Middlemarch as a Study of Provincial Life

Assignment Topic: Middlemarch as a Study of Provincial Life

Name: Bhaliya Ravi

Roll no.:24

M.A. Semester: 2

Enrolment No.:14101004

Year: 2015-16

Paper no.:6 (Victorian literature)

Submitted to: Department of English

Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University

Email id :ravibhaliya5@gmail.com

Middlemarch as a Study of Provincial Life

Ø George Eliot(1819-1880)

           George Eliot was the English novelist, journalist, translator and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. George Eliot was also known by her pen name "Mary Anne Evans ", she was born on 22, November 1819 and died on 22, December 1880. Her father, Robert Evans, was an overseer at the Arbury Hall estate, and Eliot kept house for him after her mother died in 1836. Her father remarried and Mary Ann had a good relationship with her two stepbrothers.

Her first novel “Adam Bede “and was a great success. She used a male pen name to ensure her works were taken seriously in an era when female authors were usually associated with romantic novels. After that her famous novels are,

·        The Mill on the Floss

·        Silas Marner

·        Romala

·        Middlemarch

·        Daniel Deronda

These all are famous novels by Eliot give a grand popularity to her brought social acceptance, and Lewes and Eliot's home became a meeting place for writers and intellectuals. The novels of the first period deal with life in the countryside in which she was brought up; the society is depicted as a strong and stable one. Eliot called them "natural history" or "history incarnate" and not fiction.

Ø Introduction

“Middlemarch” is written by George Eliot who was born on November 22, 1819. Eliot chose to write her novels under a male pseudonym Mary Anne Evans. This is a highly unusual novel. Though it is primarily a Victorian novel it has many characteristics typical to modern novels. The subtitle of this novel is “A study of provincial life.” This means the Middlemarch represents the lives of ordinary people, not the grand adventures of princes and kings. Middlemarch represents the spirit of nineteenth century England through the unknown, historically unremarkable common people.

“Middlemarch the psychology tends more clearly towards an intuitive idea of mind and consciousness.”

Ø Major Themes of Middlemarch

·        

Responsibility:

This is a major theme of Fred’s story, and he must become responsible for his finance and his choices. Bothe men must learn how to rely on themselves, not infringe upon others. He also must learn how to become independent in many ways. Bestrode tries to give him money to repent for hiding his existence from his grandmother. He refuses the money because he knows it come through thievery. He worships Dorothea. He doesn’t care for money and loves everything that is beautiful.

·       

The imperfection of Marriage:

Most character in novel “Middlemarch” Marry for love rather than obligation, yet marriage still appears negative and unromantic. Marriage and the pursuit of it are central concerns in Middlemarch. In many novels of the time, Marriage is not considered the ultimate source of happiness. As none of the marriage reach a perfect fairy tale ending. ‘Middlemarch’ offers a clear critique of the usual portrayal of marriage as romantic and unproblematic.

·        

Stubbornness:

In Novel a big issue of character Rosamond is extremely stubborn. The meaning of this sentence is that if things aren’t done her way, she will go behind other people’s backs to do things the way she thinks they should be done. Societal stubbornness is responsible for Lydgate’s failure with his medical practice.

·        

Prejudice:

This theme that Lydgate and Ladislaw can’t seem to beat. People in Middlemarch dislike anyone who is not from Middlemarch or anyone whose reputation seems questionable. Ladislaw and Lydgate are both good people, but it is initial prejudice. Sometimes based on invalid or circumstantial reasons, those mean that they are never liked or accepted in Middlemarch.

·        

Conformity:

An issue that is related to societal expectation but it is somewhat different. People are supposed to conform to certain social ideas and norms. Dorothea is supposed to be a proper wife and then a proper widow, and follow society’s set guidelines about how to fill each position.

·       

Love:

Love keeps people together, or the drift apart. Those who are truly in love like Ladislaw and Dorothea, Mary and Fred are bound together by it. They are very alike in temperament and outlook. Those who lake it like Lydgate and Rosamond, Casaubon and Dorothea are ill-suited to each other in marriage and they are very disappointed by their unions. Will is the grandson of Casaubon’s disinherited aunt Bestrode tries to give him money to repent for hiding his existence from his grandmother. He refuses the money because he knows it came through thievery.

·        

Vanity:

Especially relevant to Rosamond and her suitors. Rosamond s is exceptionally vain about her charm and her appearances. So much her so that it is a shock to her when her friend Ladislaw says he doesn’t love her. Her unsuccessful suitors are all equally vain, and blame Lydgate rather than Rosamond’s lack of interest, when she will not return their favor.

·        

Money:

Money is the root of many evils but much good, in the novel. Lydgate get desperate for want of it, Fred despairs when he has little, Dorothea becomes generous when she carefully since their money is limited. Money has a profound effect on character within the novel.

Ø Setting of the novel

Middlemarch is George Eliot’s sixth novel. The reaction to the novel has been a mixed one. Contemporary reviewers, in general, admired it four its life likeness for its characters which they felt were very true to life. In Middle march, the novelist returns once again to the English Midlands in which her girlhood had been passed and which had fertilized her imagination. The location of Middle march has been left indeterminate the setting has not been precisely delineated, as is the case with the other early novels like ‘Adam Bede’. The time of action of the novel is the period immediately preceding the reform Act of 1832? Middlemarch acquires a symbolic significance, symbolic of English, rural life in the 1830’s. What happens in Middle march was happening in provincial society.

Ø The Characters of Middlemarch

The canvas of Middle march is a crowded one. It is a long novel running into over eight hundred minutely printed pages in the penguin edition. There is a host of characters, so many that all of them cannot even be named in the space. The main characters may be divided into four groups. The first one is Brooks – consisting of Mr. Edword Brooke, his two nieces- Dorothea, the elder sister and Celia, the younger one. The reside at Tipton Grance near the town of Middle march secondly, there are the Vincy the father and head of the family is Mr. Walter Vincy, The elder son is Fred Vincy, the daughter is RosamandVincy and Mrs. Lucy Vincy, wife of Walter Vincy. The third one is the Garth family including Caleb Garth, Mary Garth. The fourth family is of Mr. EdwardCasaubon, a clergy and scholar. Middlemarch of the Minor character, the more important ones are Mr. and Mrs. Cadwallader, Trumbull, the auctioneer etc. The list is a long one and it is by no means exhaustive or all inclusive.

Ø Title:

In any literary work in title is more significant. As the title suggest, the novel gives us a realistic, vivid and comprehensive picture of provincial life of England. The picture is such that if there is any hero in the novel it is the society of Middle march. The novelist remembers her early girlhood and this gives the picture of truthfulness and vividness of her portrait of provincial life. The action in the novel takes place in Middle march or the neighboring parishes of Tipton, Lawic or Freshets. A host of characters belonging to every profession, age group and walk of life have been brought in, and through their action and interactions life in a limited region.

Ø Middlemarch has different types of plot and situations.

1. Initial situations:

Dorothea marries Mr. Casaubon and Lydgates marries Rosamond. Here as the Victorian age Middlemarch is totally against it tradition when main protagonist gets married at the end of the first volume.

2. Conflicts:

The main problem is marriage here. Dorothea finally tied up with Mr. Casaubon and she doesn't look up to him enough. This way an another side Rosamond discovers that Lydgate lives for his work not for her. The both marriages became a major problem between couples.

“When a man has seen the woman whom he would have chosen if he had intended to marry speedily, his remaining a bachelor will usually depend on her resolution rather than on his.”

3. Complications:

Now another complication is happening when Dorothea becomes friend with Will Ladislaw. At that time Mr. Casaubon is feeling jealousy about it. “One can begin so many things with a new person! - even begin to be a better man.”

4. Climax:

Climax is like a soul of story and also valuable part of any story. Now Dorothea is ready for remarriage with Will, he feels like he can't go anywhere near her without people whispering about how he's only after her money.

5. Suspense:

Now one day Dorothea found Will and Rosamond together. There is a big misunderstanding happening by Dorothea, that there is a secret affair between Will and Rosemont.

Ø Frustration in Middlemarch

Frist we know about what is frustration? It means the feeling of being upset or annoyed as a result of being unable to change or achieve something. In novel one need only look to Lydgate to see an example of idealism being destroyed by the environment in which it is found. At the start of the novel, we are introduced to the "young, poor and ambitious" and most of all idealistic Doctor Lydgate, who has great plans for the fever hospital in Middlemarch. The second example of the young being destroyed by the old is that of Dorothea.This can be seen by her continuing desire to "bear a larger part of the world's misery" or to learn Latin and Greek, both of which are continually thwarted by Casaubon, though this ends after his death, with her discovery of his selfish and suspicious nature, by way of the codicil.

Ø A Conservative, Tradition Bound Society

This limited, isolated community has certain well-marked characteristics. For one thing, it is deeply conservative. Everything new, every hint of change, is looked upon with suspicion. Railways which are yet distant and far off are regarded as a threat to the agricultural way of life. Class distinctions are taken for granted, and every class carries with it, its own privileges. Class privileges protect a person, even when he or she behaves in a way inappropriate for the class to which he or she belongs. Thus Mrs. Cadwallader, a lady of high birth, descended from the nobility, haggles and bargains with common traders and cuts jokes with them, but nobody thinks of the worse of her for these reasons. The class to which she belongs shields her effectively.

Ø Stress on Birth and Family Background

“Middlemarch society, Birth still counts for a good deal, but money is more important”

The strength of the position of a man like Mr. Brooke is that he combines both advantages, and has never really been forced into the recognition that the advantages are separable. But others are; Lydgate a man of family, is compelled to beg money from the very middle-class has its gradations, and in reckoning these money is always more important than education or culture. People related by marriage may be separated by economic differences, like the Vincy and the Bulstrodes. And George Eliot is keenly aware of the perennial tendency of the sons and a daughter of the merchant class is to hanker after upper class status.

Ø Melancholy in Middlemarch

R.H.Hutton says, “It is a world not in sympathy with lofty aspirations, and to make this world convincing, and real, it was essential for her to give such a solidity and complexity to her picture of the world by which her hero’s and heroine’s idealism was to be more or less tested and partly subjugated as would justify the impression that she understood fully the character of the struggle. We doubt if any other novelist, whoever wrote could have succeeded equally well in this melancholy design, could have framed as complete a picture of English country and country town society with all its rigidities, jealousies and pettiness, with its through good nature”

Ø Conflict in the Town

Old and new both existed in Middlemarch. Old was dominant but new was future. Religion was divided into two. One is the practical kindly, unidiomatic tradition of Anglicanism, the best representative of which is Mr.Farebrother. The other is vehement and fanatical, is loosely called EvangelicalBulstrode and Tyke represented this trend. In Middlemarch, the two sects are in conflict, and the order is suspicious of the new.

Ø Conclusion:

In short, Middlemarch is such a great novel because of the solidity, vividness, truthfulness and comprehensiveness of the picture of provincial life presented in the novel. This makes it a valuable social document which tells us more about the real, day to day, common, provincial life of England in the 1830’s, than any book of history.