Skip to main content

MiddleMarch by George Eliot

About Author:
Novelist George Eliot, a pen name for Mary Ann Evans, was born on November 22, 1819. She was a subeditor for The Westminster Review for three years. In 1851, she met the philosopher George Henry Lewes. Lewes was already married, but she spent the next 20 years of her life with him. She wrote several novels that explored aspects of human psychology, including The Mill on the Floss and Silas Marner. She died in 1880.
Theme of the novel:

1).The Imperfection of Marriage
2)The Harshness of Social Expectations
3)Self-Determination vs. Chance
 
 
About Novel:             

              Middlemarch is a highly unusual novel. Although it is primarily a Victorian novel, it has many characteristics typical to modern novels. Critical reaction to Eliot's masterpiece work was mixed. A common accusation leveled against it was its morbid, depressing tone. Many critics did not like Eliot's habit of scattering obscure literary and scientific allusions throughout the book. In their opinion a woman writer should not be so intellectual. Eliot hated the "silly, women novelists." In the Victorian era, women writers were generally confined to writing the stereotypical fantasies of the conventional romance fiction. Not only did Eliot dislike the constraints imposed on women's writing, she disliked the stories they were expected to produce. Her disdain for the tropes of conventional romance is apparent in her treatment of marriage between Rosamond and Lydgate. Both and Rosamond and Lydgate think of courtship and romance in terms of ideals taken directly from conventional romance. Another problem with such fiction is that marriage marks the end of the novel. Eliot goes through great effort to depict the realities of marriage.
               Moreover, Eliot's many critics found Middlemarch to be too depressing for a woman writer. Eliot refused to bow to the conventions of a happy ending. An ill-advised marriage between two people who are inherently incompatible never becomes completely harmonious. In fact, it becomes a yoke. Such is the case in the marriages of Lydgate and Dorothea. Dorothea was saved from living with her mistake for her whole life because her elderly husband dies of a heart attack. Lydgate and Rosamond, on the other hand, married young.

                Two major life choices govern the narrative of Middlemarch. One is marriage and the other is vocation. Eliot takes both choices very seriously. Short, romantic courtships lead to trouble, because both parties entertain unrealistic ideals of each other. They marry without getting to know one another. Marriages based on compatibility work better. Moreover, marriages in which women have a greater say also work better, such as the marriage between Fred and Mary. She tells him she will not marry if he becomes a clergyman. Her condition saves Fred from an unhappy entrapment in an occupation he doesn't like. Dorothea and Casaubon struggle continually because Casaubon attempts to make her submit to his control. The same applies in the marriage between Lydgate and Rosamond.
                    The choice of an occupation by which one earns a living is also an important element in the book. Eliot illustrates the consequences of making the wrong choice. She also details at great length the consequences of confining women to the domestic sphere alone. Dorothea's passionate ambition for social reform is never realized. She ends with a happy marriage, but there is some sense that her end as merely a wife and mother is a waste. Rosamond's shrewd capabilities degenerate into vanity and manipulation. She is restless within the domestic sphere, and her stifled ambitions only result in unhappiness for herself and her husband.
                   Eliot's refusal to conform to happy endings demonstrates the fact that Middlemarch is not meant to be entertainment. She wants to deal with real-life issues, not the fantasy world to which women writers were often confined. Her ambition was to create a portrait of the complexity of ordinary human life: quiet tragedies, petty character failings, small triumphs, and quiet moments of dignity. The complexity of her portrait of provincial society is reflected in the complexity of individual characters. The contradictions in the character of the individual person are evident in the shifting sympathies of the reader. One moment, we pity Casaubon, the next we judge him critically.
      Middlemarch stubbornly refuses to behave like a typical novel. The novel is a collection of relationships between several major players in the drama, but no single one person occupies the center of the action. No one person can represent provincial life. It is necessary to include multiple people. Eliot's book is fairly experimental for its time in form and content, particularly because she was a woman writer.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Poem: Were I To Choose by Gabriel Okara

Were I to Choose   “When Adam broke the stone             and red streams reged down to           gather in the womb,           an angel calmed the storm”, “And I, the breath mewed             in Cain, unbliniking gaze                 at the world without                              from the brink of an age”.             Gabriel is immersed in folk tradition and ballad influences of tradition and culture are found in his poem. His poems are regional as well as universal. His poems are sometimes lyrical and full of music.                     The poem ‘Were I to choose’ is reminiscent of yeast poem called “Adam’s Curse.” The poet has tried to compare Adam’s toiling in the soil with the Negros working in the soil. They broke the stone themselves which was their very foundation. The red streams are symbolized for the multilingual diversity that reaches the womb Africa.           Cain in this poem metaphorically represents the next generation. ‘I’ in Ok

Poem: The Mystic Drum by Gabriel Okara

The Mystic Drum:                     The Mystic Drum is Okara’s love lyric. The Mystic Drum evinces a tripartite ritual pattern of imitation from innocence through intimacy to experience. By comparison to the way of zone as manifested in the experience of Zen master, Chin Yuan Wei-Asian this pattern resolves itself into an emotional and epistemic logical journey from conventional knowledge through more intimate knowledge to learn of experience empowers the lover to understand that beneath the surface attractiveness of what we know very well may lie an abyss of the unknown and unknowable belching darkness.                   But experience teaches us at this stage of substantial knowledge not to expose ourselves to the dangers of being beholden to this unknown and unknowable reality by keeping our passions under strict control including the prudent decision to ‘pack’ the ‘Mystic Drum’ of our innocence and evanescence making sure that it does not ‘beat so lo

"The Golden Fortress "by Satyajit Ray:

The Golden Fortress as a detective novel or thriller:                                                                    'The Golden Fortress' by satyajit Ray was originally written in Bengali entitled “ sonar kella' and it has also been filmised with certained modifications. It includes the elements of suspense because the novelist enfolds events of the novel one by one and the narration creates curiosity in the minds of readers.It tells the story Mukul,a jestismar,remembering the story of his previous life .He talks about camels,battles,horses,elephants,forts,red sand,peacockes etc.He also talk about Golden fortress .The news of Mukul being a jestimar is printed in the newspaper and very soon neighbour boy of mukul is kidnapped mistakenly .Then Dr.Hajra,a parapsychologist,takes Mukul to Rajasthan to find out more about his previous life.Meanwhile ,the kidnappers leave the neighbour boy neelu near the school.Mukul's father worries about t