Gender issues and class discrimination in

MiddlemarchVanita p. Tadha

MA Sem :- 2 Roll No. :- 30Course No. 6 :- The Victorian Literature

Enrolment No. :- Pg14101029 Email ID : - tadhavanita90@gmail.comSubmitted to :- Department of English,

M. K. Bhavnagar University

George Eliot

Born :- Mary Ann Evans 22 November 1819Died :- 22 December 1880 (aged 61)Country :- EnglandSeries :- 1871–72Genre :-Novel Social criticismPublication Date :-1874 (first one-vol. ed.)Notable works The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), Middlemarch (1871–72),  Daniel Deronda (1876)

Middlemarch Middlemarch is a study of provincial life and the

scene is laid in the provincial town of Middlemarch in the first half of the 19th century in England.

It is a love story principally dealing with the affairs of Dorothea Brook and Miss Rosamond Vincy ending in despaired.

The novel center around two failures which are the central of the novel.

The main themes, include the status of women, the nature of marriage, idealism, self interest, religion, hypocrisy, political reform, and education. The pace is leisurely, the tone is mildly didactic

Plot of the novel

It is made up of four different stories

A] Dorothea – Casaubon-Ladislaw

B] Rosamond – Lydgate story

C] Fred Vincy – Mary Garth story

D] Bulstrode’s episode

Gender and class discrimination

The novel can be read as female subjugation in the patriarchal system.

It is revolves around the gender issues in the society.

The theme of artificial class distinction and the them of artificial gender distinction . The personification of both these inequalities by Casaubon.

Like Dorothea, Lydget is also the central of the novel. He led down to the path to failure because he has internalized both of these artificial construct..

The feminist critic Patricia Meyer Spacks and Deborah Kaplan says that the novel criticizes patriarchal values and practices.

Women not hopeless and helpless. The contrast between Vincy family and the

Garth family. The Vincy family represents falseness of aristocratic pretention whereas the Garth family represents the sort of simple morality that is free from class distraction.

Very realistic but sometimes artificial world of Victorian society. Like old Hindi movies.

Women in the society of Middlemarch

This society wast transitional. The poor tenants raised their voice against their landlords.

The novel is about Dorothea’s role as a woman.

Celia is an interesting representative of the kind of woman, who is entirely happy with the feminine world.

Mary’s character – painless & virtue, honesty truth telling fairness. She never tried to create illusion and not greedy.

Traditional society The limited isolated community has certain

well – marketed characteristics. Everything is new or transformation in seen

with suspension. Class distinction are taken for granted and

every class caries with it, its own privileges. Eliot shows scientific technique. The Great Reform Bill, the beginnings of the

railways, the death of King George IV, and the succession of his brother, the Duke of Clarence (who became King William IV).

The novel center around two failures. They are involved in to the struggle to make the world beautiful but they fail. Here, the them of the novel is the search for good and meaningful work.

Thank you…