Describe the roles and functions of the narrator. 

How does Eliot examine the notions of moralism and aestheticism through the characters Dorothea and Will?

How does Eliot enhance the characterisation of Dorothea and explore the “Woman Question” through the explicit references to Milton’s daughters, Paradise Lost, and Othello? 

In Middlemarch, Dorothea is myopic, while Casaubon's vision is deteriorating. The heroine is also exceedingly fixated on the male philosophers and intellectuals, such as Milton, who became blind in his later life. Discuss the recurring motif of sight in the novel.