Assignment Paper : EC-204
Topic : Literary presentation of Complex
Human Nature in “Middlemarch”
O Student’s Name : Gandhi Pooja S.
Roll No : 09
· URL : gandhipooja151011.blogspot.com
Semester : 2
O Batch : 2010-11
Submitted to,
Miss. Ruchira Dudharejia
Department of English
Bhavnagar University
v Literary presentation of Complex Human Nature in “Middlemarch”:
v Introduction:
Baptized Mary Anne Evans, Eliot chose to write her novels under a male pseudonym. She scorned the stereotypical female novelist; rather than writing the silly, unrealistic romantic tales expected of woman writers, she wrote according to her own tastes. Her first attempt to write “Middlemarch”-now her most famous novel- ended in failure and despair. Shorty after this initial failure, she began a short novella entitled Miss Brooke. The writing proceeded quickly and she later integrated the novella into “Middlemarch”.
The novel Middlemarch’ subtitle is “A study of provincial life”. This means that “Middlemarch” represents the lives of ordinary people, not the grand adventures of princes and kings. “Middlemarch” represented the spirit of nineteenth century England through the unknown, historically unremarkable common people. The small community of Middlemarch is through into relief against the background of larger social transformations, rather than the other way around England. The novel was published serially in eight proportions, but it thank forms the notion of an epic.
In the novel Evangelical Protestants, catholic, and Anglicans live side by side. As a result, religious conflict abound the novel, particularly those centering on the rise of Evangelical Protestantism, a primarily middle class religion that created heated doctrinal controversy. Many characters subscribe to s world- view; others want to find a world view to organize their lives. The absence of a single, triumphant world view to organize all life is the basic designed of “Middlemarch”.
v Complex Human Nature in “Middlemarch”:
In the novel “Middlemarch” most of all characters have complex human nature, at first reading we cannot find out about the nature of particular human being.
Ø Dorothea Brooke:
ü Charming and Beautiful:
Dorothea Brooke is a young and fascinating lady who lives with her younger sister Celia at Tipton Grange, near Middlemarch the home of Mr. Arthur Brooke, their uncle and guardian. Her physical beauty and fascinating personality have been stressed in the very beginning of the novel. We are told,
“Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress.”
ü 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 would. 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. Dorothea is completely oblivious to such physical details.
She sees in her husband, Casaubon, a reflection of Locke or Milton, and accepts him as her husband in preference to young and handsome Sir – Chettam, for she thinks that through marriage with a scholar like him. She would be able to achieve her aspirations.
ü Inner- frustration:
The most that she can do in the society of Middlemarch is to make projects for building better cottages for poor tenants and thus ameliorating their lot. It is this inner frustration which makes her seize any opportunity which makes her accept Casaubon in place of Sir Chettam, despite his age, and his physical unpleasantness.
ü It’s Unfortunate consequences:
In her view, “The really delightful marriage must be that where your husband was a sort of father, and could teach you even Hebrew, if you wished it.”
The word “father” hare is important. It is both an early signal to the reader of what will follow when Casaubon comes on the scene, and a revelation of what is lacking in Dorothea, which any other girl would have. Dorothea is equally oblivious of feminine frivolity about clothes and of the high duties of motherhood.
ü Her self – Decision and suffering:
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 her tragedy in life. The disillusionment comes out in their honeymoon in Rome, and many are the bitter tears she sheds, and wretched and lonely are the days and nights she passes in her life. After sometimes of their marriage Casaubon dies.
ü Complex Nature:
After the death of Casaubon, her marriages will Ladislaw. This is also the irony of Dorothea because after her marriage with Ladislaw, her nature is completely changed. Ladislaw is almost so obtrusively a favorite with his creator. He is called “will” for the sake of endearment; and we are to understand him as so charming that Dorothea’s ability to keep him at a distance gives the most striking proof of her strong sense of wifely duty. And Dorothea becomes good wife; good mother means she is busy in household work so, her nature is complex.
Ø Edward Casaubon:
ü A Dried, Lifeless Pedant:
But Dorothea prefers him to the young and handsome Sir Chettam, and it is soon obvious that the marriage is a mistake. Casaubon is a prosperous country squire in addition to being a clergy. At the time of the opening of the story, he is fifty years old. Casaubon had been a scholar in the true sense; it would not have mended matters. He marries, we are told because he wants female ten dances of his declining years.
ü A pseudo – scholar:
A.O.J. Cockshut -
“Casaubon behaves as if the whole world or all of it that mattered were scholarly. But the real scholar is a man who can enter imaginatively into the ideas and feelings of people completely different from himself. He has to understand violent, cruel kings, or illiterate, primitive people, or the writers of past ages. Casaubon has nothing of this, so he will never illuminate the mythologies believed them.”
ü Self – centered and Narrow – minded:
Casaubon is self-centered and Narrow – minded clergy. After his marriage with Dorothea, in his honeymoon in Rome also he is interested in his work. He has no feelings for Dorothea. He is busy in his research; he marries with Dorothea because he wants female ten dance for his decaling years. We have that type of hope that after the marriage he may be changed but he remains the same throughout his life. And dies without completing his book. So, his nature is complex.
Ø Mary Garth:
Fred Vincy and Mary Garth will like to know that these two made no such failure, but achieved a solid mutual happiness.
Some years after his marriage Fred Vincy told Mary that this happiness was half owing to fare brother, who gave him a strong pull- up at the right moment? He cannot say about that.
There were three boys: Mary was not discontented that she brought forth men children only and when Fred wished to have a girl like her, she said laughingly,
“That would be too great a trial to your mother.”
Mrs.Vincy in her declining years, and in the diminished luster of her housekeeping, was much comforted by her perception that two at least of Fred’s boys were real Vincys, and did not “feature the Garths”. But Mary secretly rejoiced that the youngest of the three was very much what her father must have been when he wrote a round jacket, and showed a marvelous, or in throwing stones to bring down the mellow pears.
This is the complex nature of Mary Garth.
v Conclusion:
In the novel, there are most of all the characters have complex nature, hard to define.
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