George Eliot's novel Adam Bede

This paper will discuss George Eliot's novel Adam Bede. This novel gives a beautifully descriptive picture of life in a rural English village at the turn of the eighteenth century. The village of Hayslope is an idyllic setting of abundant farmlands populated by simple, good-natured country people. The romanticism of the setting is enhanced by the fact that the story takes place in the past; George Eliot's narrator informs the reader as such in the very first sentence of the novel. Furthermore, the narrator allows the reader to believe that this is a true story of which she is attempting "to give a faithful account," despite the fact that "the mirror is doubtless defective; the outlines will sometimes be disturbed, the reflection faint or confused; but I feel as much bound to tell you as precisely as I can what that reflection is, as if I were in the witness-box, narrating my experience on oath" (174). Adam Bede and the other characters are purported to be real people who the narrator knows personally, and she even goes so far as to state that the story was told to her by the actual parties involved: "I gathered from Adam Bede, to whom I talked of these matters in his old age . . . " (178). In fact, George Eliot's characters are so expertly drawn that they seem like real people, and the drama of the novel is greatly heightened by the reader's feeling of identification with the characters involved.

From the very opening of the novel, Adam Bede is shown to be a r

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f she encourages him at all, it is because of her own vanity; "she felt nothing, when his eyes rested on her, but the cold triumph of knowing that he loved her and would not care to look at Mary Burge" (104). While Adam dreams of creating a wonderful life with Hetty, she has no intention of marrying him. Although Adam is clearly the best man available in the village, Hetty "saw him as he was - a poor man, with old parents to keep, who would not be able, for a long while to come, to give her even such luxuries as she shared in her uncle's house. And Hetty's dreams were all of luxuries" (104). This materialistic nature is Hetty's greatest flaw. Her desire for luxury leads her to foolishly become involved in a secret love affair with Arthur Donnithorne. Although she imagines that the young Captain Donnithorne will someday marry her and make her a wealthy woman, the envy of all her peers, he has as little intention of marrying her as she has of marrying Adam Bede. Arthur Donnithorne clearly feels some kind of love for Hetty, as he can barely keep himself away from her, but he is far more realistic about the affair, and knows in his heart that "no gentleman, out of a ballad, could marry a farmer's niece" (140). He convinces him

Category: Literature - G