It is only as a historian that he [the author] has the smallest locus standi. As a narrator of fictional events, he is nowhere to be found. --Henry James Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Marriage is a great institution, but I'm not ready to be institutionalized. --May WestOne of George Eliot's challenges in Middlemarch is to represent a sexually desirous woman, Dorothea, within the confines of Victorian literary decorum. The critic, Abigail Rischin, identifies the moment when Dorothea's future husband, Ladislaw, and his painter friend see her next to a partially nude ancient statue of the mythical heroine Ariadne, in a museum in Rome, as the key to the Eliot's sexualization of this character. character. Arianna is, in the sculpture, between her two lovers. Theseus, whom she helped escape from her father's labyrinth in Crete, has already left her, while the jubilant god, Bacchus, her next lover, has yet to arrive. “Invoking the quiet visual rhetoric of ancient sculpture,” writes Rischin, “George Eliot is able to represent the erotic female body far more explicitly than the Victorian conventions of… language would allow… Juxtaposing the statue with Dorothea , Eliot shows Dorothea's erotic potential." Here, Eliot uses an allusion to another type of fiction to fully illustrate her heroine and give her emotions that Victorian women were not supposed to possess. Next, Eliot, the omniscient narrator of the novel, uses a parable to explain his theory of perspectivism. . He compares the self-centered characters of his creation to candles, who all see "concentric" patterns of events ("scratches" in the parable) develop around them because their vision ("light") extends only so far in each direction ; not because, as they think, events revolve around them (chap. 27). J. Hillis Miller, in "Optic and Semiotic in 'Middlemarch'", explains the etymology of the word "parable", a word that Eliot herself uses in the middle of the story, saying: "It means 'to set aside,' .. . A parable is placed or cast at some distance from the meaning which controls it and to which it refers obliquely or parabolically." Eliot's decision to consciously use a parable is reminiscent of his allusion to the ancient statue. Unable to fully explain something on his own, Eliot uses literary devices to displace the content and clothe it so the reader can swallow the meaning. Sir Thomas Browne's definition of "satire," which Eliot includes at the beginning of chapter 45, further goes on to acknowledge Eliot's awareness of the "displacement" (as Miller puts it) literary tact he employs in describing ideas with which his reader would otherwise it wouldn't feel comfortable, like his female sexual character or his complex theory about perspective. "Without the help given and the satire of times gone by;" reads Browne's quote, "condemning the vices of one's own times [past times], by the expression of vices in times they praise [present times]... [Satirists] cannot help but support the vice community in both" (422). A little earlier, Eliot gives the definition more subtly in the words of Mr. Brooke, Dorothea's father: "Satire, you know," he states, "ought to be true to a certain extent" (369). Middlemarch itself is written in the context in which it occurred some 40 years earlier (1832) up to the moment in which the narrator herself finds herself (1871). Arguably, Eliot formulates his criticism of the town of Middlemarch in such a way as to reflect on the current state of affairs in England. An example of Eliot's own overt use of satire innovel is found at the beginning of chapter 35 when he compares people of Middlemarch to the animals that boarded the biblical Noah's Ark, saying: "It may be imagined [that] kindred species would have made many private observations about each other." (318). He is highlighting the ridiculousness of Middlemarch's citizens' gossip circles by shifting the same issues to a religious story. On an even higher level, however, Eliot is probably commenting on the propensity for gossip in then-modern England among his own readers. By rendering her fictional historical characters flawed, Eliot avoids direct confrontation with these readers, who superficially intuit that she is not judging them, but rather only her literary inventions; on a deeper level, however, they presumably see similarities with each other and, for example, with Mrs. Cadwallader. Once again, we see Eliot distance himself from the actual topic he is discussing so that he can maintain his reader's attention and trust. As Miller says in another of his essays dealing with Middlemarch, "Fiction and History," Eliot "proposes a vision of the writing of history [fiction] as an act of repetition in which the present takes possession of the past and liberates it for a present purpose." By using all three of these tools: allusion, parable, and satire, Eliot is able to convey ideas and criticisms that would otherwise be difficult to convey without alienating his audience. George Eliot, however, does not simply condemn obviously bad things like gossiping in Middlemarch. He also uses the forum to make a political criticism of the institution of marriage. For this, Eliot does not use any of the standard literary devices, such as the ones I have just outlined, but maintains his method of displacement ("putting aside"). She draws implicit parallels between hot political topics, including slavery and serfdom discussed by the book's characters and the compromised position of married women. Public opinion on slavery in 1833 (the time in which the action of the novel takes place) must have been quite negative since it was abolished in the British Empire that year. Rischin says, in his essay on Dorothea's resemblance to Ariadne, "The narrator does not make explicit the parallels between the sculpture and the living woman." Likewise, the narrator never overtly invites the reader to associate his probably sympathetic views on the emancipation of royal slaves with the rights of married women. But the connection is certainly implicit in the metaphorical language used by Eliot. The novel's central heroine, Dorothea, goes through two marriages over the course of the book, which takes place over about three years. In the first of these marriages, to a much older, probably impotent man named Causabon, she plays the role of a slave. Speaking of Causabon, Dorothea cleverly notes that "obligation," as Causabon imposes on her, "can be stretched until it becomes no better than a mark of slavery pressed upon us when we were too young to understand its meaning" (376, italics added). Likewise, he describes that being with Casaubon has "locked his best soul in prison, paying her only secret visits" (410, emphasis added). Even after her death, Casaubon manages to keep his "dead hand" in her life through the threat of taking away her inheritance, on which she largely depends financially. If the reader is willing to agree that slavery is wrong, as they most likely would be given the time period and opinions of the characters in Middlemarch, then they should also agree that keeping Dorothea subservient is wrong. When Dorothea marries Ladislaw, regardless of the resulting loss of her fortune,he clearly has a better and more equal marriage with someone he loves and has a physical union with, but he is still the junior member of that union. Indeed, his place resembles the "hereditary farmer" on Mr. Brooke's land, Mr. Dagley. This kind of “man was free to leave if he wished, but…there was no earthly 'beyond' available to him” if he did (382). The sarcastic way the narrator describes the farmer's theoretical options shows that in reality the farmer is just another kind of slave. Unfortunately, Dorothea's position as "wife and mother" with Ladislaw ultimately resembles that of Mr. Dagley eerily. “Many of those who knew her [Dorothea],” says the Finale, “thought it was a pity such a substantial and rare creature should have been absorbed into the life of another… But no one said exactly what else was in his power should rather have done" (793). For both, there is an illusion of freedom in actual slavery, Eliot appeals to the reader's sense that slavery is wrong and tries to proceed from there towards the fate of married women. Both suffer from what Eliot calls "the humiliation of dependence" (648). -the victim-plagued political issue discussed in the novel, capital punishment, also applies to Dorothea's life and Mr. Brooke, Dorothea's uncle, is both against it (373) meanwhile Dorothea seems to succumb to it in her relationships stifling Sir James is “convinced that…marriage [is] fatal to Dorothea,” speaking specifically of her second to Ladislaw (778). And the literary critic Miller agrees when he states that Dorothea "almost [made] a fatal mistake by marrying Casaubon." The punishment of the Capitol is in a sense another form of slavery, for it is a way of excluding a person from adequate participation in society. Ladislaw is the spokesperson for these liberal political views that are dominant in the novel. The critic, Terry Eagleton, calls Ladislaw's position "an attempt to integrate liberal ideology" into the work, while Suzanne Graner agrees, saying, "Will is a reformer himself." The character, Mr. Brooke, labels Ladislaw as having “enthusiasm for freedom, independence [and] emancipation” (346). Interestingly, “it is undeniable,” the narrator states, “that but for the desire to be where Dorothea was… Will would not… have pondered the needs of the English people or criticized English politics.” (441). Rosamond, who, in many ways is Dorothea's opposite, being selfish, vain, and "willing to admonish her husband" (792), is the second of Middlemarch's heroines. Unlike Dorothea, Rosamond consolidates her submission by being obsessed with the slave-master relationship herself and wanting to be dominant. One of her first thoughts when she begins to imagine her future husband, Dr. Lydgate, is that "it would be peculiarly pleasant to enslave him" (116). “What a pleasure to make prisoners the throne of marriage with a husband as crown prince at your side – himself indeed a subject” (417). The reason she is so quick to cling to the idea of ​​this kind of relationship is that she is a model member of society, at the top of her class. It internalizes the processes that are normal and perpetuates them. Thus, she herself ends up being subjected to painful slavery when Lydgate loses face. Dorothea summarizes Lydgate's feelings on the matter to Rosamond, saying that "her marriage was obviously an attachment" and that one must "always walk in fear of hurting another who is attached to us" (757, emphasis added). Rosamond is "tied" to her husband and must bear the consequences of all his actions. In an attempt to subjugate him to herself, she has them. 1121-1132.