Relationships in Middlemarch

While many are put off by the sheer size of Eliot's novel Middlemarch, even the BBC drama totaling at roughly seven fifty minute long episodes, the novel is essential as a case study of  rural middle-class Victorians in the midst of vast progression and rapid industrialisation. At this point, social mobility is also growing rapidly with birth no longer determining one's status in society. There is no longer a single coherent religious order and Science and the Darwinian theory are casting religious doubt.

The novel's subtitle 'A Study of Provincial Life' casts a light on what would otherwise be an entangled web of several lives and sub plots with perhaps little coherence. This is a case study on on a selected community of nineteenth century, unknown people and how wider social transformations are represented by these individuals. The novel is written forty years after the setting within the text and so it is looking back, perhaps on occasion with nostalgia at the brink of the change which Eliot would be living in.

One of the most interesting aspects of the novel is the marital relationships between the characters. We have two figure head women in the novel, Dorothea and Rosamund who both marry for the wrong reason and in consequence suffer in unhappy marriages. Dorothea desires real knowledge which society at the time denies her, preferring women to learn menial tasks for amusement with marriage being the main goal. She has progressive ideas and spends her time designing cottages and demonstrating her altruistic nature. She avoids life's pleasures and prefers a spiritual or academic state, examples include her refusal to horse ride despite it being a hobby of hers or denying her mother's jewels even though she finds them beautiful. Her marriage to Casaubon is based on a desire  for self improvement  Casaubon is a late middle-aged scholar who is embarking on a fruitless academic pursuit on finding the key to all Mythology.
Something which is stated in the novel had been achieved by the Germans (in German higher criticism) sometime ago.

 Dorothea desires from her marriage, to be brought to his level of scholarly intellect but finds out that once married Casubon jealously guards his knowledge and desires her to undertake simple tasks rather than letting her learn Greek and Latin which she desires. The selfish character of Casubon is proven to be less than what he appears in that he never actually writes anything and is very poor company for Dorothea. He enters a clause in to this final will upon his death that if Dorothea marries his cousin Ladislaw, with whom Dorothea has formed an acquaintance, then she will be inherited. Indicating his desire to control and limit Dortohea even after his death.

Rosamund, is a very different character to Dorothea although ultimately makes similar mistakes when embarking upon marriage. Rosamund represents 'new money' as opposed to Dorothea's refined , understated 'old money' lifestyle. Rosamund marries Lydgate, who arrives to Middlemarch with great ideas of progression. he wishes to open a pioneering hospital in the town which will treat fever.
 He spends, like Casaubon, much of his time researching but his plans also never come to fruition due to living beyond his means. Rosamund is the beauty of the town and has recently completed finishing school, representing a very different sort of education to what Dorothea desires for herself. She marries the doctor for his connections, lifestyle and the glamour of his novelty in Middlemarch. She uses her 'womanly wiles' and eventually the doctor finds himself married to her after taking pity on her pining tears. Rosamund's lifestyle however, drags Lydgate in to debt as he constantly wishes to please her and keep her living in the comforts she was accustomed to. Eventually she gets her wish and Lydgate gives up his research to become a London practitioner.

These parallels between the two very different relationships show the modern issues which progression can bring upon individuals. When looking at Casubon and Lydgate we also see represented the Victorian idea of 'applied knowledge', knowledge which is for a purpose rather than just for the sake of it.
Casubon's work is utterly pointless and trying to achieve the perfection he desires leads him to waste his life never publishing. Comparatively,  Lydgate's desire to investigating the very building blocks of life instead of focusing on patients also leads him to failure.
 Additionally, Dorothea who has a talent for plans and architecture desires classical knowledge where her skills would be best placed to learn subjects suited to this end. Fred who has a university education but has no strong wish to enter the clergy finds himself getting in to debt and failing at most things he turns his mind to until he becomes an apprentice and learns a practical skills where he finds success and finally earns the hand of the woman he loves.

These interesting topics are but a few exemplified in the novel which has its merit as one of the most detailed texts of Victorian life in the midst of significant change.