The shocker of all shocker Celia’s engagement to Sir James Chettam, I did not see this coming. When Sir James was introduced by Eliot he was fascinated by Dorothea and her ideas, Celia explained that Sir James would be the best choice for Dorothea in terms of marriage because of his love. The marriage between Celia and Sir James is a shocker because I did not believe they would get married to each other. I do not know how I would feel if  the man I am about to married was once in love or even fascinated by my sister. I wonder what led to this mutual consent between the two, did they realize that with Dorothea out the way they final saw what was in front of them.

 

The fact that Featherstone had two wills made up, leads me to question why he needed two and why he wanted to burn one. This was not a shocker but still, the fact that Featherstone was on his death bed and everyone was arguing about his wealthy. Did anyone really care about this old man? I cannot imagine how sad it would be to know that the people surrounding you, mostly family, only care about your wealth and trying to inherit it. The shocker that everyone received by Featherstone was that he did not leave anything to Fred, and he had a son- although illegitimate, but still a son. It makes me wonder if he had a son and was thinking of leaving everything to him why did he make people fight over his wealth and how could no one know about this son.

 

The Brooke’s: It is very important to talk about the Brooke’s house, not just their house but the location in which their house resides. The fact that they can watch Featherstone’s funeral from inside their house speak so much about their wealth and their position within this community. It seems as if Mr. Brooke is somewhat overlooked in their status within the community. Eliot talks about Bulstrode and his control over the community because he controls everyone’s finance and his use of this for personal gain. But I do not believe Eliot has yet talked about Mr. Brooke’s role or control within the community. Brooke is an erratic man who is all over the place with his ideas and you can never understand his train of thought but I never did understand his place.

 

The betrayal between Mr. Brooke and Dorothea is something that should be analyze or even pay close attention to. I cannot say this was a misunderstanding at all between the two characters, Dorothea specifically asked her uncle to respond to Ladislaw and tell him not to come. The fact that Brooke ignored Dorothea took it upon himself to personal invite Ladislaw and hide him speak louder than anything else.In this sense I believe Mr. Brooke really only cares about his opinions and his feelings, he did not stop to think about how this might come off to other people or even affect his niece. If he really thought about it, he would have understood why Dorothea refuse to invite Ladislaw to Middlemarch, he could have even gone out of his way to have either Casaubon explain why this might be a bad time. This I believe will lead to a huge misunderstanding between Dorothea and Casaubon.

 

Dorothea and Casaubon: This is a couple that I believe was not a good fit with each other and the belief that Casaubon did not care one bit about Dorothea. In this book, I saw something that have lead me to revise my words, Casaubon in his own way cares about Dorothea. His belief that he needs to protect her from Ladislaw, the fact that he is insecure in his relationship with his wife is a huge show of affection (my belief) that he cares. It is sad to say that he does not trust his wife and believe she is conspiring against him. His lack of trust lays on his shoulder, he locks himself away in a library and barely communicates with his wife. Dorothea on one hand has too many people in her head, she is believing everything everyone (Will!) is telling her except her husband. The lack of trust, communication and listening to each other can be their downfall.

 

 

Keulesia Webley-Sewell