I recently finished listening to an audio version of George Eliot's Middlemarch, and have followed it up by watching the excellent 1994 BBC miniseries based on the book. My intent was just to enjoy and acquaint myself with the book, rather than study it in detail and blog about it. But last night I was struck by an idea that I had to explore further. It occurred to me that Middlemarch is really a romance about middle-class life, and that the three young couples in the book succeed to the degree to which they embrace Eliot's ideals of middle class life: romantic love, skilled work, and freedom.
By "middle class" I don't mean the merchant class. That was already well-established, and in Eliot's work they tend to be portrayed as only slightly less coarse than farm labourers. The upper-middle class Eliot is concerned with in Middlemarch is populated by educated gentlefolk who willingly give up a life of leisure and convention for one of progressive activity and freedom. This particularly applies to Dorothea Brooke, Tertius Lydgate, and Fred Vincy, who all consciously choose to leave their aspirational upper-class families in order to live, love, and work where they will.
Both Dorothea and Tertius come into the story with the desire to contribute to society, Tertius through medical research, and Dorothea through improving housing for estate tenants. Fred takes a little more convincing. His debts and his life-long love for Mary Garth brings him under the influence of her father, Caleb Garth, and he is eventually converted by Caleb's philosophy on work:
"You must be sure of two things: you must love your work, and not be always looking over the edge of it, wanting your play to begin. And the other is, you must not be ashamed of your work, and think it would be more honourable to you to be doing something else. You must have a pride in your own work and in learning to do it well, and not be always saying, There's this and there's that—if I had this or that to do, I might make something of it. No matter what a man is—I wouldn't give twopence for him"—here Caleb's mouth looked bitter, and he snapped his fingers—"whether he was the prime minister or the rick-thatcher, if he didn't do well what he undertook to do." [Chapter LVI]
Even so, Fred's primary motivation is doing whatever it takes to win Mary's respect and hand in marriage. Tertius, on the other hand, is primarily motivated by his desire to help society by advancing medical science. Love comes unexpectedly to him, and unfortunately it came in the form of a woman who had no intention of living as a working man's wife. The ensuing marital disaster was inevitable.
Dorothea is motivated by both work and love, and as a woman with limited rights and powers, the two were closely linked. She married Casaubon in hopes the she could contribute to his great intellectual work, and perhaps also do good on the Lowick estate. Unfortunately she could do neither, and even after his death she was limited in what she could do to improve conditions at Lowick. In the end she gives up Lowick and marries for love, choosing freedom over wealth. Though the book stops there, we are told that in her subsequent life she was able to do much good. The freedom she gained was not just the freedom to love but also the freedom to fulfill her deep longing to contribute to the progress of society.
It's worth mentioning the other halves of these couples. Rosamond, as I alluded to above, did not embrace the ideals of middle-class life and so was deeply distressed when the reality of her position was made apparent. Mary Garth, on the other hand, was born into a tradesman's home with high ideals that make a working life honourable, and with her father was able to impart those ideals to her future husband. Will Ladislaw is a more complex character. He should have been Dorothea's equal but for being disinherited twice, once by his grandmother's family and again by Nicholas Bulstrode. He still has the opportunity to establish himself in a high position thanks to the generosity of his cousin Edward Casaubon (who benefited from Will's grandmother’s disinheritance), but after meeting Dorothea, Will severs that dependence and begins to work for himself. One might say that like Fred Vincy, he turns to work as a way to win the respect of the woman he loves, and to at least be near her even if he could not have her. Ironically, Dorothea had to choose to be disinherited as well so that they could be together, and we are told that she never repents her decision. She is rewarded with the life she wanted, full of love and the freedom to do good work, and Will becomes a Member of Parliament involved in advancing national reforms (in contrast to the wealthy but intellectually mediocre Arthur Brooke whose political aspirations end with an egging). In the end, disinheritance led both Will and Dorothea to happiness and fruitful labour.
What Eliot presents in Middlemarch is the idea that contrary to the usual view of life, wealth and position are a hindrance to both personal happiness and the power to effect change. Those who have achieved or aspire to wealth are portrayed as greedy, vain, hypocritical, and mentally inferior. Her middle-class heroes and heroines are intelligent, honest, loving, concerned for others, and have a strong pride that is not about show but about personal honour. Such people cannot be contained by a corrupt upper class; they must break out and colonize new territory, an idealized middle class, not unlike an idealized New World, where they have the liberty to do respectable work they can believe in and love whom they choose. I expect this was a theme close to George Eliot's heart, given her unconventional choice of life work and life partner. I know little about her but I hope she also found her happiness in the post-Middlemarch middle class.
