Middlemarch by George Eliot | In-Depth Summary & Analysis

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Course Hero Literature Instructor Russell Jaffe provides an in-depth summary and analysis of George Eliot's novel Middlemarch.

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George Eliot's tragic novel Middlemarch concerns the thwarted expectations of Dorothea Brooke and Tertius Lydgate. Both are drawn to the English town of Middlemarch, though for different reasons.

Dorothea comes to live with her uncle and soon marries Edward Casuabon, a myopic clergyman whose intellectual endeavors come to nothing, much to Dorothea's disappointment.

An intellectually inclined young woman, she had hoped his scholarly pursuits would rub off on her. She is instead drawn to his younger cousin Will Ladislaw. When Casaubon dies, his will forbids their union.

Tertius, a doctor, is distracted from his medical pursuits by an ill-conceived marriage that drains his finances. Further, his efforts to modernize the town's medical system are thwarted by jealous colleagues and personal misfortunes.

Due to external roadblocks and their own "spots of commonness," the characters tragically exchange their beautiful dreams for ordinary paths and commonplace goodness.

Victorian novelist George Eliot’s Middlemarch was first published in 1871-72. Writing under a male pseudonym, Mary Ann Evans brought a profound understanding of human nature to Middlemarch, a panoramic work that Virginia Woolf called "one of the few English novels written for grown-up people." The novel sympathetically treats the stymied ambitions of its characters and suggests that society is hostile to those who aim for an unconventional and original existence.

The tragic novel contains many central themes including knowledge, as people want to enhance their minds and live purposefully; right vs. wrong, as moral people don’t always know the difference; and the quest for transcendence, as everyone wants to be special. Important symbols include The Key to All Mythologies, the portrait of Will Ladislaw's grandmother and pier glass.

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