George Eliot wrote during the early Victorian period in England, which is classified by the reign of Queen Victoria. During this time, industry began to flourish and the middle class began to gain power. The Reform Bill of 1832 gave the new class political and economic means to unite against land owners. This was a time of great turmoil and change, creating a disparity between the newly forming middle class and the ever-increasing lower classes, which were “thrown off their land and into the cities to form the great urban working class” (Columbia 2005). The new social phenomenon of the middle class created an increase in literacy which led to the rise of the novel, and Middlemarch provides a critique of social norms and values, feminine empowerment, and new questions about morals and philosophy.
The second chapter of Ian Watt’s book Rise of the Novel is directly related to the rise of the middle class. While the lower class rarely completed school beyond the mandatory age of attendance, the middle class had continue to go to school beyond age 5, dividing their time between school and work, because middle class jobs in commerce, administration, and the professions required literacy for employment (Watt 39-41). As the middle class increased, so did the literacy rate of England. Leslie Stephen is quoted as explaining, “The gradual extension of the reading class affected the development of the literature addressed to them” (Watt 36).
Books were expensive, and though the reading class increased, access to manuscripts in full form was limited. Longer stories, called folios, were printed, but reserved for the very rich in limited quantity. Short stories were released in the form of serials in affordable publications like periodicals. Stories published in the cheapest forms were stories abridged into the forms of ballads or chapbooks, which were “abbreviated chivalric romances”, and new stories of criminals or extraordinary events (Watt 43). Pirated copies of works were printed and distributed at a lower price “for the gratification of those who were impatient to read what they could not yet afford to buy” (Watt 43).
Novels, which were in the mid-price range of publications, were like comics are to the reading public now; they were released in volumes called duodecimos. Middlemarch was originally released in eight volumes. Upon its initial publication, the book was seen as central to feminist issues. Then, no critics mentioned the work for over one hundred years. In 1976 however, the book was fervently reviewed by feminist scholars who chastised and rebuked the book as well as the author. Both Eliot and her novels were not seen as examples of feminism to most of the women’s studies community; however, her work was seen as “realistically depicting the possibilities open to most nineteenth century women…” (Siegler 1998).
For the last twenty years, Eliot and Middlemarch are important for feminist critiques of nineteenth century literature. Elizabeth Grosz is cited in “’This Thing I Like my Sister may not Do’: Shakespearian Erotics and a Clash of Wills in Middlemarch” by Carol Siegel because she explains what makes a work of literature feminist. Siegel states:
“’Neither the author, the reader, nor the content of a text explains how we are able to designate it as feminist.’ A feminist text is one whose style ‘render[s] the patriarchal or phallocentric presumptions governing its contexts and commitments visible’ in such a way as to question ‘the power of these presumptions in the production, reception, and assessment of the texts’ and to ‘facilitate the production of new and perhaps unknown, unthought discursive spaces’” (Siegel 1-3).
As this definition is applied to Middlemarch, both Dorothea and Rosamond are strong feminists as they are presented in Books One and Two.
Dorothea is a young woman of sixteen who strives to be pious and devoid of all desire. She wants to live an extremely devout life with knowledge of religion being the ultimate goal to her happiness. When faced with the presentation of a proposal of marriage from Mr. Casaubon, who is over fifty but published and recognized for his religious knowledge and interpretation, as well as the possible proposal from Sir James, who is a baronet that would do anything to ensure Dorothea’s happiness, Dorothea chooses Casaubon. She chose him over Sir James before he even asked. Many of the supporting characters including Dorothea’s uncle, Sir James, and her sister Celia think Dorothea is making a terrible mistake. Nevertheless, by the end of Book One, she “had become Mrs. Casaubon, and was on her way to Rome” (Eliot 60).
It is also on page 60 that we meet Rosamond Vincy, who is the traditional beauty of the story. In manner, character, and appearance, Rosamond is Dorothea’s diametric opposite. In fact, at a dinner party to announce and celebrate Dorothea’s engagement, many of the men, whether married or not, compared the beauty and talents of these two women and how they appeal to each man’s desires. Rosamond is more refined than Dorothea, but she has an equally elevated taste in her preference of men. While the standards for Rosamond’s future husband are different than Dorothea’s, they are equally unattainable for most men.
George Eliot has been harshly criticized because of the resolve of her characters. Most often critiqued are the manner in which her female heroes resolve their issues. Eliot, Siegel explains, often “resolve[s] her heroines’ life crises with marriage” is seen as “fidelity to the truth of ordinary women’s lives” (Siegel 1). It seems that while now it is mostly accepted that Eliot’s realistic approach to relationships and marriage, as contrasted with Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, is a fair representation for the way life was for women in the nineteenth century, many feminist critics cannot accept Dorothea as a strong female representation of a hero.
What makes Dorothea such a strong female hero during Book One is her desire to stick with the qualities that make a man great to her. She wants to marry a learned man from whom she can learn. The reaction to her decision to marry the older, less attractive, less wealthy Mr. Casaubon illuminates the expectations and social values of a husband of the society in which she lives. Valuing the knowledge and religious preferences of a potential husband over possible social status illuminates, as Grosz says, causes the patriarchal assumptions of the time to become visible.
In “The Key to Epic Life?: Classical Study in George Eliot’s Middlemarch,” Hilary Mackie questions the representation of Dorothea in the Prelude and evaluates what should make an epic, with regard to classical literature, life. Mackie’s hypothesis is, “Within the fiction of the novel, however, we see Dorothea and other characters try in various ways, but fail, to make sense of their lives through the study, employment, or imitation of classical models” (Mackie 53). What the author is missing is that Dorothea is not trying to imitate the life of some past saint, but she is trying to live up to her own ideal; morality is her way to live an epic- beyond any classical literary conventions- life.
The morality of Dorothea and the Prelude has also been debated in the field of philosophy. With regard to Middlemarch being an example of a morality tale, philosophers debate the role of fiction in shaping the society in which it is published. Rohan Maitzen answers Martha Nussbaum’s critique of Eliot’s novel by applying Nussbaum’s own criteria to the novel to prove it is an exemplary illustration of how fiction can contribute to philosophy by answering the question, “How should one live?”
The role of the novel in philosophy means that “the novel may share generic features which compliment or correct conventional philosophical discourse” (Maitzen 191). The terms Nussbaum set for the ethical evaluation of fiction include:
1. Analysis of the text’s literary properties
2. Every aspect of form and style expresses a sense of life and of value, a sense of what matters and what does not
3. Discovers this “sense of life” through close reading the engaged experience line by line
4. Reveals the character of the implied author, the would be friend urging us on a particular ‘pattern of desire’ (Maitzen 191).
Nussbaum bashes Eliot and Middlemarch in comparison with Henry James’ work, but Maitzen spends half of her essay showing that Nussbaum’s biases have elevated James beyond a fair evaluation of what a moral novel is.
When she moves on to evaluating Eliot’s novel, Maitzen shows that the Prelude outlines with “clarity, precision, and quiet confidence of the erudite narrator” (Maitzen 197) what the tale will be. Maitzen explains that the narrator possesses knowledge to interpret the story and life of St. Theresa as well as explain the significance of St. Theresa’s life to the modern audience. Clearly exhibited in the Prelude is the sense of life Eliot is going to describe; Maitzen says, “What is important and what is not in this fictional world” is the history of man (198). By using grand language, Eliot “encourages us to admire their idealistic plan and to lament the practical limits of domestic reality,” and also suggests “that it was worthy of epic treatment” (Maitzen 198).
Middlemarch and its history are full of controversy and debate about its validity as both a feminist and moral story. Never have I read a story about which critics are so conflicted. Without consensus, the novel proves to stand alone as a great work of literature that comments on social norms, feminist ideals, the value of virtues, and the life and times of women in the nineteenth century.
Works Cited
Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia. “The Victorian Age.” Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia
2005. http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/ent/A0858005.html 28 Feb. 2010.
Eliot, George. Middlemarch. Ed. Bert G. Hornback. Norton: New York. 2000.
Mackie, Hilary. “The Key to Epic Life?: Classical Study in George Eliot's Middlemarch.”
Classical World 2009. 103:1. 53-67.
http://cletus.uhh.hawaii.edu:2146/journals/classical_world/v103/103.1.mackie.pdf 27
Feb. 2010.
Maitzen, Rohan. “Martha Nussbaum and the Moral Life of Middlemarch.” Philosophy and
Literature 2006. 30. 190-207.
Siegel, Carol. “This thing I like my sister may not do': Shakespearean Erotics and a Clash of
Wills in Middlemarch.” Style. Spring98: 32, 1. Academic Search Premier.
http://cletus.uhh.hawaii.edu:2060/ehost/detail?vid=4&hid=103&sid=94177b8b-be7b-4637ac17d5227a7c34@sessionmgr111&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=aph&AN=1516862 28 Feb. 2010
Watt, Ian. “The Reading Public and the Rise of the Novel.” The Rise of the Novel. Penguin:
Victoria 1963. 36-41.
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