Eliot obviously strives to highlight that Dorothea possesses not the superficial kind of beauty which is shared by other female characters. Instead, her physical charms radiate from her spiritual and moral purity. Her "surface" corresponds to her "substance". Other worldly-wise female characters(like Celia, who is obsessed with her mother’s jewelry) would adorn their attractiveness with accessories and conform to the fashion trends of their time. However, Dorethea is different. The narrator conspicuously sets her apart from the crowd: Dorothea's solemn beauty is paradoxically not obscured but “thrown into relief” by her poor and plain garments, which manifest her utter devotion to puritanism and refusal of aesthetic pleasure. Thus, the intended effects of such a curious introduction is to establish a starker juxtaposition of the feminine beauty embodied by Dorothea and by other characters, and a more particularized and realistic portrait of the heroine.