All good things must come to an end, even if we wish they could go on forever. All season must end to give birth to a new season. All of childhood must end so a person can open a new chapter in their life. School must end, but learning never does. All stories must end not all have happy endings. Middlemarch did end with a few more twists than one would expect in a nineteenth century novel.

It was surprising that even though Rosamond was married, she had a sort of forbidden romantic feelings for Mr. Ladislaw that she thought were reciprocated. She seemed to think that Mr. Ladislaw was going to whisk her away from Middlemarch and her husband. Her hasty marriage and engagement was a really bad idea when she decided to marry Mr. Lydgate. Even when Mr. Lydgate was able to pay off his financial debt by borrowing money from Mr. Bulstrode he had a high social price to pay. The people in town ostracized Mr. Lydgate. It is in bad taste to borrow money even if you will pay it back.

The citizens of Middlemarch feel that Mrs. Bulstrode is trapped in a horrible marriage since they think that Mr. Bulstrode killed John Raffles by disregarding Mr. Lydgate’s advice while Mr. Bulstrode took care of him.

Then there is Dorothea’s problem. She had to go and encourage Rosamond not to leave Middlemarch since Rosamond keeps urging Mr. Lydgate to do so due to the fact she is embarrassed and cannot wait to get out. However Dorothea sees Rosamond and Ladislaw in a compromising position and feels embarrassed and leaves rather hastily. Ladislaw can’t help, but goes after Dorothea and tells her that he has no interest in Rosamond.

In the end even though Dorothea looses all of her land that she actually hates she marries Ladislaw and they decide to live off of her 700 pounds a year and know that they will be happy together. Celia feels like her sister betrayed her since Dorothea told Celia she will never get married again. Dorothea does have a son and since Chettam has decided to cut off contact Celia feels hopeless since she will never know her nephew. She also feels like they should forgive her, but I think Chettam is jealous that she married Casaubon and then married Ladislaw while he had to marry her sister.

Fred finally got to marry Mary. He also eventually got a very profitable business working in land and did not have to go into the church. Mary also wrote a book of children’s stories and was the only one in the whole book who actually got a book published.

Mr. Lydgate ended up having a profitable practice and dying at 50 of diphtheria. Then Rosamond was left with her children and ends up marrying an old rich physician. She never got away from doctors; her second husband also loved all of her children. Unfortunately, Mr. Casaubon never got his dream realized of publishing his out of date book.

Julia Rogan