Middle march as a study of Provincial Life

Name                  :        Gohil Hetalba I.

Std                       :        M.A. I        Sem :          II

Roll No.              :        8

Topic                   :    Middle march as a study of Provincial Life

Papers                :        Paper No.  6  Victorian Age

Submitted To     :        Dr. Dilip Barad

                                      Department of English M.K. Bhavnagar

University

“MIDDLE MARCH” AS A STUDY OF PROVNCIAL LIFE.”

·        GEORGE ELIOT (1819 – 1880)

                   Many Ann Evans wrote under the pen name of George Eliot. She had religious and spiritual speculation. Her novels deal with the tragedy at ordinaries lives unfolded with an intense sympathy and deep in sight into the truth of character. For her the development of human soul, or the study of its relationship to the greater things beyond itself, is the all important theme. There is little striking incident in her novels, but her plots are skillfully managed. Behind all her writing there lies a sense of the tragedy of life, in which sin or folly brings its own retribution.

·        INTRO

                   Middle March is a study of provincial life and the scene is laid in the provincial town of Middle March in the first half of the nineteenth century. It is a love story principally dealing with the affairs of Dorothea Brooke and Mr. Rossamond unicyending in despair. “In Middle March the psychology tends more clearly towards an intuitive idea of mind and consciousness. Her most powerful novel, even if it is not inspired or the most harmoniously constructed, is the last in which the activity of her courageous, ever moving mind has been expressed in terms of scenes and figures family to herself and thus endowed with artistic reality.

-         Cazamin

·        SETTING OF THE NOVEL

                   Middle March is George Eliot’s sixth novel. The reaction to the novel has been a mixed one. Contemporary reviewers, in general, admired it four its life likeness for its characters which they felt were very true to life. In Middle march, the novelist returns once again to the English Midlands in which her girlhood had been passed and which had fertilized her imagination. The location of Middle march has been left indeterminate and vag the setting has not been precisely delineated, as is the case with the other early novels like ‘Adam Bede’. ‘Mill on the Floss and Silas Murder But most critics identify Middle march with ‘Coventry with which George Eliot was well familiar. The action takes place in Middle march or in localities close to it like Tipton Grange. Lowick manour Freshitt Hall, etc. George Eliot is once again on familiar grounds and Midland scenes and sights have been realistically and feelingly sketched. The time of action of the novel is the period immediately preceding the reform Act of 1832.

                   Middle march acquires a symbolic significance, symbolic of English, rural life in the 1830’s. What happens in Middle march was happening in provincial society all over England. Contemporary political and social problems are harmonized with private and personal life.

·        MULTIPLICITY OF CHARACTERS

                   The canvas of Middle march is a crowded one. It is a long novel running into over eight hundred minutely printed pages in the penguin edition. There is a host of characters, so many that all of them cannot even be named in the space. The main characters may be divided into four groups. The first one is Brooks – consisting of Mr. Edword Brooke, his two nieces- Dorothea, the elder sister and Celia, the younger one. The reside at Tipton Grance near the town of Middle march secondly, there are the Vincy the father and head of the family is Mr. Walter Vincy, The elder son is Fred Vincy, the daughter is Rosamand Vincy and Mrs. Lucy Vincy, wife of Walter Vincy. The third one is the Garth family including Caleb Garth, Mary Garth, Mrs. Garth, Alfred Garth and Christy Garth. The fourth family is of Mr.EdwardCasaubon, a clergy and scholar, residing at Lowick Manour, and his cousin Ladislaw other important characters are Peter Featherstone, a rich miser who is the owner of stone court. Joshu Rigg, Nicholas Bultstrode a rich miser who is the owner of stone court. Joshu Rigg, Nicholas Bulstrode a rich banker his wife Harriet Bulstrode, Sir James Chettam, an amiable Baronet who marries Celia, and Tertius Lydgate a doctor of advanced views and an outsider in Middle March of the Minour character, the more important ones are Mr. and Mrs. Cadwallader Reverend Mr. Tykes the curate, Trumbull, the auctioneer etc. The list is a long one and it is by no means exhaustive or all inclusive.

·        TITLE

                   As the title suggest, the novel gives us a realistic, vivid and comprehensive picture of provincial life of England. The picture is such that if there is any hero in the novel it is the society of Middle march. The novelist remembers her early girlhood and this gives the picture of truthfulness and vividness of her portrait of provincial life. In the 1830’s provincial life was the same in every part of England for the railways had not yet destroyed rural isolation and seclusion. The action in the novel takes place in Middle march or the neighboring parishes of Tipton, Lawic or Freshets. A host of characters belonging to every profession, age group and walk of life have been brought in, and through their action and interactions life in a limited region Middle march and its environs has been faithfully recorded. As Quentin Anderson points out, “it is a landscape of opinion”, and not any natural landscape, which is dominant in the novel?

·        TRADITIONAL SOCIETY

                   The limited isolated community has certain well marked characteristics. Everything new or transformation is seen with suspension. Railways which are yet distant and far off are regarded as a threat to the agriculture and their conservative life style, class distinction are taken for granted and every class carries with it, its own privileges class difference protects a person, even when he or she behaves in a way inappropriate for the class to which he or she belongs shields her effectively. It never goes away from the mind of Mr. Brooke, or anybody else that his activities in favour of the reform Bill could work in the direction of reducing his hereditary privileges as a land owner. Nor does Lydgate see the slightest incongruity between his professional ambitions, his deep interest in science, and his traditional way of life.

·        FAMILY BACKGROUND

                   A.O.J.Cockshut says about the society of Middle march “Birth still counts for a good deal, but money is more important, the strength of the position of a man like Mr. Brooke is that he combines both advantages, and has never really been forced into the recognition that to advantages are separable”. In this society manly was everything. It was considered superior to the education George Eliot was aware of the merchant class hangering behind upper class people. Fred went far riding horse, trading and dull sporting dinners. To live as gentleman needed lots of money played an important role as to degrade the person’s morality. Status was given importance characters were eager to get rank in the society.

·        TRADE IN MIDDLE MARCH

                   Rosamond was attracted to wards Lydgate because of his Northumberland connections. The idea of professional status is not fully developed. There are also honest workmen who devoted themselves to their own trade Caleb Garth is one of that kind. “His classification of human employment was rather crude… He divided them into business, politics, preaching, learning and amusement. He had nothing to say against the last four; but he regarded them as a reverential pagan regarded other gods of their own. It is an irony that Fred Vincy disgusts his middle class father by taking work under this excellent business man, and the renouncing upper class ambition. Even Mr. Brooke does not like his two nieces tos meet the daughter of manufacture except on public occasions; his double standards are seen here.

·        WOMAN AND THE SOCIETY OF MIDDLE MARCH

                   Celia is an interesting representive of the kind of woman who is entirely happy with the feminine, nursery world. Their uncle as usual unconsciously expressed the conventional view with perfect exactness when he says to Casaubon Dorothea’s husband : “Get Dorothea to read few light things Smollett; Roderick Random, Humphrey clinker; they are a little broad, but she may read anything now she’s married you know.” Woman’s reading her public acts depends on the marital status. They are expected to obey and fall in line, as Mary Evans herself was expected to do as a girl. This society was transitional. The poor tenants raised their voice against their landlords. They demanded better conditions of living Mr. Hawley regards Mr. Brooke to be a –

“Damned bad landlord.”

Their feelings changed though the old order still continues.

·        CONFLICT IN THE TOWN

                   Old and new both existed in Middle march. Old was dominant but new was future. Religion was divided into two. One is the practical kindly, unidiomatic tradition of Anglicanism, the best representative of which is Mr.Farebrother. The other is vehement and fanatical, is loosely called EvangelicalBulstrode and Tyke represented this trend. In Middle march, the two sects are in conflict, and the order is suspicious of the new. A.O.J.Cokshu –

                   “The relations between the Evangelical and the old fashioned, decent, traditional Anglicanism are well given in the exchange between Mr.Vincy and Balustrade at the end of chapter 13. Mr.Vincy is asking Bulstrode to give Mr. Featherstone a certificate that Vincy’s son had not been borrowing money on the doubtful security of his expectations from Featherstone’s will. Balustrade accuses Vincy of “worldliness and inconsistent folly”, and asks how he can give a certificate in proof of a negative proposition about which he can have no certainly.”

                   For Mrs.Farebrother, Anglicanism is linked with class system –

                   “When I was youngs, Mr.Lydgate, there never was question about right and wrong. We knew our catechism and that was enough. We rearmed our creed and our duty every church parson had the same opinions.

·        MELANCHOLY IN MIDDLE MARCH

                   R.H.Hutton says, “It is a world not in sympathy with lofty aspirations, and to make this world convincing, and real, it was essential for her to give such a solidity and complexity to her picture of the world by which her hero’s and heroine’s idealism was to be more or less tested and partly subjugated as would justify the impression that she understood fully the character of the struggle. We doubt if any other novelist, whoever wrote could have succeeded equally well in this melancholy design, could have framed as complete a picture of English country and country town society with all its rigidities, jealousies and pettiness, with its through good nature, stereotyped habits at thought, and very limited accessibility to higher ideas and have threaded all these pictures together by a story, if not of the deepest interest still admirably fitted for its peculiar purpose of showing how euplastic in such an age as ours to the glowing emotion of an ideal purpose.”

·        THEMES IN THE NOVEL

                    There is the theme of the noble aspiration frustrated body by a repressive environment manner of opportunity and “The spots of commonness” in the character concerned. Dorothea and Lydgate are the two main characters who are frustrated in this way. There is also the theme of Theresa complex exemplified through the story of Dorothea who is said to be a self projection, an externalization of the Theresa complex in the novelist herself. The theme of self education is there in this novel. A depiction of the slow process through which a character sheds his ego and his delusions and attains spiritual regeneration and a better and filler life. Another theme is the clash of the old and the new, a depiction of how the past shapes the future and how the future is controlled and determined by present.

·        PLOT OF THE NOVEL

                   The novel’s plot is complicated. It is made up of four different stories.

[A]  Dorothea – Casaubon – Ladislaw story :-

                   Dorothea marries a man twice to herself. He dies within a year of their marriage. Dorothea inherits Casaubon’s property if she does not marry Ladislaw, Casaubon’s protégé. But in the end of the novel Dorothea takes right decision and marries will and thus disinherits Mr.casaubon’s property. She understood that her first decision was just lofty aspiration.

[B]  Rosamond – Lydgate story :-

                   Both married each other in false impression. Rosamond wanted to live extravagant life like upper class people where as Lydgate though was a doctor could not earn that much. Both left Middle march. Lydgate died later on Rosamond marries well to do physician and settles elsewhere.

[C]  Fred Vincy – Mary Garth story :-

                   Their childhood loves grows to maturity. Fred becomes a good person marries Mary, inherits his uncle’s previous estate and lives peacefully with his children. He and marry had to suffer a lot but things ended well.

[D]  Bulstrode’s Episode :-

                   His way of livelihood, the relation of his shady past and its consequences. He was blackmailed for past deeds.

                    There is also the story of miser Featherstone who made two wills and thus created fuss. These different stands were interwoven into an organic whole. Middle march like other novels has faults. The novel is full of pessimism, gloom and melancholy. There is also a character and incidents are concerned.

·        CONCLUSION

                   The novel has some weak points yet it can be called classic.

                  

           “The book is full of high feeling, wisdom and acuteness. It contains some of the most moving dramatic scenes on pure literature. A scene like that of Dorothea in her night of agony, a scene like that in which the greatness of her nature ennobles for a moment the smallness of Rosamond’s is consummate a like in conception and in style. The characters are admirable in their vigor and individuality, as well as in the vividness and fullness of illustration with which they are exhibited.”

                   It gives us a complete, realistic view of English provincial society in 1830’s and this setting is closely integrated with the four or five stories which form the plot of the novel. The result is an artistic harmony which makes “Middle march George Eliot’s greatest work, and says, Edith Simcox –

                   “It has scarcely a superior and very few equals in the whole range of English fiction.”