The document summarizes George Eliot's novel Middlemarch. It discusses several key themes and characters in the novel. Middlemarch depicts marriage and relationships in Victorian England, showing how societal expectations often led to disappointment and unhappiness rather than the idealized romantic notions of marriage. It provides critiques of patriarchal society, class differences, and the lack of choices available to women. None of the marriages in the novel have perfectly happy endings. The novel addresses moral issues of the time and aims to have serious discussion rather than just provide entertainment.

1. M. K. BHAVNAGAR UNIVERSITY
The Victorian Literature P- 6
Roll No: 2
Presented by : Bhumi V Joshi.

2. Victorian Age
•An era of peace
•Conflict between science and
religion
•Material Development
•Intellectual Development
•The revolt
•International influences
•The achievement of the age
•Pessimism , Optimism, Idealism

3. Victorian Society
Victorian morality is a distillation
of the views of people living at the time of
Queen Victoria’s reign and of the moral
climate of the which contrasted greatly
with the morality of the previous
The morality & values of the
period can be classed to Religion ,
Morality, Elitism , industrialism &
improvement. These values take root
in Victorian morality, creating an
overall change in the British Empire.

4. Victorian morality can be described any set of
values that espouse sexual restraint, low tolerance
of crime and s strict social code of conduct.
The Victorian society is influenced by
depiction of an ideal love affair.
Eliot demonstrate how the
power of human relationships
must be understood ethically.

6. Novel is about relationship – love , Master-
slave , Marxist , hatred, feminism.
“ Eliot’s novel is one of the few English
novels for grown up people.”
- Virginia Woolf

7. About Middlemarch……
.
Middlemarch is about the
process of understanding the
experiences and perceptions of
others, and of suffering through
self – deception and
disillusionment, social
positioning, class- consciousness
and the ambition for self-
improvement with its
concomitants, education and
money.

8. Good Etiquettes….
For women ,
There were rules about what
kind of jewelry one should wear as well as
when and where . Who to walk with , who to
dance with, how and when to speak to
stranger, were all very critical knowledge.

9. Marriages
Marriage - pursuit of central which concern in Middlemarch but
is not ultimate source of Happiness.
Dorothea Brooke

10. Dorothea- lady of fairy tale
Matrimonial life of character
wants love , rejection of wealth.
Need emotional security rather
than property
Failed marriage because of her
Youth and her disillusions about
marrying a much older.
Run away with Ladislaw

11. Rosamond vincy
Different perspective
looking towards marriage
Single rigid perspective

12. Does morality depends on outer look ?
Class differences
Her sensational
behavior
“ Beauty without brain ”

13. Lydgatet’s marriage fails because of
irreconcilable personalities.
Fred Vincy and Mary
Garth also face a great
deal of hardship in
making their union.
Mr. & Mrs. Bulstrode also face a marital crisis
due to his inability to tell her the past.

14. None of marriages, reach a perfect fairytale
ending, offers a clear critique of the usual
portrayal of marriage as romantic and
unproblematic.
“Patriarchal society didn’t allow
woman to have the same privileges as
men.”

15. Man and woman searched for
an ideal relationship based on
expectations of demanding
society.

16. Other issues……
Debt and Borrowing Money
Lack of Morality
Greedy & Money minded people
“ Angle of the House” – the
treatment of the women
Darker aspects of mankind.

17.  Goodness is futile
 AS a individual human being , they
fail, lacking of flexibility.
“ The moral has already put on
immorality.”
Emily Dickinson

18. WE may conclude that Eliot’s describes all
negativities of the age and through the
points of negative sides , she leads reader to
the morality of life.
So, we firmly say that, “ Eliot’s novel is not
primarily for entertainment, but for the
serious discussion of moral issues.”