Middlemarch: Realism and Symbolic Form Author(s): Brian Swann Reviewed work(s): Source: ELH, Vol. 39, No.

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MIDDLEMARCH:
BY BRIAN SWANN

REALISM AND SYMBOLIC FORM

I SYMBOLIC

FORM:

GENERAL

SURVEY

Unity in essenceis multiplicity existence. in 1 (Feuerbach,Essence of Christianity)

"Middlemarch a treasure-house details,but it is an inis of different whole." HenryJamescould not see the one quality whichall of GeorgeEliot's criticstoday are agreedon: the amazingunification meaning of and sensibility Middlemarch. in James, however, had alreadydecidedin Partial Portraits that and when he GeorgeEliot's bent was peculiarly intellectual, came to writehis reviewof the novel forThe Galaxy,he did " not meet the new novel as a new experience. Certainly the greatest minds have the defects their of qualities, and as George Eliot'smindis preeminently and contemplative analytic, nothing is morenaturalthan that hermanner shouldbe discursive and expansive.'Concentration'would doubtless have deprived us of manyof the best things the book. . . . 2 Blackwoodhad in " used the word" panorama in discussing and James Felix Holt,3 uses the same wordwhenhe asks " It is not compact; when but was a panorama compact?" He concludes 1873 review his with thesewords: " It sets a limit, think, the development we to of theold-fashioned novel.Its diffuseness, which have English on we makesit too copiousa doseofpurefiction. we write If touched, "' novelsso, howshallwe write History? James raisedan important has point. The old-fashioned novel a in and didindeed reach climax Middlemarch couldgo no further, but not forthereasonJames gives,as we shallsee laterin more detail. At thispointwe shouldnotethat George Eliot as social
"

(London, 1854), p. 46. 2 Henry James, The Galaxy, 15 (1873), 424-25. 'John Blackwood to George Eliot, 24 April 1868, in The George Eliot Letters, ed. Gordon S. Haight (New Haven, 1954), IV, 243.
4

' Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach, The Essence of Christianity, trans. Marian Evans

The Galaxy,p. 428.

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historian all the whilean artistattempting forms art is of new in which embody vision.Contemporary to her nineteenth-century criticism simply equippedto deal in critical was not terminology withthat George Eliot was doingin hergreatest novel.5Today, we are stillgroping terms describe workwhichstaysso for to a closeto thetumultuous surface lifeitself of that CalvinBedient " in effect, vehicle, medium, can claimthatMiddlemarch is all all all transparency:dead to itself a novel that " wears no "; aesthetic garment, only the hair shirtof the world." Such an approachwhichdeprecates the " formalmining" of Barbara Hardy and her associatesas being" a littlelike counting the changeat FortKnox,"leavesus witha feeling dissatisfaction. of For Middlemarch not a slice of life (" the bare beauty of is veracity"),noris it trueto say that" nothing George in Eliot's othernovelsprepares forits strong 6 us achievement." Only if one insists a simplistic on approachsuch as Mr. Bedient'scan onemakeout a case for Middlemarch sui generis. as willbe as If, arguedlater,one sees the real uniqueness the novel,thenone of also observes thatthe poetictexture related the realism is to of The Mill on theFloss,forexample, FelixHolt,or evenAdam or Bede. In otherwords,thereis a vivid imagination work at whichhas its eye on the object and on relatedobjects-an " "esemplastic imagination. The traditional oflooking sucha structure beenin way at has termsof organicunity.7GeorgeEliot herself was constantly referring this aesthetic to In principle. a letterto JohnBlackinstance, declines makea change wood,for she to thatLeweshad in suggested the Middlemarch "I manuscript. don't see how I " can leave anything out," she writes, becauseI hope thereis nothing thatwillbe seento be irrelevant mydesign, to is which to show the gradualactionof ordinary causes ratherthan exand to showthis in some directions ceptional, whichhave not timeimmemorial beaten the beenfrom path-the Cremorne walks
' Many of the leadingjournalsfoundthemselves baffled the book, or praisedit by forthe wrongreasons. See, forexample,The Spectator (2 December1871), 1458-60; Atheneum(2 December1871), 713-14; Quarterly Review, 134 (April,1873), 336-69; The Times (7 March 1873). FredericHarrison mightseem to be George Eliot's readerfrom the evidenceof a letterhe wrotein 1866 (Letters, 284-85), in perfect IV, whichhe discussesFelix Holt in termsof a poem. ' Calvin Bedient," Middlemarch:TouchingDown," Hudson Review,22 (1969), 71. 7 For a briefand cogent introduction to the topic of organicunity,see Richard Stang, The Theoryof the Novel in England,1850-1870 (London, 1959), pp. 134-35.

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essence of Middlemarch, a novel which includes and transmutes this ancient Aristotelian ideal of organicism. George Eliot herself provides a clue in the above quotation. She intends to take " directions which have not been from time immemorial the beaten path," and in 1863 she had told Richard Holt Hutton that " It is the habit of my imagination to strive after as full a vision of the medium in which a character moves as of the character itself."9 In this letter, George Eliot puts her failure in Romola down to " excess." The " vision " had been too " full." In Mliddlemarch,however, George Eliot realized her ambition. The concept of organic unity has not so much changed as become more subtle and inclusive. Almost every important word findsits sum of meaning increased to the pitch of symbolism, and the most helpful concept for understandingthe enormous richness of Middleimarch that I have found is Kenneth Burke's notion of " symbolic action." Before we can discuss its value in detail, however, a word on what we mean by the terms realism and symbolism in the novel, especially in a novel which came well before symbolism,having pervaded poetry, conquered drama and the novel by being " discreetly camouflaged under a deliberate show of realism." 10 Ursula Brumm has pointed out that the novel is a product of historicism and therefore " agnostic, sceptical, empirical, and secular."1 Along this line of reasoning, therefore,she claims that the novel was originally anti-symbolic," for it is opposed to the entire class of elements to which the symbol belongs. The realistic novel owes its origin to rejecting the paradigms that had for centuries determinedliteraryforms: fable, legend, myth, and the traditional, typical stories and characters from the storehouse of world literature that were constantly being reworked (i. e., the 'archetypes' that have become so popular again today) .12 It is hard to agree with such a selective approach, forit ignores
' 8 August 1863, Letters, IV, 97. (Summer, 1 Ursula Brumm, " Symbolism and the Novel," Partisan Review, 25 1958), 329. "L" Symbolism and the Novel," p. 330. 12 cc Symbolism and the Novel," p. 331.
8 24 July 1871, Letters, V, 168.

8 and shows fiction." The concept organic of of unity had become a commonplace GeorgeEliot by the time she wrotethis for sentence. mustlookelsewhere therealand fresh We for aesthetic

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theactualworkings theartistic of mind.Even Robinson Crusoe, of that" just history fact,"is structured of rounda wholeseries symbolic autobioincidents which, whileanchored spiritual in graphy, floatfreeinto the archetypal. The statement applies Eliot. It is toosimplistic saythatthenovel evenlessto George to is merely concerned and that with" theindividual idiosyncratic, is, the particular its particular in circumstances, reality with as experienced the individual constituting onlygenuine by as the version reality." one,thecoreofGeorge of For Eliot'sphilosophic position thatthevoracious mustaccommodate is ego itself the to of others.For another, needs thereis a stagein her novelsin which,as she told FredericHarrison, generalidea is more a important than " the individual and idiosyncratic," (we re'3 member Henry James observed that had that" sheproceeds from theabstract theconcrete ." She aimedat a balancebetween to ") the two forces, and had set aside The SpanishGypsybecause "it was in thatstageof Creation 'Werden,' which idea or in the of the characters predominated the incarnation." over '5 Despitemydisagreement Miss Brumm, is she,however, with it who approaches position wouldlike to developwhenshe the I writeson Ippolito Nievo's forgotten of masterpiece mid-nineteenthcentury, Confessions an Octoqenarian.She asserts of that " the greatnineteenth-century is not the product novel of an imagination in working symbolic terms.It is a representation oflife, nota symbolic but representation."Miss Brumm '6 shows that,in fact,Nievo's novel cannothelp becoming symbolic a representation meaning.Details of the castle of Frata are of in "components which forms shape" theempirical the that reality and visible.Fromthispointof viewthey "concentrate become are seen to concretize meaning the in sought reality."That is. thecastlecomes a closeto being symbol. MissBrumm As admits, " theconcrete particular and thecastleis of expression theideas and and forces thatshapethereality, as suchit can assumethe of functions a symbol.The outstanding difference between such and of 'realistic'symbols thesymbols modern literature that, is the are the unlike latter, former notcompact thatmakea images
1

" 15 August 1866, Letters, IV, 301. Henry James, Partial Portraits (London, 1899), p. 51. '5 15 August 1866, Letters, IV, 301. 16 " Symbolism and the Novel," p. 333.

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singlesensual impact,but are oftenextensive and not easily delimitable segments reality." of WithGeorge Eliot we have precisely samecase, but there the are complications. forinstance, She, extends meaning histhe of toricalrealism, onlyin the direction the incorporation not of of strictly accuratehistorical but by embodying the backgrounds, "mythopoeicaspect of history" which Miss Brummclaims Stendhal, Tolstoy, and other did nineteenth-century masters not concern themselves with. As Jerome Beaty has shown, Rethe form movement makesits appearance Middlemarch only in not withthe physicalincidents and structures the Reform of Bill, but is a structural metaphor whichsymbolizes efforts the the of individuals the novel to evolve,or reform in themselves.17 A then, need not onlybe a thing.It can also be an idea. symbol, " The "medium GeorgeEliot strivesto realizeis not merely objective, but spiritual.Not onlyis there" no creature whose inwardbeingis so strong that it is not greatly determined by what lies outsideit,"" but this objectiverealityis neverthe simpleentity Miss Brummassumesreality be. As earlyas to AdamBede, George Eliot had claimed right takeas reality the to that whichis selectedby her consciousness. The mindis not a nor merely mirror, is realitysimply objectiveverisimilitude. While denying the transcendentalism implicitand explicitin she wouldyet have agreedwithhim that " all visible Carlyle, things emblems," that " matter are and existsonlyspiritually Since language the bodyof thought, " metaphors her is and are stuff," man everywhere "findshimself encompassed withsymbols."19 Absoluterealismin the novel can never exist,for,as Jose " Ortegay Gasset observes, reality" in itself is " anti-poetic "; " inert insignificant." itsnature is and can Reality, indeed, never be the subjectof art. Mythcomesfirst, reality and comesfrom its destruction; realitybecomespoetic and hence artisticby "destruction themyth of ". which of an inert In thisform is and insignificant reality, nature, is quietandmute, into acquires movement,changed an activepower
17 "oHistory by Indirection:the Era of Reform Middlemarch," in Victorian Studies, 1 (September, 1957), 173-79. ed. Gordon S. Haight (Cambridge,Mass., 1956), 18 George Eliot, Middlemarch, p. 612. Thoughout, references to this edition. all are 19 Thomas Carlyle,SartorResartus (London,1940), p. 54.

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of aggression againstthe crystalline of the ideal. The enchantment orb of the latter broken,it falls into fine,iridescent dust whichgradually loses its coloursuntil it becomes an earthybrown. We are presentat this scene in every novel. So that strictly speaking,it is not reality that becomes poetic or enters into the work of art, but only that featureor movementof realityin which the ideal is reabsorbed.20 Such realism is best summarized for Ortega y Gasset in Don Quixote which, because it was written against chivalry, bears all the books of chivalry within it, and hence possesses a quality of poetry which complicates surface realism. One cannot call such a novel realistic. " This is what we call realism: to bring things to a distance, place them under a light, incline them in such a way that the stress falls upon the side which slopes down towards pure materiality." This is death, not art. The life of true realism is myth. " The myth is always the starting point of all poetry, including the realistic, except that in the latter we accompany the myth in its descent, in its fall. The theme of realistic poetry is the crumbling of poetry." 21 George Eliot began her writing career with a translation of Feuerbach, the whole impetus of whose work was to destroy supernatural myth and place humanistic values on what had once been regarded as transcendental. Scenes of Clerical Life and Adam Bede are studies, in purely "' provincial " terms, of sin (in these cases, not venal sin, but a kind of atrophy of the heart), punishment,repentance, and forgiveness. The religious or liturgical pattern is clear, but the significancehas changed. In George Eliot the crumbling of the ideal is the construction of the real, but the tradition of the ideal is transformedand incorporated into a new reality. Christian teleology and epistemology are brought down to earth, and become truly " ideal " in Lewes' sense of the word.22 George Eliot's theory and practice of art moved from this "tsimple " realism, to a complex or true realism which comes close to Ortega y Gasset's position that true realism contains the
20

1957), 28. 21 Ortega y Gasset, " The Nature of the Novel," p. 30. 22 "C Art always aims at the representation of Reality, i. e., of Truth; and no departure from truth is permissible, except such as inevitably lies in the nature of the medium itself. Realism is thus the basis of all Art, and its antithesis is not Idealism but Falsism." From "Realism and Idealism," in The Literary Criticism of George Henry Lewes, ed. Alice Kaminsky (Lincoln, Nebrarska, 1964), p. 87.

JosI Ortegay Gasset, "The Nature of the Novel," Hudson Review, 10 (Spring,

9284

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mythic poetic. The mythic or and poeticare bothsubsumed in the symbol, in Middlemarch, and George Eliot devotesno little space to discussions the symbolic of mode of perception. For instance, Brooke, Mr. whois in many waysa wisefool, character a whooften voicesdramatically George Eliot's ownopinions, says " at onepoint thatinNaumann's painting, Everything symboliis cal you know-the higher styleof art." Havingdecidedthis,he concludes sentence his with" I like that up to a certain point, but nottoo far-it's rather straining keepup with, to you know. But youare at homein that,Casaubon. Andyourpainter's flesh is good-solidity, of transparency, everything that sort" (241). In a humorous way,George Eliot is indicating ownposition. her " The " naturalmeaning is in the " flesh," " solidity, its transparency." manhas beenpainted, notan abstraction. A and at Of course, Eliot is directing George gentle irony Mr. Brooke of also, sincewe had learned previously the way Will explained the symbolism his paintingof " Tamburlaine of Drawingthe Conquered Kingsin his Chariot."Tamburlaine, Will,symsays bolizesthe " tremendous courseof the world'sphysicalhistory " lashingon the harnessed dynasties (158), as well as " earth" of quakesand volcanoes and " migrations racesand clearings of forests-and America and the steam-engine." is also having Will of fun, course, he doesnotseemto takesymbolism but seriously, an GeorgeEliot, however, to regards abilityto respond proper is as symbolism important. Symbolism concentrated indication of meaning, and we see how Dorotheais beginning recover to from"the gigantic broken revelations"(143) of Rome, when she realizesthat the symbolic method morethan " a difficult is " (158). She begins see meanings kindofshorthand to belowthe and intellectual surface, growin aesthetic to powerwhenshe in can see significance " saintswitharchitectural modelsin their in or skulls.Somethings hands, knives accidentally wedged their had seemedmonstrous herweregathering to which intelligibility and even a natural meaning" (159). idea of whatGeorgeEliot meantby We can obtaina clearer as symbolism "the higherstyleof art" when we extendour from" China to view, if not as far as Mr. Brooke suggests, the Peru" (370), thenoverand within novelitself, eventu-and Eliot aimedat creating allyto " NotesOn FormIn Art." George is the complete of image)forimage-making the primefunction Brian Swann 285

or " We theimagination.23 are all ofus imaginative someform in " for other, images thebroodofdesire (237). In hisargument are on withNaumann, language againstpainting these Will defends image,whichis all the grounds: "Language gives the fuller and better beingvague. After the trueseeingis within; for all, imperfection" (142.). paintingstaresat you withan insistent " imageis Knowledge passes intofeeling within."The complete of conditioned segment reality.We have something a spiritually " ideal in thephrasedescribingthat Eliot's aesthetic likeGeorge but distinctness whichis no longerreflection feeling-an idea of back to the directness sense,like the solidityof wrought pointis made in the later dialogue objects" (157). A similar is Willand Dorothea.To be a poet,Willpontificates,to between " in whichknowledge instantaneously into have a soul passes flashes back as a new organof knowledge" feeling, feeling and (166).24 Symbolicformis not the same as meddlingwith and,to a lesser which whatWilldoesin hispainting, symbols, is form whatNaumanntheNazarenedoesalso. Symbolic is extent, a wholehabit of mindin whichunityis the object-unity of and symbol.Just as knowledge and the personas individual is Eliot an individual only feeling shouldbe one, so forGeorge he sees himself relation others.Every in to when fullyhimself as whether idea,perception, individual, or partof the organism, " " I wouldwishto term symbolic ofall the shouldbecomewhat 25 others, way of what KennethBurke calls " synecdoche." by the becomes Ortegay Gasset describes way in whichreality of poetic (or symbolic)in termswhichrecallWill's statement back to the directness is the way in whichknowledge wrought of or to in of sense. He refers " that gesture movement reality KennethBurke describes whichthe idea is reabsorbed.26 this of as 2 this act,'" " thedancing an attitude." mutuality, " symbolic and the wholeartefact conis coincide, Language and gesture of in E. K. Brown'sterms, " rhythm, or as George structed,
' Lewes, in Principles writesthat Imagination " simply is of Success in Literature, an images,"and " to imagine-to form image-we musthave the the powerof forming relationsof thingspresentto the mind" (Kaminsky,pp. 14-15). numerous Sensibility," "4In "George Eliot and the Unified PMLA, 79 (1964), 130-36,N. N. Feltes suggeststhat GeorgeEliot obtainedthis ideal fromLewes' pioneerwork The Problemsof Life and Mi-nd. of "6 The Philosophy LiteraryForm (Louisiana State, 1941), pp. 26-28. 26 " The Nature of the Novel," p. 28. 2"Philosophy Literary of Form,p. 10. 'f Rhythmin the Novel (Toronto,1950).

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with variation" (7) . Reality,says Eliot has it, "repetition

Ortega y Gasset, is a " generic function"i 29 that is, a cause and not an end. The way in which it takes its primary part in the evolution of a symbolic form gives it value. In Middlemarch, George Eliot has created a new form of fictionwhich, with the remarks of Ortega y Gasset and Kenneth Burke in mind, might be called " symbolic realism." As far as organizing "natural everyday incidents" into a " strictly related " 3 whole is concerned, George Eliot did niothave lo move beyond Scenes of Clerical Life and its achievement. But in her firstnovel, symbolic technique is rudimentaryand relatively unsophisticated. There may be a fervor in the bareness, but the event takes precedence and any symbolism is a bonus. Thus, in " Mr. Gilfil's Love Story," we are told explicitly that the remodelling of Cheveral Manor and the growing-up of Tina are meant to be brought together in our mind. In Middlemrarch, George Eliot speaks occasionally as if a symbol were a kind of substitute for the real event. She can write, for example, that in droughtyyears, " baptism by immersioncould only be performed symbolically" (46) . At other times, in her letters, the symbolic seems superior to the empirical or mundane: " It seems to me that the soul of Christianitylies not at all in the facts of an individual life, but in the ideas of which that life was the meetingpoint and the new starting-point. We can never have a satisfactory basis for the history of the man Jesus, but that negation does not affect the Idea of the Christ either in its historical influence or its great symbolic meaning." 31 Still again, George Eliot speaks of the symbolic as if it were an adjunct of the ideal (and hence an ambiguous ingredientof any realistic presentation). She explains what she considers the failure of Romola: "The various strands of thought I had to work out forced me into a more ideal treatment of Romola than I had foreseen at -theoutset-though the ' Drifting away' and the Village with the Plague belonged to my earliest version of the storyand were by deliberate forecast adopted as romantic and symbolical elements." 32 The romantic element, these final scenes, is meant clearly to summarize and symbolize certain strands of the narrative by way of
29

"cThe Nature of the Novel," p. 30. "George Eliot to Anthony Trollope, 23 October 1863, Letters, IV, 110. 21 George Eliot to Mrs. Alfred Taylor, 30 July 1863, Letters, IV, 95. 32 George Eliot to Sara Sophia Hennell, 15 September 1864, Letters, IV, 103.

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colorful conclusion. The suggestion is that such incidents are climactic, unusual, and thereforea whole novel could not consist of such a symbolic technique. By the time George Eliot wrote Middlemarch, however, matters had become more complex. A symbol is without meaning in itself (as George Eliot realized by having the final scenes in Romola gather all that had gone before). To complicate the matter, a symbol's " many-sidedness 'I 33 is hazardous to strict accuracy, and the meaning of a symbol is not ascertainable, since if it were there would be no need for the symbol. To read Middlemarch correctly,one must be able to hear nuances, reverberationsof a word fromcontext to context, for in this novel everythingis part of symbolic form or action, down to the metaphors themselves. As Mark Schorer has demonstrated, George Eliot's metaphors " tend always to be, or to become, explicit symbols of psychological or moral conditions, and they actually functionin such a way as to give symbolical value to much action, as Dorothea's pleasure in planning buildings ('a kind of work which she delighted in') and Casaubon's desire to construct a ' Key to all Mythologies. Their significancelies, then, not so much in the area of choice (as ' commerce,' or ' natural elements'and' animals') as in the choice of function, and one tests them not by their field, but by their conceptual portent." In a later essay, Mr. Schorer admits that his classification of verbs of unificationand progressive movement which symbolize on a verbal level the movement of the plot (" endless vistas of unending good," "the religion of progress"), is a classification: " I am, of course, arranging the metaphorical material in that pattern." " Nevertheless, his essays are valuable in that they draw attention to a basic principle of construction which, anticipating gestalt, gives fullvalue to the actual unit of construction, the autonomous yet related image or fact. For, in gestalt (which began as a theoryof mind as a repudiation of older ideas imported into the philosophy of mind by analogy with atomic physics), " the elementary and irreducible units of experience are articulated and structured,though unitary, wholes akin rather to the
" George Eliot, " The Progress of the Intellect," in The Essays of George Eliot, ed. Thomas Pinney (London, 1963), p. 28. 84 "cFiction and the Matrix of Aanalogy," Kenyon Review, 11 (Autumm, 1949), 550. Critical of theNovel,"in Middlemarch: 35 " The Structure Approaches theNovel, to ed. Barbara Hardy (Oxford, 1967), p. 20.

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36 forces." patternof structured atom withits internal modern Eliot,in " Notes On FormIn Art,"statesas one of the George that " Form,as an she principles was evolving, new aesthetic must beginwiththe perception of element humanexperience, . as mustbe recognized separate of separateness. . & thatthings as wholesbeforethey can be recognized wholescomposedof partsof as can the or parts, before wholes be regarded relatively that wholes of whole."Because of thenumber dynamic a larger " fundamentally, and formis unlikeness," can make a unity, " 37 is therefore everydifference form." Darrel Mansell,in an states that for of articleon GeorgeEliot's conception form, GeorgeEliot " Form is not outwardappearancebut 'inward' whichGeorgeEliot 38 form relations." The conceptof symbolic is was working towardsis one in whicheverything relatedto the its sacrificing ownquidditas, actuality else everything without ofits present existence. Eliot integrates theme, On a morallevel (to showhowGeorge form),we and so on, withinan encompassing plot, language, above entailsthe conceptof notethat the ideal outlined might was thatself-sacrifice Eliot alwaysinsisted self-sacrifice. George from strict from self-knoxvledge, a farmoreviableif it emanated Mr. FareThus, in Middlemarch, an integrated personality. thatsheis in love with brother givesup Marybecausehe knows that and because he realizeshis own shortcomings, he is Fred makeshift" he " onlya decent (130) . By renunciation, becomes usefuland achievesgreater dignity.Similarly, more Dorothea, not finds only her to whowishes sacrifice lifeon Casaubon'saltar, her personality, that her desire stems fromher incomplete is in but ignorance, that self-sacrificean exercise self-knowledge the giving of large and grandiose ideas, personal up involving When she is able to do this,she is able to prideand dignity. of able to breakdownthe egotism Rosamund fully, giveherself Eliot knewas wellas and the reticent prideofLydgate. George is loss the " intentional " in self-sacrificealso a gain, Jungthat it "for if you can give yourself provesthat you possessyour-

self."39 The quidditas of the self which sacrifices itself from a

Harold Osborne, "Artistic Unity and Gestalt," The Philosophical Quarterly, 14 (July, 1956), 215. 37 "c Notes On Form In Art," in Essays, pp. 432-33. 5 (1965), 653. 38 "C George Eliot's Conception of Form," SEL, in Pagan and Christian 39 C. G. Jung, "Transformational Symbolism in the Mass," Mysteries, ed. Joseph Campbell (New York, 1933), p. 131.

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is not position strength, of vague benevolence, relatedto the of to a quidditasof each part of the plot. Creating truerelation of self-sacrificeonlypossibleby a knowledge is othersthrough sense of self. The individual unit of the plot, in the integral though is gestalt terminology, "articulated and structured, 40 unitary."
II
MIDDLEMARCH:

THE NOVEL

ITSELF

(i) Systole and Diastole: The Scene as Symbolic Center thereseemsto be no of the Apartfrom exigencies publishing, is organicreason why Middlemarch dividedinto eightbooks. in of is though, the principle construction What is intentional, each book, for thereis always one scene in whichissues are summarized and evaluatedfromthe widestpossiblepoint of together more a view. This scene is generally scene bringing in movement the and is the larger peoplethan in otherscenes, a danceofcharacters, symbolic center consciousness. of Lydgate, certain artistic principles, whoshareswithhis creator important this to by givesus a metaphor which apprehend device: " there he in and diastole all enquiry," says. That is, mustbe a systole and the of between wholehumanuniverse thehorizon an objectglass" (468). For GeorgeEliot thereis no privatelife that has not been scene such as we are influenced publiclife. Each symbolic by is about to examine a largebeat in the lifeof the novel,when ways. We, or issuescome to the forein moredramatic clearer Book 1, Chapter of shalldeal onlywiththefirst thesescenes, 10, holdsforall the others."4 but the principle 10 Beaty informs at Jerome In Chapter we have thepoint, us. " of which " Miss Brooke portion thenovel and the the ends, where " are The main" Middlemarchcharacters introduced. reason why Eliot decidedto fusethe earlier which had had she story George
" Other examples of such scenes are Chapter 18 in Book 2, Chapter 25 in Book 4, Chapter 82 in Book 3, Chapter 51 in Book 5, and Chapters 60 and 63. For a more complete, though different list of what he calls "conglomerate" scenes, see Neil D. Isaacs, "Middlemarch: Crescendo of Obligatory Drama," NCF, 18 (June, 1963), 21-34.
40 Osborne, "Artistic Unity and Gestalt," p. 215.

" a man's mind must be continuallyexpanding and shrinking

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in mindforsome time,withthe otherstoryis that theyhave pointsin common, George and saw Eliot's syncretic imagination " high them essentially as partsofthesamestory.Bothare about idealswhich in cometo nothing little or more thannothing; both casesan unwise unhappy and marriage playsa partin obstructing the realization theseideals." Moreover, time element of 42 the and sceneof the two stories similar.As the two stories are are reallyone story, even the characters seem to be part of one character, partsof an ideal wholewhichexistsin the narrator's consciousness pointto be takenup againlater). (a 10 Chapter focusses initially Will,butonlyto dismiss in on him short space. To balancethisintroduction, Lydgatemakesa brief first appearance theendofthechapter, is meant contrast at and to favorably withthe ephemeral Will. Apartfrom Fred,thesetwo are the onlyyoungmen in the novel,and somereadersas the navel appearedin serial formsaw possibilities a romance of between Lydgateand Dorothea. But GeorgeEliot had a more subtleeffect mind, in and at thispointcarefully keepsDorothea and Lydgate apart (thoughthey seem to have met because Lydgatemakes the fatuousjudgment page 69 that she is on look further thanMiddlemarch. Will the exotichas alreadyleft the small stifling community findhis way in an area no to moreprecisethan the entirearea of Europe" (61), and we nextsee himin Rome,where meetsDorothea. In Chapter he 10 we begin to sense a kinshipbetweenDorothea and Will, for Will's world of "'possibilities" (61) contrastsstrongly with Casaubon's"small taperof learnedtheory exploring tossed the ruins of the world" (61) . Dorothea's dissatisfaction this in chapter causedby Casaubon'sinsensitive is remark thatshe had better take Celia withher,in order give Casaubonmoretime to for serious his work; implication thatDorothea the is cannot share his esoterica. Estrangement already the air. is in Most of the men in the novel (except,perhaps, Will) are about the natureof women. This fact is used as a ignorant symbol moraldecayin thetownand in thenationas a whole, of forit traverses the from local squire, Brooke, " the society Mr. to " (69). It pervades run-of-theof Lydgate's Northumberland the of millmoraljudgments suchmenas Chichely whoprefers what
42

" a little too in earnest") . The Dorothea storyis beginning to

JeromeBeaty, Middlemarch fromNotebook to Novel (Urbana, 1960), p. 9.

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he regards a truly as feminine woman, Dorotheabut Rosanot " a little filigree," mund; someonewith "somethingof the coquette" (68) . Lydgatewillbecomethe scapegoat sharing for such ideas. He will attain a kind of tragicdignity seeing by beyondthe mask whenit is too late, and havingto make the bestofit. In this chapter,the "second-linecharacters," Vincys,Bulstrodes, and so on, anchorus firmly the prosaic"medium " in which Dorothea trying escape,which is to and which Willevades, Lydgate, ironically sharing muchwiththem, cometo try so has and improve.This party" before had done its notable Reform part" (65), symbolizes sheerbulkand weight the reality the of facing Dorothea, emphasizes thatany reform which come might to Middlemarch will be dreadfully slow in succeeding.43 This dumpy the is reality, same which testing Dorotheawho triesto crusadeforimproved housingwhileher uncle runs the worst estatein thedistrict, testLydgateand hisbrittle will self-possession. Lydgatedoesnotknow howto deal with and Middlemarch, the scene is a masterly of bringing main characters way the in together orderfor us to see themin the contextof their invidious environment. (ii) The Scene as Symbolic Embodiment Another of vigorous ingredient the symbolic form Middleof march thosescenes is which George Eliot had alwaysused,scenes whichmight called symbolic be since embodiments, theyimbue naturalistic incidents thematic symbolic to stature. with or will In AdamBede, forinstance, the Hettybefore mirror a crudeemis blematic version thisprincple, of while Daniel Derondathefirst in sceneat thegambling casinosymbolizes beautifully in controlled tonestheabrogation willand abandonment chancewhich of to is Daniel's fate untilhe embraces Zionistcause. The drifting the ofDaniel on theThamesis another embodiment thesameidea. of Middlemarch contains manysuch scenes,and the novelcalls attention the technique to since,like Daniel Deronda,it opens withsucha scene. The richness Chapter1 precludes of analysis in depth, theprinciple clear. The " plain dressing"(5) of but is Dorotheais ironic, and a kind of humorous desperation hangs
4 J. W. Beach, The Twentieth-CenturyNovel (New discusses what he calls these " second-line characters."

York, 1932), pp. 129-30,

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to over her efforts suppress the " pagan sensuous " (7) strain to her character. The discussion with Celia about their mother's jewels symbolizes this dichotomy. "How very beautiful these gems are! "i she exclaims, and then rationalizes her instinctive delight with, " It is strange how deeply colours seem to penetrate one, like scent. I suppose that is the reason why gems are used as spiritual emblems in the Revelation of St. John. They look like fragmentsof heaven " (10) . She attempts to " merge" the sermon'9ssensuous pleasure "in her mystic religious joy." For Dorothea, spiritual emblem and physical fact never quite coincide, however. The marriage to Casaubon is meant to satisfy the spiritual, but at the expense of the physical. Will, like one of the " little fountains of pure colour " (10), is always associated with the play of light, and is meant to suggest that Dorothea at the end of the novel is well on the way to integratingthe dual aspects of her personality," sensuous force controlled by spiritual passion" (141). Dorothea's honeymoon in Rome is another example of symbolic embodiment. All the verbal imageryof ruin and decay which have been associated with Casaubon in the early part of the novel finds physical expression in the Eternal City, city of " stupendous fragmentariness" (143) . Rome corresponds to Dorothea's spiritual confusion as she discovers more about the man she has married; both city and husband are "broken revelations" (143) . Rome undermines her " principles" with its " deep impression" (143), and its confusingsensuousness. " All this vast wreck of ambitious ideals" shocks her out of her English complacency, for she is " tumbled among incongruities" (144). In addition, Rome symbolizes the ruin in Casaubon's personality, where " the large vistas and wide freshair" which Dorothea had hoped to discover in it " were replaced by anterooms and winding passages which seemed to lead nowhere" (145). Dorothea has to drive out to the Campagna " where she could feel alone with the earth and sky, away from the oppressive masquerade of ages" (143). Correspondingly,it is to Will she turns for freshnessof response and open sympathy. The last example of this sort to be examined differsfrom the previous two, in that it is what might be termed " symbolic parody ": " It is a narrow mind which cannot look at a subject fromvarious points of view" (49). Parody, including the narraMr. Brooke's parody of reformand his obsession tor's self-parody,

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withhis documents whichparallelsCasaubon'smethod comof pilation, and so on, is a larger element Middlemarch in thanin anyoftheother novels.Chapter consists 23 entirely a parody of ofone of the strands themainaction.On thenarrative of level, thepurpose thesceneat thehorse which of fair Fred attends with Bambridge and Jiorrocks clear. Fred trusts his " luck" in is to havingthingsturn out well, fashioning events"accordingto " desire (173). He feels thattheuniverse accommodate will itself to his wishes, characteristic a attitudeGeorgeEliot regards as peculiarly egoistic. Whenhisventure horse-dealing out into turns for badly,Mr. Garthhas to pay the penalty trusting him,and a climaxthus comesabout in Fred's relations withMary. On the symbolic level,the factthatFred was sold a viciousanimal which owner the had claimed was a docilebeastparodies partof the larger Lydgate/Rosamund plot. The clue is in the sentence the describing horse'sviciousness:" Therewas no moreredress forthisthan forthe discovery bad temper of aftermarriage whichof courseold companions wereaware of before cerethe mony" (177). Fred egoistically choosesa horseby trusting to his " luck"; Lydgatechooses wife, a to trusting his knowledge of women.Justhowmuchhe has learned from withthe experience fairsexwe aremeantto gaugefrom Laure incident. the Lydgate and believes, conventionally vulgarly, women fordecorathat are tion. His choiceof Fred's sisteris rendered ludicrous whenwe see Rosamundand the vicioushorsesuperimposed form to one image.Onewould haveexpected reformer humanitarian a and not to trustto appearances, and to have enquired closerinto the qualitiesof his mate before But Lydgatehas " spots marriage. " ofcommonness (111). In George Eliot'snon-tragic these world, flaw. are equivalent thetragic to With such scenesin mind,we shouldpause beforeagreeing with Peter K. Garrett'scontention wholeheartedly that the ccstaple scene" in GeorgeEliot does "not display a notable concentration meaning." of 4 (ii) " The Expanding Symbol" are Some partsof Middlemarch consciously suchas symbolic, the well-known passageon page 578. Dorotheahas cometo the realization that she loves Will and that Lydgatehas a strong
" Scene and SymbolfromGeorgeEliot to JamesJoyce (New Haven, 1969), p. 15.

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claim on her aid and sympathy.She regardsboth men as "objects of herrescue" (577), and "'What shouldI do-how should act now . . . ? '": I was It had takenlongforherto cometo thatquestion, there and light piercing theroom.Sheopened curtains, looked into her and out towards bit ofroadthatlay in view, the with fields beyond, outside theentrance-gates. theroadthere a manwith bundle On was a on hisbackand a woman carrying baby;in thefield couldsee her she in figures moving-perhaps shepherd his dog. Far off the the with of bending was thepearly sky light; and shefeltthelargeness the world and the manifold wakings mento labourand endurance. of She waspartofthatinvoluntary, palpitating and couldneither life, lookoutonit from luxurious her shelter a mere as spectator, hide nor hereyesin selfish complaining. The passageseemsto drawsomeof its powerfrom memories of theEden myth onewouldnotwantto be much and morespecific. to Yet the detailsof the man and the womanseem to refer specific intentions. One couldmake analogies, and say Lydgate is theburdened man,but themethod does notreallywork.The as expanding into the general symbolsare to be understood consciousness have of the novel at thispoint. Details point we to the climactic moment.The factthat Dorothealooks out of the the window and beyond gatesofherhouseis an involuntary altruistic Bundle and baby are the way of the world gesture. " sheis aboutto be inducted into. The " bending skyis notonly an accurate but description, suggests vastness, up and,taking the to suggestion the burdened of man,extends burden an overthe of arching principle labor. Dorotheais about to leave Middleshelter." march and her" luxurious is The secondkind of expanding symbol easierto follow.In the is a between natural Eliot there generally relationship George eventor situation. The symbolic detailand a psychic relationship than in is less emphasized Midcdlemarch the earlier novels,and in doesnot expandor dilateas it does,forexample, The Mill on is theFloss orAdamBede. Landscapein Middlemarch strangely muted,and effective mostlyas delicateanalogy. Thus, when DorotheavisitsCasaubonforthe first and time,it was autumn in of " a sparseremnant yellowleaves" (54) was falling the whatLydgate's married Lowickestate. Again,whenshe realizes her insight set against" the is lifeis, and that she might help, bright greenbuds whichstood in relief againstthe dark ever" (557). In the juxtaposition, are green promiseand tragedy Brian Swann p295

her from honeygently hinted.Finally,whenDorotheareturns howmoon,it is mid-January, snowis falling.Generally, and The ever,this device of natureas symbolis used sparingly. so scenein Middlemarch not the arenaof nature, muchas a is "mental estate" (207). The point is well made by Quentin Anderson, that what GeorgeEliot surveys "mightbe called a landscapeof opinion, it is not the naturallandscapethat is for seen but things dominant here." The interest not in " things is
feltand believed."' less immediately The thirdkindof expandingsymbolis subtler, of apprehensible;a significance tone, a certainty of nuance. Symbolicuse ofwaterin Middlemarch dependsmoreon the sharpness of the unconsciousmind for its effectthan on conscious of appreciation.In the novel,wateror streams waterslowlycome to symbolizesensibility.This verbal symboldoes not acquire a as physicalmanifestation it does forexample in The,Mill on the Floss or Daniel Deronda (where Grandcourtdrownsin his own " egoism). Such phrasesas " the livingstreamof fellowship (4),
" the stream of feeling'" (46), and the " open-channels" of

" Dorothea's " ardentcharacter (565) indicatethe symbolicarea GeorgeEliot is cultivating.The symbolis pervasiveand seldom stressed. For example, when Dorothea is about to marry " Casaubon, she thinksof his mind as an " ungauged reservoir (17), or as "a lake compared to my little pool" (18). She finds,however,that her marriagein fact cuts her offfromthe great sea of sensibility.She findsthat she is "exploring an enclosed basin " (145) whereCasaubon's soul is "fluttering the in " swampyground (206). in The symbolis also used ironically the case of Lydgate,who, whenhis workis goingwell,exists" in that agreeableafter-glow of when thoughtlapses fromexaminationof a specific excitement sense of its connections object into a suffusive withall the restof our existence-seems,as it were,to throwitselfon its back after vigorous swimmingand float with the repose of unexhausted " this unity of strength (122) . This sense of connectedness, is beingwhichLydgate possessesbriefly, soon to be dissipatedin the divisionhe creates betweenlife and work. Furtherironyis of providedby the dwindling Lydgate's elementfrom have the "I at sea to swimin " (128) to practising a Spa " bath" (128).
in 4""George Eliot in Middlemarch," From Dickens to Hardy, ed. Boris Ford 1960), p. 280. (Harvrmndsworth,

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" like Dorothea had not enteredinto his traditions (213) . " For years after Lydgate rememberedthe impressionproduced in him" by Dorothea's involuntary appeal forhelp (214). This scene with Lydgate also prepares for the scene when Dorothea meets Will in the library. The chink of light that is enough " to read by " anticipates the metaphoric " lunette" which, symbolizing Will, "opened in the wall" of Dorothea's "prison " (265). Lydgate in the firstscene allows Dorothea to open her soul to him, while Will in the second gives her " a glimpseof the sunnyair" (265). The librarythen becomes an ironicsettingbecause of its associationof stalenessand aridity. In addition,the meetingbetweenthe two takes place against a risingstorm,which seems to herald ominouslythe growinginvolvement Dorothea and Will, or,like the stormin "The Eve of of St. Agnes," symbolizes the hostile world outside. When Dorothea makes a motionof revolt,however, beginning allow to her dissatisfaction with Casaubon to rise to the surface by acknowledging that great thoughtsseem to have worn him out, the rain seems to stop soon after. Fairer weather is ahead as Dorothea begins to see truly. The influenceor hold of the libraryseems likewiseto be loosened,its restrictions givingway to freedom. The movement from darkness intolightis continued Chapter in Brian Swann 297

The final expanding symbolis a location. The libraryat Lowickis initially simplya place whereDorothea sets about learning from CasaubontheLatin,Greek, Hebrew craved. she and Thoughout, library the functions charged as background, keeping us before Dorothea'sheroicdesireforbook-learning whichwill substitute a " coherent for social faith" (3). Gradually, as Dorothea substitutesfellow-feeling book-knowledge, for the library accretes othervalues. Dorotheareceives Lydgatein the library, first the time she has beenthere sinceCasaubon'ssickness. The shutters closed, are " but therewas enough lightto read by from narrow the upper " panes of the windows (212). Even in absence,Casaubon's " presence felt, is since" narrow is one ofthe epithets habitually associatedwithhim. We are reminded that it is through her in suffering her marriage that Dorotheais beginning underto " stand others. It is in his library, the " caticom (353) as calls it thattheprocess rebirth Tantripp of begins Dorothea, for and Lydgatebeginsto have his eyes opened, " women for just

48. Dorothea meets Casaubon in "that close library" (352), but he walks into " Yew-Tree Walk" wherehe expectsDorothea to come and tellhimherdecisionabout his proposition.Dorothea never gets the chance, however,to tell him that she will " bind " herself to him,immuring herself herself, effectively fron barring the sunnypresence,for Casaubon is founddead in the summerhouse. After this death, " the air is milder" (394), and the libraryloses some more of its malignity,although " the dead hand" continuesto exert an influence throughthe will. When Dorothea returnsto Lowick afterher sojourn with her uncle, however, room she stops in longestis the library;but, in the the Junesun, " the shutters wereall open . . . and the morning gazed " Syncalmlyinto the library" (392). She seals and closes the optical Tabulation " which Casaubon had left and writeswithin the envelope" I could not submitmy soul to yours" (393). The morningthat shone on the rows of notebooksis likened to the sun shiningon megaliths," the mute memorialof a forgotten faith" (393), and that is preciselywhat the librarynow representsforDorothea. The sun whichshinesso brightly also Will, is who is soon aftershown,not into the library, intothe neutral but withits " two tall mirrors and tables withnothing drawing-room on them" (394), and an open window. A new start seems possible. This " little room," in the words of the Donne poem George Eliot uses as a motto for Chapter 83, the last chapter but threein the novel,has a chance to become " an everywhere" fortheir" walkingsouls" (589). The next time Will and Dorothea meet is in Mr. Brooke's library (Chapter 62). The context is not ominous with the weightof books but lightenedby Will's presence. This second partingis in auspiciouscircumstances, withclear weather. Moreover, the play of ironyover the whole scene is welcomerelease from the heavy serious atmospherepervading the library at Lowick. But the dead hand is not so easily evaded, and the meetingin Chapter 83 takes place in the Lowick libraryagain; and again thereis a stormin the background.Their declaration of love is thus set against the forcesof the past and the " wild 46 of stupidity the elements." Will is entering into " the thickof " a struggle (611), and both he and Dorothea are about to enter
6Jean Giraudoux,Tiger at the Gates, trans.Christopher Fry (New York, 1955), p. 1.

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the adult world,"'the drear outer world" (594). The influence of the libraryis compromised love. The world,however,is by waitingforthe fraywhichwill not be spectacular, but part of a " wholeseriesof " unhistoric acts (613). (iv) The SymbolicAct and Gesture In the Preludeto Middlemarch, narrator the remarks ironically " on the" inconvenient indefiniteness (3) withwhichthe Supreme Power has fashionedthe natures of women. Their varietypre" vents then frombeing treated with " scientific certitude (4). " Despite scientific investigation, the indefiniteness remains,and the limitsof variationare reallymuch widerthan anyonewould imaginefromthe samenessof women'scoiffeur"(4). The same is true of the variationsGeorge Eliot plays on certainordinary gestures and acts to heighten armoniche.By such means she the ePnrichens trulypoetic textureof the novel. the In the wealth of gestures,even the smallest act becomes symbolicin its context,and summarizesthe whole thrustof a characteror situationat that particulartime. QuentinAnderson suggeststhat, afterthe loss of God, George Eliot, aided by her reading in Comte, saw human behavior " as a set of symbolic gesturesexpressiveof individual needs and desires."47Only in Middlemarch,however,is this symbolictechniqueused so deliof cately and expressively. In exemplification this argument, Hilda Hulme writescopiouslyon such a simpledetail as the act of Dorothea in lookingout of a window: Dorothea, " instead of interest some occupation, to settingdown withher usual diligent simplyleaned her elbow on an open book and looked out of the windowat the great cedar silveredwith the damp" (35). Miss Hulme pointsout that the mentionof the cedar is a later manuto scriptaddition referring Dorothea's emotionalsituation,since Casaubon is a Biblical scholar and the cedar has Biblical associations. Dorothea is lookingat the new opportunity lifewith of Casaubon, and the idealism of her virginjudgmentis suggested with Casaubonian links.) One cannot know, says Miss Hulme, Dorothea shares Celia's notion that learningmay come whether frommere physical contact (symbolizedby the elbow on the open book) : " Yet in a novel wherephysicalpostureand physical
47

by the word " silvered." (" Damp " is, of course, another word

"cGeorgeEliot

in Middlemarch," 289. p.

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change, mental stateand emotional represent movement often so the it is hardto knowwhatlimits authorwouldhave us set to 48 in up ourreadiness picking suchsignificances." is A simpler example thesametechnique the occasionwhen of hisrepulsive relatives. by sick old Featherstone, in bed,is visited we He starts rub" thegoldknobofhis stick" (78), a gesture to and thebrutal sinceall hispower into terms, translate emotional gameshe playswithit dependon his wealth.All his belligerent is gesture.Mary Garth by triumph expressed thisunconscious and syrup, himwithsoothing supplies ('Dove' in the original), cannotbuy. character Featherstone it is Mary who is the only It is this very gold-knobbed stick that he hurlsat Mary in and to when frustration sherefuses obeyhismachinations accept a bribe. Gestures well as acts and objectscan be ideas " wrought as a canl of back to the directness sense" (157) . Similarly, gesture make a narrativepoint concretely.When Rosamund asks up Lydgateto fasten her hair," he sweptup the softfestoons of plaitsand fastened the tall comb" (426). The husbandry in The degrading. waythecombis described act seemssurprisingly "tall" makes the action completeand createsa sense of as Rosamundinviolatein her pristine ego. Lydgate is Heracles (" his debilitated, to such uses women, masculinity amongthe of charms his wife in with do mencome"), ensnared thephysical " longneck" (426). Again,before marriage, the herLamia-like Rosamundhad droppedthe "chain" (222), she was knitting He whenLydgatehad come to put an end to the flirtation. "instantaneously stoopedto pick up the chain" (222).,and, on look of distress had ever the he natural the way up, seeing first as seenon Rosamund's captured ifthe chainhe face,is as truly of steel. The factthatLydgatepicked weremade had retrieved for his it up symbolizes ownresponsibility his fate. This symbol on a pun. Later,thepunchanges as to depends muchas anything is when learnthatfor we Rosamund " another Lydgate, metaphor of weight chainto drag" (543). of one Sometimes, is notsureoftheexactsignificance a gesture or For strikes as moving mysterious. exus whichnevertheless from Lowickone day, he has ample,whenMr. Brookereturns
48 Hilda Hulme, " The Language of the Novel," in Middlemarch: Critical Approachesto the Novel, p. 90.

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a commission from Casaubon;to deliver marriage the proposal. Dorothea, are told,sitsby the fire Mr. Brookebeginshis we as preamble, and has just been readinga pamphlet the early on " She threwoffher mantle churchwhichCasaubon has sent: and bonnet, and sat downoppositeto him,enjoying glow, the but lifting her beautiful up handsfora screen.They werenot thin hands, or small hands, but powerful, feminine, material hands. She seemedto be holdingthem up in propiation for her passionatedesireto know and to think, whichin the unfriendly mediums Tipton and Fresshit of had issuedin crying " and red eyelids (28). That whichprotects Dorotheais her essentialfemininity whichmakes for " a special moral influshe is lifting thesehandsto Casaubon'sflame, but,as we see,he is unable to appreciate what she is, because of his vulgaridea that Dorotheais a rewardforhis celibacy, and becauseof his jealous prideand fearof beingfoundout. Thus thereis irony inherent thisgesture.Casaubonis neverassociated in withlight or heat,alwayswithdampor dark. The " ardent"Dorotheais morea sourceof life-giving heat than the man she is herself her lifting hands to. But it will be noticedthat she holdsher thatGeorge Eliot wished which handsup as a screen, us suggests of to note some cross-current negativethought the gesture in is of. wiser which herself unaware Onlythereader Dorothea after is eventrealizes thatthe gesture not a wholly the positive comthat Dorothea'sflame " fed mitment. know,forexample, We is " " fromwithin (3), that Casaubon acknowledges,I feed too " (13), and that Will'ssmileis " a sources muchon the inward
ence." 49 In time to come it will be most needed. Presumably,

gush of inwardlight" (152).

(v) Characteras Symbol Finally, one ought not to overlook the role played in the symbolicaction by a cast of characterswho are so intimately related by blood or theme that, as Mark Schorerputs it, " the major characterizations depend on a singlevalue, or perhaps we should say, a single contrast: the quality and kind of social idealismas opposed to self-absorption50 The way Mr. Schorer in the phrasesthe fact,however,does not distinguish characters
"' George Eliot to Emily Davies, 8 August 1868, Letters, IV, 468.
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" 52 spondence (18), " irradiations." In many cases, the characters seem to be composed all of the same flesh,an aboriginal tissue. of Freud,in The Interpretation Dreams, talks about the way in a personcan be created by " identifiof whichthe dream-image cation" of a numberof disparate elements. Such identification in to "consists in givingrepresentation the dream-content onlv one or more personswho are related by some commonfeature." worksis by " compoThe other way in whichthe dream-image sition,"that is, " when personsare combined,there are already featureswhich are characteristic of, presentin the dream-image but not commonto, the personsin question,so that a new unity, a compositeperson,appears as the result of the union of these and features."The two ways do not seem vitallydifferent, what " representation happensin each is thatthe ego is given" multiple an in the dream. " By means of severalsuch identifications extraordinary amount of thought material may be condensed."53 in Withoutwishing any way to soundas ifI werepsychoanalysing I think it is possible to see a similarity between George Eliot, the dream structureFreud describes here with its composite symbolforthe ego, and the curiousway in whichthe characters of Middlemarch interact with each other, autonomously,yet consciousness the narrator, of the " colwithinthe overarching 54 the " ego " who creates them all and is a part lective mind," of them. From George Eliot's conscious point of view, the narrator's of aim is to show" the stealthy convergence humanlots " in which fromone life on another" we see " a slow preparationof effects
" Barbara Hardy, The Novels of GeorgeEliot, p. 93. in 62 Brown, Rhythm the Novel, p. 27, is the sourceof this term. "' TheInterpretation trans.A. A. Brill (New York, 1950), pp. 306-08. ofDreams, " J. Hillis Miller, in The Formof Victorian Fiction(Notre Dame, 1968), p. 81, work of George Eliot, Dickens, Meredith,Trollope, writes that the characteristic " Thackeray,"comes into existence when the novelist"choses to play the role not who is an actor in the drama,and not even the role of an of a first personnarrator with an individualconsciousness, in who may be identified anonymous storyteller but mind" (my italics). the role of a collective

thosein the earlynovels: the issuesin all Middlemarch from intosucha division.Whatdistinguishes ofthem be resolved can " senseofexpanding "'51 in its characters; life Middlemarch the is from splittings-off an archetypal how theyall seem stock,sym"reflected bolizations a largerconsciousness, of lightof corre-

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(70). Even " inconsistency" and, with the Raffles plot in mind, coincidence are part of the "living myriad " (380), where each and all are related, as George Eliot put it in Adam Bede, " in my mind." 5 Thus, it is curious that many of the characters in Middlemarch are orphans (Celia, Dorothea, Will, Bulstrode, Lydgate), and that there is not one "interloper" (554), but two, Bulstrode and Lydgate. To stress that her main characters are orphans means that George Eliot can symbolize man's existential situation in more dramatic fashion. Orphans in the universe, men have to turn to other men; " to mercy, pity, peace, and love / All pray in their distress" (556). In an 1861 letter to Sara Sophia Hennell, George Eliot expressed the desire for " a temple besides the outdoor temple-a place where human beings do not ramble apart, but meet with a common impulse." 56 From her " quarry " for Middlemarch, we can see how George Eliot attempted to meet this need in her novel, with her lists of character inter-connectionsunder the In the novel's multiform rubric, "Relations to be developed." connective tissue, all parts linked by the symbol of reform,each character possesses something of each of the others. They are " various small mirrors" (62) reflectingeach other, and " one life." Dorothea and Will are kept in conjunction down to the smallest verbal unit, Will's " innerlight " (152) complementingDorothea's "inward fire" (10) . To find Casaubon and Bulstrode linked in this way however is somewhat of a surprise,since on the narrative level they have virtually no connection. Nevertheless, we find that Casaubon has the desire for Dorothea to " irradiate the gloom which fatigue was apt to hang over him" (46), and then we learn that Bulstrode kept " a kind of moral lantern " (91) over the lives of Middlemarchers. Casaubon wants Dorothea to be a diversion, somethingof an amusement not to be taken overseriously after he has been wandering around in mental gloom with " his taper" (147). Bulstrode is a false light to his people, driven by that religious egoism which George Eliot had condemned in her essay on the poet Young. Casaubon's pride, egoism, and blindness are equal to Bulstrode's, and both men
56

"Adam Bede, ed. GordonS. Haight (New York, 1960), p. 178. 1861, Letters,III, 4592. 18 September " Anna Theresa Kitchel,Quarryfor Middlemarch(Berkeley, 1950), p. 45.

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are essentially thesamekind.Each usespeopleto feedhisown of selfish needs. Will enjoys" the verymiscellaneousness Rome,"becauseit of " makes " the mind flexible with constantcomparison (157). Such a mindis neededto readMiddlemarch and adequately, one despairs everpicking all thestructural of up The most nuances. abstrusecomparisons, almostbizarrecomparisons, resultfrom placingthecandleof our attention the scratches eventson to of thepier-glass and (194-95). Justone example, thissection must be concluded.George Eliot had difficulty connecting story in the ofFred and his troubles withtheother important she plots. *Yet clearly intended Fredas a kindoffoilto Will. Bothareunsteady, go through periodof trialand apprenticeship the hand of a for thewoman andfinally her. George they love, Eliot intends marry us to keep the comparison in constantly mind,and summarizes the theme: " to Will, a creature who cared littleforwhat are calledthesolidthings lifeand greatly its subtler of for influences, to have within himsucha feeling he had towards as Dorothea, was like the inheritance a fortune" (344). Will had been of becauseofhismother's disinherited imprudent marriage. Similarold ly, Fred's chancesof inheriting Featherstone's fortune had beenlost,and he setsaboutmaking ownfortune thehelp his with of Mary and Caleb. (vi) Form: Some Conclusions By the timeGeorge Eliot wrote Middlemarch, DarrelMansell whichher kind of fiction includeis says: "The diversity can onlylimited whatsheherself thinks is able to find she by together in a wholeness herownmind." Hence," The morevariedthe in relations can present herfiction, higher degree in she the the of formshe can attain if she is successful binding in everything in As together a wholeness." Mr. Brookesagaciously pointsout, " Life isn'tcast intoa mould-notcut out by ruleand line,and thatsortof thing" (30). George Eliot intends refract in to life all its multiplicity; since the humanmind will no more but, chaos any morethan a " moralchaos" (80), acceptan artistic in a tension created thenovelbetween is refraction selection. and not on " explicit Resolution relations" (the kindfound depends in morefrequently the earlier novels),but on "obscureimplicit. 58 The structure thusapproaches ones." multiplicity verges and
58

"t

of GeorgeEliot's Conception Form,"pp. 656-58.

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on inconsequence Jameshinted). But the symbolic (as action providesa complicated and unifying dance of motifs.George Eliot's own metaphor the web to describe of of the structure society and the structure the novelis slightly of as misleading a definition the aesthetic of principle becauseit evokes, fact,a in " structure cut out by rule and line." The metaphor the of connective thread (153) is better, but the criticis saferif he duplicatesthe methods Lydgate'senquiry, he looks for of as " Eliot maybe " enamoured arduousinvention (122), George of but hertriumph thatthe resultappearscompletely is spontaneous. In Caleb Garth'swordsdescribing something well-made, "Things hang together" (297). Middlemarch enactsin its structure truthit preaches. also a on "Our gooddepends the qualityand breadth the emotion of " a which (345), she writes; phrase sounds though couldhave as it come fromc" Notes On Form In Art." GeorgeEliot's perfect readerwillforce like himself, Dorotheaafter interview her with "to dwellon everydetail and its possiblemeaning" Ladislaw,, " (577) . Signs,however, are smallmeasurable but things, inter" pretations illimitable (18) . That is one barrier a perfect are to reading.Anotheris that all of us, attempting describea to Ccsign" " get our thoughts in tangled metaphors, act fatally and " on the strength them (63). Fully to understand of how the concept symbolic of in actionworks Middlemarch mustpay we strictattention the individual to detail and then evaluate its " qualityand breadth."Details meanmorethanthemselves. In a symbolic vibrates withsignificance. action, structure If, as I said earlier,GeorgeEliot was writing beyondthe criticalacumen,and theircritical capacitiesof contemporary vocabulary was inadequateto deal withMiddlemarch, today, whenMiddlemarch at last appreciated themasterpiece is, is as it have sucha vocabulary. we might Unfortunately, however, even on the question plot thereis widespread of disagreement, to not of The followers Northrop say confusion. Frye, for example. the regard novelas a longpoem,and attempt see " thewhole to of design the workas a unity.It is now a simultaneous pattern not a out from center, a narrative radiating in moving time." 59
" Northrop Frye, "Literary Criticism," in The Aims and Methods of Scholarship in Modern Languages and Literatures, ed. James Thorp (New York, 1963), pp. 63-65.

c"new connections " and hitherto hiddenfactsof structure (110).

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" a criticsearching subtleties." Apartfrom for 64 anything else, who is to say that the " subtleties"a sensitive criticfinds are, in fact, there? not One has to ask oneself thereis any real insurmountable if difference betweenthe neo-Aristotelian criticand the symbolic for we critic.When, instance, notein Middlemacrh " meticuthe louslycounterpointed stories Lydgateand Dorothea, of A65 each an orphanwith a Continental each well-born education, but each a reformer, we falsifying reaction are disregarding our rank, to say thatliteralplot pattern becomessymbolic someideal of GeorgeEliot had in mind? How else can we suggest that the is doublepattern morethanmerecoincidence? Again,whenwe note the Aristotelian as peripeteia, the roles of Dorothea and he the patient,and she the Lydgate are reversed, becoming of doctor;whenwe see this inversion rolesrepeated various in
60"Imagery: From Sensationto Symbol,"Journal Aesthetics of and Art Criticism, 12 (September, 1953), 31. *' "Criticism and the Novel," Antioch Review, 18 (1958), 344. 62 " Criticism and the Novel," p. 345. 63 CcCriticism and the Novel," p. 347. 64 " Criticism and the Novel," p. 370. "6U. C. Knoepflmacher,Religious Humanism and the Victorian Novel (Princeton, 1965), p. 76.

interpretation," and "what happens in the literal action" to

63

Neo-Aristotelian on the critics, theother hand,following lead of R. S. Crane,whilenot denying that plot is no simplematter, prefer to give undueemphasis what NormanFriedman not to calls " theimages 60 (which, fiction, be characters).Mr. in Ad can " thefailure manycritics Friedman finds unfortunate of todayto takeseriously, a material on level,thevarious unifying principles which may shapein a novelactionand thewayit is handled." 61 The trouble that we have " no commonly is of acceptedbody terms, principles, distinctions grasping and for the satisfactorily literalactionof a novelas it functions the wholeof whichit. in is a palpablepart."62 In thisessay, have attempted reconcile I to both schoolsof criticism, stressing fact that literaland the by " are symbolic not exclusive; thatthe " literalaction can possess the qualitiesof a longpoem. In my discussion Middlemarch on I have tried show, fact, to in thatGeorge Eliot'sstyle transmutes the literalplot,whichnevertheless existsfully its own right. in Mr. Friedmandemonstrates loosenessof criticalvocabulary a whenhe bluntly opposes" the factsof the case" to " symbolic

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wayswith other characters, Willand Bulstrode, instance, with for we needa terminology which distinguish will literal traditional or plotfrom way George the Eliot usesit in Middlemarch. Thereis a sense,even,in which plot turnsout to be whatWalterNaumann termsa "pseudo-structure "George Eliot has an in": credibly easy effortless manner, manner the spinner the of of taleswhopassesfrom chapter thenext, one to from objectto one anothereven whenremote, without the slightest 66 difficulty." he Such a technique, claims, does not use plot as structure; the " " novelworks becauseof its slow-movingorchestratedthemes. Or again,alongsimilar RichardS. Lyonshas remarked, lines, in an intensive studyof onlyone chapter Middlemarch, at of that " a certain point, plotand character become inseparable, plot for becomesthe growth consciousness whichcharacter dein by is 67 fined." Clearly, then,plot is no simplematter.And by now, it shouldbe obviousthat the symbolic approachto plot and texture not a gameof symbol-hunting. in Middlemarch is Since " there a complicated correspondence one plotwithanother. is of related but Theyarenottenuously versions the of parts, different 68 samestory," it is not stretching concept symbolic the of action to call each plot a symbolic of representation the other, and all foursymbolic an overallconsciousness. of Mr. Friedman himself givesus a clue to the fullmeaning a of which becomes form whileretaining appearance symbolic, the of a plot-outline. asks, " What,then,is a symbol?An image He
alive with an idea; a fact saturatedin value." 69 The surfaceor " " superficial approachis then a vital part of any criticalevaluation which stresses symbolism, since we must emphasize "the dependenceof symbolon particularsensationand feeling." Of 70 a we run the riskof hardening scene or gesturewhen we course, abstract it fromits field of expressivemeaning,but so we do when we abstractthe plot element. The critic'sjob, however,is easier in GeorgeEliot's case because of the happy made slightly tendencyof places and people " quietly and easily" to " gather emotional value and meaning, become charged with natural
66 of "The Architecture George Eliot's Novels," Modern Language Quarterly, 9 (1948), 38. 67 C" The Method of Middlemarchh"NCF, 21 (June, 1966), 38. 68 Barbara Hardy, The Novels of George Eliot, p. 99. 69 " Imagery: From Sensation to Symbol," p. 40. 70 Barbara Hardy, "The Surface of the Novel," in Middlemarch: Critical Approaches to the Novel, p. 152.

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piety,"71 when " a given poet's preoccupationwith certain settings, situations,and characterswill be seen, when viewed in the perspectiveof his total achievementto act as a symbolic key to his ultimatevisionin life,just as his recurrent metaphors, when systematically inspected,will do." 72 Withoutwantingto claim that everything Middlemarchis in symbolic (i. e., not itself),I would like to insistthat everything is part of a symbolicaction, for " there are practical acts, and there are symbolicacts," and " the symbolicact is the dancing of an attitude."78 Symbolic acts are "representativeacts "7 acts. GeorgeEliot's symbolicmethodin Middlemarchdoes more than "reinforce and lend emotional values to other kinds of meaning," a criticaljudgmentthat has become commonplace . thoughnone the less popular. Symbolicimagery, fact,is only in part of the total effect whichincludesplot, character, and so on, and transmutesthem into somethingrich and strange. This totalityis so rich,in fact, that one comes away fromthe novel with a feelingof dangerous frustration; "dangerous" because and the discoveriesone had set leads to dogmatism, frustration out to " whisper" freezeinto assertions, lose theirelastic tentativeness, and thus distort. One retains a sense of the tough delicacyof Middlemarchby not shouting; beingsatisfied by with whichprovide,in Frost's definition thoughtsand observations of " poetry, a temporary stay against confusion."
PrincetonUniversity

which only receive their full and most potent force from other

72

71 Jerome Thale, The Novels of George Eliot (New York, 1959), p. 158.

76 Mention of poetry reminds me of Charles Olsen's revolutionary program for "Projective Verse," one of the prescriptionsfor which concerns " the Kinetics of the thing." That is, " the poem must, at all points, be a high-energyconstruct and, at " all pointsan energydischarge."Stressing FIELD COMPOSITION," Olsen comes to the conclusion (not unlike the conclusion Darrel Mansell comes to about Middlemarch), OF CONTENT." that "FORM IS NEVER MORE THAN AN EXTENSION In other words, form is anything the poem will hold within its field of force. In these essential aesthetic points, Middlemarch anticipates an importantaesthetic movement of twentieth-century American poetry! See "Projective Verse," in The New American Poetry, ed. Donald M. Allen (New York, 1960), pp. 386-97.

Burke,The Philosophy Literary of Form,p. 10. Burke,The Philosophy Literary of Form,p. 25. Thale, The Novels of GeorgeEliot, p. 158.

Friedman, " Imagery: From Sensation to Symbol," p. 31.

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