QUOTE

But he was now a prey to that worst irritation which arises not simply from annoyances, but from the second consciousness underlying those annoyances, of wasted energy and a degrading preoccupation, which was the reverse of all his former purposes. 

[…]

Doubtless they were sordid; and for the majority, who are not lofty, there is no escape from sordidness but by being free from money-craving, with all its base hopes and temptations, its watching for death, its hinted requests, its horse-dealer’s desire to make bad work pass for good, its seeking for function which ought to be another’s, its compulsion often to long for Luck in the shape of a wide calamity.

—Chapter LXIV

In this excerpt, we see Lydgate calling the pursuit of material wealth a degrading activity. In modern capitalist society such as the one we are living in now, the pursuit of money is essential. Prosperity guarantees...

Middlemarch opens with a very concise prelude commenting on the life of Saint Theresa. The prelude almost puts Saint Theresa on a pedestal, when the narrator compares other women to her by calling them “Many Theresas”.  In many ways, the narrator sees Saint Theresa as an ideal woman, sharing about her life and her motivations as if she was a legend. Interestingly, the prelude gives us a hint that there may be a character in this story as prominent and selfless as Saint Theresa.

Chapter 80 in particular helps us understand how far Dorothea has come in her characterisation and could be looked upon to see how the prelude foreshadows Dorothea’s ending. The epigraph of Wordsworth’s Ode to Duty is praising a person who is willing to put their duty to others above everything personal. The subject of the epigraph “preserve the Stars from wrong”, which is reflective of what Dorothea does too. She has the “clearest consciousness” after...

Excerpt: Rosamond took his way of talking to herself, which was a mixture of playful fault-finding and hyperbolical gallantry, as the disguise of a deeper feeling; and in his presence she felt that agreeable titillation of vanity and sense of romantic drama which Lydgate’s presence had no longer the magic to create. She even fancied—what will not men and women fancy in these matters? —that Will exaggerated his admiration for Mrs. Casaubon in order to pique herself. In this way poor Rosamond’s brain had been busy before Will’s departure. He would have made, she thought, a much more suitable husband for her than she had found in Lydgate.

Question: To what extent do Rosamond’s constructed romances serve the purpose of providing her with a sense of continuity comparable with the one produced by Dorothea’s religiosity?

Benedict Anderson noted that a purpose that religion fulfilled prior to the weakening of its position during the course of...

For having lived in Westminster—how many years now? over twenty—one feels even in the midst of the traffic, or waking at night, Clarissa was positive, a particular hush, or solemnity; an indescribable pause; a suspense (but that might be her heart, affected, they said, by influenza) before Big Ben strikes. There! Out it boomed. First a warning, musical; then the hour, irrevocable. The leaden circles dissolved in the air. [...]making it up, building it round one, tumbling it, creating it every moment afresh; but the veriest frumps, the most dejected of miseries sitting on doorsteps (drink their downfall) do the same; can't be dealt with, she felt positive, by Acts of Parliament for that very reason: they love life. In people's eyes, in the swing, tramp, and trudge; in the bellow and the uproar; the carriages, motor cars, omnibuses, vans, sandwich men shuffling and swinging; brass bands; barrel organs; in the triumph and the jingle and the strange...