Meeting more characters can make my head whirl, until I noted some hints about their names that set me straight. Mr Bulstrode, local banker, barges his way into Middlemarch as a headstrong bull, spreading anxiety about who dares confront his judgments. He cannot boast family lineage, but he controls town finances and distances himself from the community with a superior, paternalistic attitude.
Friendly, sincere Mr Farebrother, rector of the parish, is not afraid to enjoy a game of whist or billiards, despite living in an era of small town evangelical customs. His tolerant behavior towards ‘the bull’ is as genuine as his devotion to his biological family of various single women. Referring to Bulstrode’s reason for disliking him, Mr Farebrother gives a direct response, without denigrating the banker’s nature, or being unkind.
Dr Lydgate enters the tale as a stranger to the village, immediately becoming an ideal linchpin for Eliot to weave her tale. The young physician appeals to Bulstrode and to the town, which counted on swallowing and assimilating him (p 154). But Lydgate’s ambition for medical reform, with an aim for the common good, confirms a distinctive quality about him (p 142). His plan of the future is to do good small work for Middlemarch, and great work for the world (p 149). Lydgate has a genuine interest in not only each patient as a person, but in their medical condition. Committed to both intellectual and practical pursuits, he pursues his goal of establishing a fever hospital. Early on, he faces the unwelcome dilemma of becoming involved in an election for hospital chaplain. Not wanting to make enemies, especially where medical reform might be concerned, he disregards the likeable Mr Farebrother and casts his very public vote for Mr Bulstrode’s choice. Lydgate’s impartial position continues to erode, when he makes mocking remarks to his colleagues about who is better qualified to be a coroner, the current lawyer or a modern doctor?
A lawyer is not better than an old woman at a post-mortem examination (p 157).
At this point, I was chuckling at such outbursts among civilized, educated, conventional men! Additionally, Lydgate’s youth and masculinity provide the obligatory romantic unfolding. Will his infatuation for certain women permit the survival of his dedication to a work ethic?
Rosamund, beautiful rose and cunning sweetheart, attracts the vulnerable doctor with her feminine charms. Her small feet and perfectly turned shoulders (p 158) blind him to the vulgarity of Rosamund’s mother. Further premonitions surface from her aunt Bulstrode, who…had two sincere wishes for Rosamund- that she might show a more serious turn of mind, and that she might meet with a husband whose wealth corresponded to her habits. (p 167) Sadly, this reminds me of the first disastrous marriage in Book 1, except now I am cheering for the potential groom in question.
A ‘swinging gate’ points to Lydgate’s position among the “Old and the New” members of Middlemarch society, and his facility to forge new links amongst them. He threatens shallow, professional identities (an older doctor’s ‘expert’ reputation based on a 30 year old calf-bound treatise on meningitis chapter 16). Romance may turn out to be his undoing, which reminds me of Dorothea, whose unwelcome realization of marriage to a dreary and self-serving elderly husband, contrasts sharply with energetic, handsome Will Ladislaw, who pays attention to her.
George Eliot’s keen analysis of human behaviour keeps me engaged and curious; I can imagine when the novel first appeared, and her readers had to wait between publications of the 8 books within Middlemarch. No electronic media to distract conversations about the story line… much as the ‘Downton Abbey’ series unites us today.
I at least have so much to do in unraveling certain human lots, and seeing how they were woven and interwoven, that all the light I can command must be concentrated on this particular web, and not dispersed over that tempting range of relevancies called the universe. (p 141)
I am beginning to comprehend Virginia Woolf’s comment about ‘this novel for grown-ups’. Eliot pours her whole imaginative self and intellect into a range of characters that inhabits a small area of England, giving enough time and opportunity for the reader to experience life at its full. My own sense of empathy, as well as delight in the author’s wit, is prodded into action. I am grateful for the challenge.
Tudy Hill