Paper: EC (204) Middlemarch as a Subtle and Rich study of Females

                 Assignment Paper: - EC (204) , IX

                                  Topic    : - Middlemarch as a Subtle and

                                          Rich study of Females

       Student’s name    : - Vala Neeta T.

                         Roll no          :- 22

                         URL              :-valaneeta391011.blogspot.com

                         Semester       :-  M.A. Sem.ii

                         Batch            :-  2010-11

                                          Submitted to
                                                   Miss Ruchira Dudhrejiya,

                                                            Department of English,

                                                          Bhavnagar University

o   Introduction:

Mary Ann Ivans, later to be famous as George Eliot, is one of the greatest novelists of the Victorian age.

  “She stands at the gateway between the old and the new novel, no unworthy heir of Thackeray and Dickens and no unworthy forerunner of Hardy and Henry James.”

    She was essentially a novelist of intellectual life and her psychological insight into human motives and spring of action is deep and profound.

    Her greatest novels are:-

Ø Adam Bede (1857)

Ø Silas Marner (1861)

Ø Middlemarch (1871 & 4 vols.1872)

Ø Romola (1863)

Ø Mill on the Floss (1860)

    Middlemarch as a Subtle and Rich study of Females

George Eliot exhibited a rare insight in the presentation of female characters and her female figures have a feminine attitude towards life. They are all vividly and convincingly drawn. Nearly always, the subject is studied from the woman’s point of view; the women are so vastly superior to their lovers that it is difficult for the reader to appreciate all that it means for them. Main aim of Eliot is to study the psychological of people and individual that how they dominated by nature.  Outwardly, women did not have power in nineteenth-century  society, or even much respect or recognition. However, they still had “soul hunger,” even if they had no outlet for their spiritual yearning as St. Theresa did (see Prelude).

          Following the French positivist philosopher, Auguste Comte (the father of sociology), Eliot believed that it was women who held society together and guided its progress altruistically, from behind the scenes. She did not advocate working for political “rights” because a woman’s power and goodness were profoundly subtle. Sympathy was the antidote to competition, and women have this quality in abundance. They are the ones who encourage it in others and who use love and sympathy to ameliorate the harshness of the world.

Dorothea Casaubon is the chief saint in Middlemarch who has the power to correct the flow of the river of life around her. She can save Lydgate’s reputation; she can give Will Ladislaw the chance he needs. Fred Vincy fights hard to get Mary Garth as a wife, not because she is beautiful or stylish and makes a good hostess at parties, like his sister, Rosamond, but because she can save his life: “I don’t see how a man is to be good for much unless he has some one woman to love him dearly” (Chapter 14, p. 103) Despite his flaws, we learn to respect Fred for his wisdom in this area. His winning Mary Garth, a plain and penniless girl, is the making of his success. Instead of becoming a clergyman, which his family urges but Mary realizes would be a disaster, he works the land at Stone Court, the estate he once hoped to inherit, with Mary and his children at his side. He writes a pamphlet on agriculture instead of gaining rank in the church, but at least he does something useful and is happy. Having been trained by the example of the elder Garths, Mary and Fred represent husband and wife as true partners (see Finale).

The admirable women in the story are Dorothea Brooke, Mrs. Garth, and Mary Garth. They are educated, intelligent, thinking  and self-sacrificing women whose main contribution, nevertheless, is their ability to be the magnetic though invisible center of their families and society. Other lesser women characters who have a positive part to play, are Harriet Bulstrode, Mrs. Cadwallader, Miss Noble, and Celia Brooke.

The contrasting female figure is Rosamond Vincy, who destroys everyone around her to further her own schemes. She is her husband’s “basil plant” as he calls her, referring to the plant on top of a murdered man’s head in Boccaccio’s story (Finale). Not only does she ruin her husband financially, but emotionally as well, by having no understanding or sympathy for him. He dies prematurely as a failure in his own eyes, for he had to work for money to support his family instead of doing pure research: “Lydgate had accepted his narrowed lot with sad resignation. He had chosen this frail creature, and had taken the burthen of her life upon his arms. He must walk as he could, carryissng that burthen pitifully” (Chapter 82, p. 586).

These are times when people did not get a divorce; the spouse is truly a partner for life. Farebrother warns Lydgate to make a good choice. We see from his earlier entanglement with Madame Laure that he doesn’t know women or think them important (see Chapter 15). Rosamond nearly destroys Ladislaw as well by compromising him in front of Dorothea, whom he loves (Chapters 77-78). The Ladislaw-Dorothea relationship was another tragedy in the making until Dorothea’s soul burst through the limitations in her final triumph (Chapters 80, 81, 83 and Finale).

Ø Dorothea Brooke

Ø Rosamond Vincy

Ø Mary

Ø Celia Brooke

    Dorothea Brooke and the Theresa Complex

          Dorothea Brooke is the first major character to be introduced to us, and the prelude to the novel creates the impression that she is its heroine. But it is not so. She is, doubt, one of the most important characters in the novel, and it deals with the frustration of her aspiration. Still, she is not the heroine, for Middlemarch is the story of Middlemarch society, and if anyone is its hero it is Middlemarch itself.

ü A.O.J. Cockshut in this connection says,

   “Emma is on every page of the story of Emma, even when she is most misguided. Middlemarch is the story of Middlemarch even when for the moment; Dorothea’s concerns are the centre of attention.

Ø Her Idealistic, Theoretic Nature:-

Dorothea Brooke is a lady with noble aspirations. She wants to lead a higher life, to achieve something really noble. She is the extraordinary individual thrown upon a commonplace world. She seeks an outlet for her higher aspirations in doing humanitarian work. Thus she makes plans and projects to improve the living conditions of the estate of the Baronet, Sir Chettam. She is different from other young ladies of her age, and this difference is stressed by contrasting her with her sister Celia. Celia is an ordinary normal girl, with a girlish fondness for jewellery and fine clothes. Dorothea looks down upon such feminine frivolities. Celia notices Casaubon’s age and his

“two white moles with hairs on them”;

Dorothea remains completely oblivious to such physical details. She sees in him a reflection of Locke or Milton, and accepts him as her husband in preference to young and handsome Sir Chettam, for she thinks (mistakenly) that through marriage with a scholar like him, she would be able to achieve her aspirations.

Ø The Theresa- Complex

  Dorothea has what has been called, the Theresa-Complex, i.e.

    “a yearning to do good in the world which is so intense that it must answer to some emotional need in the Theresa herself”.

Theresa was a Christian saint who had such a yearning; Dorothea has been referred to in the Prelude as a later born Theresa. We are told,      “Here and there is born a Saint Theresa, founders of nothing whose loving heart- beats and sobs after an unattained goodness tremble off and are dispersed among hindrances, instead of  centering in some long – recognizable deed.”

  She is Theresa in her lofty aspirations,

“struggling under dim lights and entangled circumstances”,  

to achieve her aspirations. But she lives in a society in which there is no particular demand for Theresa. It is a repressive environment which allows no scope for lofty ideals, where such idealistic natures are frustrated, crushed to atoms, or compelled to compromise with their environment.

Ø Her Self-Decision and Suffering

  She is lofty, idealistic, straightforward and honest and also self- deluded and self-deceived. Carried away by her lofty ideals, she fails to see the reality; she remains blind even to most obvious truths. She fails to understand the real character of Casaubon- that he is a prig, a pedant, a wooden character incapable of love or any enjoyment of life – until it is too late. This self- delusion is her “spot of commonness”, and the real cause of the tragedy of her life. When her cherished dreams of being of help to a great man in his scholarly work are shattered, misery, and wretchedness are the result. This disillusionment comes as early as their honeymoon in Rome, and many are the bitter tears she sheds, and wretched and lonely days and nights she passes. Still as a loyal wife, she does her duty to her husband, and after his death remains loyal to his memory, till she discovers that he has insulted her in her will. Her marriage to Ladislaw is a compromise with reality. It is a climb down from her lofty idealism, but such is, after all, the ways of the world.

Ø Comparison with Celia

 Celia, the simpler nature, with her perfectly normal and unconcealed wish to war splendid jewellery, is here the more objective of the two.

Cockshut says,

      “And throughout these early chapters Celia is used to show by contrast the more obscure character of Dorothea. It would be wrong to think of Dorothea as entirely remote from mundane concerns. She is very anxious, once she was agreed to marry Casaubon, to get the people well-housed in Lowick. But even here she has little concerns for the feelings of others. Seeing that Sir James has the money and concern for the feelings of others. Seeing that Sir James has the money and goodwill to carry her ideas about cottages into effect, she ignores his feeling for her. Nor does she realize that when she gives Sir James peremptory orders about the dog, she must seem to him to be claiming the privileges of a prospective bride, and that, if she does not intend to accept him, she should let him please himself about his own pets. These early chapters show very clearly how a person can be rude and unfeeling while filled with the most sincere impulses of unselfish devotion.”      

    Rosamond Vincy

   She is stupid, self-centered, but she is young and fascinating and it is her physical charms that have been stressed from the very beginning. She is the rose of Middlemarch and the flower imagery has been used throughout to bring out her physical charms and bird-imagery to bring out her gentility and seeming delicacy and innocence. When Lydgate meets her for the first time she appears to him to be,

 “so immaculately blond, as if the petals of some gigantic flower had just opened and disclosed her”.

Rosamond has been,

  “the flower of Mrs. Lemon’s school”;

She is now

 “the flower of Middlemarch”.

No pleasant fate seems to be in store for Lydgate, who “hovered” about her, for the petals of this gigantic flower may close upon him and terminate his ‘holiday freedom’. Rosamond appears to Lydgate to be as

      “sweet to look at as a half-opened blush rose”.

 It is the sight of Rosamond’s tears-  

       “like water on a blue flower”-

 which shakes Lydgate’s flirtation into love. The reader is asked to remember that

 “the ambitious man who has looking at those Forget- me-nots under the water was very warm-herted and rash”.

Lydgate’s first impression of Rosamond is of, “a paradise with….blue eyes for a heaven” and later she is alluded to as a creature which looks at its prey “through watchful blue eyes,” like “Forget- me-nots under the water”. She has, ä flower- like blond head”. When Lydgate has merely seen Rosamond from a distance he imagines her company to be, “a paradise with sweet laughs for bird-notes”. The images of birds, flowers and paradise are frequently used to indicate the manifold physical charms of Rosamond.

Ø Her One Generous Act

 The only generous act with she performs in life, and when she rises above her own selfishness, is when she tells Dorothea the truth about her relationship with Ladislaw, and thus brings about their ultimate union. This is a generous and noble act. But G.G. Urwin is of the view that even here her motives are mixed.

“the impulse to tell the truth and clear away misunderstanding did not last long, the note she wrote to Ladislaw informing him that she had told Dorothea what really happened during his visit to not a generous gesture by someone who likes him; it is the cold dismissal from her life of a man who can no longer be useful or entertaining.”

Ø Intriguing and Scheming

            Rosamond does not hesitate to use questionable means to gain her ends. She disobeys her husband, schemes and intrigues and acts secretly in utter disregard to her wishes. Unimaginative and stupid, she has no idea of the greatness of her husband, of her nobility and generosity and the deep anguish she causes to her.

A.O.J. Cockshut writes,

 “She believes that she understands the ways of the world better than he does. She interferes with his plans and countermands his orders, thus losing them the chance of the disposing of the lease of their expensive house. She causes him deep humiliation by writing without his knowledge to ask his uncle for money. Here Rosamond, having acted deceitfully, as well as unwisely, would seem to be most obviously in the wrong, but the actual upshot is very surprising. This appears in chapter 65, which is worth especially careful attention. Rosamond, in the face of his justified accusations, is silent, resentful, and self-righteous. Lydgate pausing and looking at her begins to feel that half-maddening sense of helplessness which comes over passionate people when their passion is met by innocent- looking silence, whose meek victimized air seems to put them in the wrong, and at last infects even the justest indignation with a doubt of its justice. Her calm assurance in the end drives him to apologize, and when she says that she wishes she had died with the baby, he tells himself that it was ten times harder for her than for him.”

Ø Comparison with Dorothea

       A further light is thrown on Rosamond’s character by a comparison with Dorothea. Both are alike in certain respects and yet so entirely different.

Speaight in this connection says,

 “Rosamond had each been the victim of a misalliance, but in both cases the mistakes arose not from an unconsidered impulse or an irrational perversity, but from the profound logic of their characters. Rosamond thought she was making a good match; Dorothea thought she was marrying Pascal. Both were disillusioned, and disillusionment was necessary and natural. Like Dorothea, though from motives of selfishness and not of altruism, she is likely to be the victim of her fantasies. It is significant that neither has the least sense of humour. Rosamond was clever with that sort of cleverness that catches every tone except the humours.  Happily she never attempted a joke, and this was perhaps the most decisive mark of her cleverness. She proceeded by calculation where Dorothea proceeded by instinct. Her calculation was all part of her industry. She was assiduous at her music and sketching and “found time also to read the best novels, and even the second best, and she knew much poetry by heart. Her favourite poem was Lallah Rookh.”

    Mary Garth

        Mary Garth is the young daughter of Caleb Garth, plain-looking but attractive all the same. Mary’s attitude to life is sane and balanced. She makes no extravagant claims on life, and adjusts herself to her circumstances and makes the best of her opportunity.  About her the novelist herself tells us,

 “Mary was fond of her own thoughts, and could amuse herself well, sitting in twilight with her hands in her lap; for having had strong reason to believe that things were not likely to be arranged for her peculiar satisfaction, she wasted no time in astonishment and annoyance at that fact. And she had already come to take life very much as a comedy in which she had a proud, nay a generous resolution not to act the mean or treacherous part. Mary might have become cynical, if she had not had parents whom was all the fuller because she had learned to make no unreasonable claims.”

 This is a healthy, practical attitude to life, and Mary is thus revealed to be a sane and balanced young woman. As children she and Fred Vincy had been sweethearts, and no one else replaces him in her affections, although she scorns his imperfections and steadily opposes his plan to take holy orders. Uncle Mary’s influence, specifically, and under the general influence of her family, Fred Vincy Himself is gradually reformed:

 “at the outset the only attribute in Fred’s favour is his unwavering love for Mary; for the rest he seems a weak young man, selfish like his sister unable to complete his studies, pleasure-loving, getting himself into debt, and as result, depriving the Garths of a good portion of their hard-won savings. He leaves the impression that the world owes him a living, and lowers his image still further by joining the greedy potential legates awaiting Featherstone’s death.”          

    Celia Brooke

       Dorothea’s sister, Celia, is an amiable, innocent-looking, down to earth young lady; her attitude towards Dorothea is “a mixture of  criticism and awe”, and on “safe opportunities she has the knack” of making her negative wisdom tell…by reminding her that people were staring, not listening. “again, in contrast to Dorothea, she is not impulsive: she waits the appropriate opportunity to voice her views, and always in a tone of ‘quite’ staccato evenness.”

 Her sense of propriety is often shocked by Dorothea’s unconventional opinions and deeds, and she is strongly critical of Dorothea’s marriage to Casaubon. After her own marriage she feels an affectionate superiority and fears that her brother in law’s learning is a kind of damp which might in due time saturate a neighbouring body. In many respects she is a far better judge of character than her sister. She is certainly more practical, and her choice of a husband is much more prudent and happy.

o   Conclusion:-

  According to the learned critic, the obvious moral of Dorothea’s story is “that the describe thing is to your work well in the position to which providence has assigned you and not to bother about ideals at all. Such a moral seems satiric at the end of a story which is to give us a Modern Theresa.” Thus Dorothea is becomes an ironical portraits of young ladies with lofty ideals and noble aspirations.