M. K. BHAVNAGAR UNIVERSITY

Department of English

The Victorian Literature P- 6Roll No: 2

Eliot’s novel ‘Middlemarch’ as a- “Serious discussion” of Moral issues

Presented by : Bhumi V Joshi.

Victorian Age

•An era of peace•Conflict between science and religion •Material Development •Intellectual Development•The revolt•International influences•The achievement of the age•Pessimism , Optimism, Idealism

Victorian Society

Victorian morality is a distillation of the views of people living at the time of Queen Victoria’s reign and of the moral climate of the which contrasted greatly with the morality of the previous.

The morality & values of the period can be classed to Religion , Morality, Elitism , industrialism & improvement. These values take root in Victorian morality, creating an overall change in the British Empire.

Victorian morality can be described any set of values that espouse sexual restraint, low tolerance of crime and s strict social code of conduct.

The Victorian society is influenced by depiction of an ideal love affair.

Eliot demonstrate how the power of human relationships must be understood ethically.

George Eliot

Novel is about relationship – love , Master-slave , Marxist , hatred, feminism.

“ Eliot’s novel is one of the few English novels for grown up people.” - Virginia Woolf

About Middlemarch……

.

Middlemarch is about the process of understanding the experiences and perceptions of others, and of suffering through self – deception and disillusionment, social positioning, class- consciousness and the ambition for self- improvement with its concomitants, education and money.

Good Etiquettes….

For women , There were rules about what

kind of jewelry one should wear as well as when and where . Who to walk with , who to dance with, how and when to speak to stranger, were all very critical knowledge.

Men have no rules

Marriages

Marriage - pursuit of central which concern in Middlemarch but is not ultimate source of Happiness.

Dorothea Brooke

&Casaubon

Casaubon never wants to give freedom to his wife

Dorothea- lady of fairy tale

Matrimonial life of character

wants love , rejection of wealth.

Need emotional security rather than property

Failed marriage because of her Youth and her disillusions about

marrying a much older.

Run away with Ladislaw

Rosamond vincy

Different perspective looking towards marriage

Single rigid perspective

Does morality depends on outer look ?

Class differences

Her sensational behavior

“ Beauty without brain ”

Lydgatet’s marriage fails because of irreconcilable personalities.

Fred Vincy and Mary Garth also face a great deal of hardship in making their union.

Mr. & Mrs. Bulstrode also face a marital crisis due to his inability to tell her the past.

None of marriages, reach a perfect fairytale ending, offers a clear critique of the usual portrayal of marriage as romantic and unproblematic.

“Patriarchal society didn’t allow woman to have the same privileges as men.”

Man and woman searched for an ideal relationship based on expectations of demanding society.

Other issues……

Debt and Borrowing Money

Lack of Morality

Greedy & Money minded people

“ Angle of the House” – the treatment of the women

Darker aspects of mankind.

Goodness is futile

AS a individual human being , they fail, lacking of flexibility.

“ The moral has already put on immorality.” Emily Dickinson

WE may conclude that Eliot’s describes all negativities of the

age and through the points of negative sides , she leads reader

to the morality of life.

So, we firmly say that, “ Eliot’s novel is not primarily for

entertainment, but for the serious discussion of moral

issues.”