A History of George Eliot and "Middlemarch"

          For this particular blog, focusing on the histories of both George Eliot, (Mary Evans Lewes) and Middlemarch, I chose to look at several sources, including an excerpt from Eliot’s essay, “The Natural History of German Life”, a letter from Eliot’s husband, George Henry Lewes to her publisher, John Blackwood, as well as two letters from Eliot to fellow writer, Harriet Beecher Stowe.  The excerpt from Eliot’s focuses on the morality in art and claims, “All the more sacred is the task of the artist when he undertakes to paint the life of the People.”(Eliot, 520) The letter from George Lewes to John Blackwood gives readers insight as to why the novel was originally published in eight parts, and that “Each part would have a certain unity and completeness in itself with separate title.  Thus the work is called Middlemarch.  Part 1 will be Miss Brooke.”(Lewes, 532) Eliot’s first letter to Stowe talks of how Dorothea’s husband, Mr. Casaubon is not related to her own husband, George Lewes, and that she does “not for a moment imagine that Dorothea’s marriage experience is drawn from my own.  Impossible to conceive any creature less like Mr. Casaubon than my warm, enthusiastic husband, who cares much more for my doing than for his own, and is a miracle of freedom from all author’s jealousy and all suspicion.”(Eliot, 534) In Eliot’s second, and very brief letter to Stowe, she asks whether or not Stowe agrees with her that “there is one comprehensive Church whose fellowship consists in the desire to purify and ennoble human life”(Eliot, 535).

            Eliot’s claim that “we want to be taught to feel, not for the heroic artisan or the sentimental peasant, but for the peasant in all his coarse apathy and the artisan in all his suspicious selfishness”(Eliot, 520) goes along with the fact that her characters in Middlemarch aren’t particularly heroic, but that they are rather plain folk, and the protagonist of this novel, Dorothea Brooke’s main desire is to become a scholar, and to help others.  Lewes’ letter to Blackwood contains the background of Middlemarch, and the motives behind writing the novel in eight parts, that can be complete while read alone, yet cohesive when read consecutively.  As for the letters to Stowe, we can see Eliot’s justification for the way she created her characters like Casaubon; that she created him almost as a complete opposite from her husband, one who supports her ambitions, whereas Casaubon didn’t with Dorothea.  Dorothea’s character is extremely Protestant, and when she moves to Rome with her husband, her expectations are crushed.  As Rome is the center for Catholicism, it is almost painful for her to be somewhere where papal authority has such an obviously strong presence.  In Eliot’s second letter to Stowe, she asks whether or not she agrees that there is a church, whose followers are brought together by the need to make one leader (presumably the Pope) a noble figure.  This letter was written the same year that Middlemarch was first published, so it is likely that Eliot received criticism regarding the religious views that are presented in her work, and she is trying to justify it.

Blog #2: More Criticisms on "Mary Barton"

            The two criticisms that I chose to look at for this blog are Rosemarie Bodenheimer’s “Private Grief and Public Acts in Mary Barton” and Patsy Stoneman’s “The Feminization of Working-Class Men in Mary Barton”.  Bodenheimer makes the claim that “Mary Barton is a novel about responding to the grief of loss or disappointment.  Its pages are filled with domestic disaster; the sheer accumulation of one misfortune after another is the organizing principle of the first half of the narrative.”(510) Her essay criticizes Gaskell’s “technical discontinuities” and ”apparently artless repetition”.  While Bodenheimer chooses to look at Gaskell’s writing inconsistencies and faults, Stoneman chooses to leave the criticism of the author herself to the side and look more at past criticisms themselves.  Stoneman argues that critics too often “deplore the presence of ‘extraneous factors’ such as the love story and the murder plot”(543) Stoneman urges critics to “approach the novel through the ethics of the family, therefore, we do not detract from its value as an exploration of class-relations, but instead of seeing it as an ‘industrial novel’ flawed by political naivety and superfluous sub-plots, we can see it as an attempt to understand the interaction of class and gender.”(544)

            I personally did not notice in Mary Barton what Bodenheimer refers to as “the transitions from dramatized scene to narrative summary [that] are awkward and abrupt”(512) I thought that the novel was one that could be read with ease.  I do, however, agree that the novel depicts one personal tragedy after another, and I’d venture to say that most readers generally do too.  In regards to Stoneman’s essay, I really enjoyed the different approach to Mary Barton.  The criticisms relating to Gaskell’s inconsistencies in her writing seem redundant at this point, and the approach of looking at the paternal behavior of the characters to understand the class war was rather refreshing.  Looking at this behavior shines light on the basis of some of the characters’ seemingly rash decisions.  For instance, John Barton is so passionate about punishing the mill owners not only because he is angry that he is losing pay, but one of his greatest fears is that Mary will have to work in the factory, which he will absolutely not have.  Using this approach, we can come to understand that some of the decisions (such as the millworkers conspiring to kill the mill owners) were made in an effort to protect one another. 

Analyzing Critical Reviews of "Mary Barton"

Summary:

            The three reviews I chose to look at were Henry Fothergill Chorley’s Athenaeum (1848), John Forster’s Examiner (1848), and a short piece from Christian Teacher by an anonymous author, titled The Mutual Dependence of Men in a Social State (1844).  Chorley believes that the story is written in a very simply and that “the events of the tale are of the commonest quality”(365) In Forster’s Examiner, he appears to think highly of the novel and says that it is “a story of unusual beauty and merit.  It has a plan and powerful interest, a good and kind purpose, and a style which derives its charm from the writer’s evident sincerity.”(367) Although the excerpt from Christian Teacher was not written exclusively in review of Mary Barton, it provides useful insight into a major theme in Mary Barton—that someone will always gain from the work done by another, and it most often happens that those doing the work gain much less than those who don’t.  The excerpt opens with: “The saying, ‘one man soweth and another reapeth,’ has been applicable to the condition of mankind in all ages, and will doubtless continue to be so to the end of time.”(419)

Analysis:

            The focus of my analysis will be on the simplicity of the novel, in all aspects.  Although the characters in this novel are far from underdeveloped, they lead simple lives, which is ultimately the cause of Mary’s unhappiness.  The millworkers don’t lead exceptionally thrilling lives, and despite the luxuries they enjoy, neither do the mill owners and their families.  The millworkers work to provide for the families and the mill owners reap the benefits.  This ties into the excerpt by the anonymous author, regarding the idea that “it is scarcely possible for any man to live altogether to himself—to labour for his own benefit alone—to sow in such a manner that no other human being shall reap the harvest.”(420) This is a major theme in the novel, and it is so uncomplicated, but in the end, the simplicity is what causes all of the chaos and conflict.  I don’t think that the plainness of the novel and the lives of its characters is necessarily a bad thing, as some of the most beautiful creations are the most simple, and in the end, the simple lives and the desire to have more than the ordinary is what builds the novel’s conflicts in the end.