George Eliot's novel Middlemarch provides a complex analysis of human nature by portraying the characters and their psychological motivations in a provincial English town in the 19th century. The document discusses how Eliot is able to use literature to study human beings and provide insights into their characters through her penetrating and clear writing style that reveals the secret motivations behind their actions. Middlemarch is praised as both a microcosm of Victorian society and for its insightful examination of how character is a process.