“Such, my dear Miss Brooke, is the accurate statement of my feelings; […] to be accepted by you as your husband and the earthly guardian to your welfare.” In doing so, Eliot positions the traditional assumptions of marriage, as “decided according to custom, good looks, vanity and merely canine affection,” (p. 8) she will undercut. Eliot presents the marriage between Dorothea and Casaubon, as driven by selfish motivations and egoism. Ironically, that which draws Dorothea to Casaubon, by means of...
2 Pages
979 Words
Published in 1872 but set in the year 1829, Middlemarch documented an age that hungered for progress for both men and women. This use of this specific era immensely contributed to the themes of the novel as the concept of social improvement was initially being introduced to Great Britain. This novel follows four relationships, each with its own narrative, during the years leading up to the passing of the 1832 Reform Act. The 1832 Reform Act predominantly addressed voting rights...
3 Pages
1188 Words
Marriage - the act of uniting two beings under vows that uphold morals to honor, love, and cherish for as long as both partners shall live - is undoubtedly one of the oldest traditions known to human existence. There may not be an era as exceptionally pro-marriage as the Victorian period, as it was the societal norm to dictate marriage as the ultimate goal. However, the expectations of marriage seemed to perplex more free-thinking Victorians like the author George Eliot....
2 Pages
892 Words
George Eliot, a 19th-century Victorian novelist, did not end her stories at marriage like other novelists of the time but added development and depth between individuals and their relationships through the use of thematic symbols such as money. Money appears in Middlemarch in several controversial and complicated situations which include greed, debt, wills, inheritances, stealing, and characters on the opposite end who reject money as a paramount necessity. It is through personal ideals and beliefs regarding money and the way...
4 Pages
1995 Words
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, Great Expectations by Charles Dicken’s and Middlemarch by George Eliot simultaneously display the notion that the form is one of the ways it can be understood in relation to the specific historical context from which it emerges. Additionally, they similarly have been shaped by the material conditions of production and reception set in the Victorian Era through social class and conditions. Although Bronte’s Wuthering Heights is a gothic novel, it relates to Great Expectations in...
6 Pages
2722 Words
Realism is an imperative theme across Middlemarch and Great Expectations. “The primary aim of realism is to represent real life for the time it is written, and it is the job of the author to create a number of different techniques in order to do so” There is a substantial variety surrounding the number of truth claims used throughout George Eliot’s ‘Middlemarch’ and Charles Dickens ‘Great Expectations”. These truth claims represent reality in their own ways. In this essay, I...
6 Pages
2721 Words
