Lydgate and Rosamond’s marriage has been tested by their family debt. Despite the ruthless rejection by Sir Godwin, Lydgate seemed to have accepted Rosamond’s secrecy and her pursuit in life. With the following passage from chapter 65, what does Lydgate’s monologue tell us about his changed attitude towards his relationship with Rosamond that eventually rendered him “mastered”? More interestingly, how does this new side of Lydgate shed light on his transformation as a person as the story unfolds?

He only caressed her; he did not say anything, for what is there to say? He could not promise to shield her from the dreaded wretchedness, for he could see no sure means of doing so…he told himself that it was ten times harder for her than for him: he had a life away from home and constant appeals to his activity... He wished to excuse everything in her if he could - but it was inevitable that in that excusing mood he should think of her as if she...

He had really a movement of anger against her at that moment…Joy came first, in spite of the threatening train behind it…They were parted all the same, but—Dorothea drew a deep breath and felt her strength return—she could think of him unrestrainedly. At that moment the parting was easy to bear: the first sense of loving and being loved excluded sorrow. It was as if some hard icy pressure had melted, and her consciousness had room to expand: her past was come back to her with larger interpretation. The joy was not the less—perhaps it was the more complete just then—because of the irrevocable parting; for there was no reproach, no contemptuous wonder to imagine in any eye or from any lips. He had acted so as to defy reproach, and make wonder respectful. (Ch 62)

Question: What is the idea of love and freedom in the novel?

Love and freedom are themes that recur in the novel inter-connectedly. Cassuabon's codicil to the will has...

Passage: "Night and day, without interruption save of brief sleep which only wove retrospect and fear into a fantastic present, he felt the scenes of his earlier life coming between him and everything else, as obstinately as when we look through the window from a lighted room, the objects we turn our backs on are still before us, instead of the grass and the trees. The successive events inward and outward were there in one view: though each might be dwelt on in turn, the rest still kept their hold in the consciousness."

Question: How can the description of Bulstrode’s inner turmoil relate to Eliot’s construction of the “imagined community” of Middlemarch?

Bulstrode’s past and present converge as he is forced to deal with the consequences of his unscrupulous decision, putting him at a crossroad between reputation and redemption. With reference to Anderson’s “Imagined Communities”, the way that Bulstrode is forced to confront the...

Passage pertaining to my discussion 

Book V Chapter 52 

“Fred has sense and knowledge enough to make him respectable, if he likes, in some good worldly business, but I can never imagine him preaching and exhorting, and pronouncing blessings, and praying by the sick, without feeling as if I were looking at a caricature. His being a clergyman would be only for gentility’s sake, and I think there is nothing more contemptible than such imbecile gentility. I used to think that of Mr. Crowse, with his empty face and neat umbrella, and mincing little speeches. What right have such men to represent Christianity—as if it were an institution for getting up idiots genteelly—as if—” (516)

Question underpinning my discussion

What are the Middlemarchers’ view of Christian vocation and Christianty reflected in Fred Vincy’s deliberations in...