and keeps
everything under control.
MISS BROOKE

Dorothea Brooke lies at the core of all relations in the whole novel. She is one of
the noblest characters in literature with her innocence, purity and inborn goodness that
make the other characters better and more honourable that they are. What makes her
noble is, first at all, her trust in her old husband, then her pity and sense of duty and, later
on, her sincere love for Will Ladislaw, for whose sake she gives up her prospects of
inheritance.
Citatul: her physical, moral, intellectual portrait as a version of Saint Theresa a
portrait which Eliot represents with obvious sympathy >Chapter 1.

A HUSBAND WITH JUDGEMENT AND KNOWLEDGE

Everybody expects Dorothea to marry the good-looking, rich and young Sir James
Chettam but the man she wants for a husband is the pedant and elderly Mr Casaubon, in
whom she sees the person able to offer her the possibility to have acces to culture and
widen thus her intellectual horizon two necessary steps which, in her opinion, she has
to climb on her way to emancipation.

citatul: a dialogue between Dorotheea and Mr. Brooke her uncle, states her reasons for
accepting such a surprising marriage).

THE LAMP OF KNOWLEDEGE

Dorotheas reason for getting married to Casaubon, in spite of the difference in

age between them, is her hope that he would offer her intellectual nourishment and
cultivation and the prospect for emancipation and assertion as a woman in a period when
all knowledge that young ladies where offered could be enclosed in toy box.
Mr. Casaubon himself would like a companion to act personal secretary and
enliven the loneliness and weariness of his study hours. Marriage for him is a mere duty
he has to fulfil just as he has to find a secretary, as Neale underlines (101). It is not
surprising that, incapable as he is to abandon his egoism, he cannot accept the
individuality of Dorothea and, accordingly, will consider her suitable but for vacant place
of personal secretary.

Citat: the two future spouses matrimonial reasons in a convincing display of George
Eliots omniscience.
MARRIAGE AND MONEY

An institution intensely represented in the novel is that of marriage.

!! With two exceptions (that of Celia Brook, Dorotheas sister, to sir James
Chettam and Mary Garths marriage to Fred Vincy, a young man who loved her from his
youth), all marriages in the novel are unhappy. !

One of such unhappy marital couples is that of Dr Lydgate with Rosamond Vincy.
Dr Tertius Lydgate is another important character in the novel. He is one of the local
doctors, an ambitious but often unpractical man in love with his profession and with
passion for scientific discovery. Rosamond Vincy is the ambitious but narrow-minded
and egoist daughter of the local Mayor. But, as Jedrzejewski remarks (74), her egoism
has nothing malicious in it, it is mere whim, the direct result of her moral ignorance and
abdication from matters of responsibility.

Citat: a conflicting discussion that the two have. The cause of the conflict is a very
common one - the recurrent problem of money. Because things did not go on too well for
him, Dr Lydgate has run into financial problems which he is trying to explain to his wife,
Rosamond. But the only thing he gets from her is reproaches and self-pitying tears.

I WILL LEARN THAT EVERYTHING COSTS

Though returned, the love of Dorothea for Will Ladislaw and his for her has been
stifled by social conventions, moral obligations and misunderstandings such as
Dorotheas duty as a wife and then as a widow and Will misinterpretation of her attitude.

Citat: the dialogue which takes place at the end of the novel -> is full of strength of
feeling and represents re-establishment of communication between them, clearing up of
mistakes and misunderstandings, opening of hearts, sincere assertion of love for each
other and liberated optimism.