Look at this narrative from Mrs. Bulstrode on her husband’s supposed origin:

“Mr. Bulstrode’s narrative occasionally gave of his early bent towards religion, his inclination to be a preacher, and his association with missionary and philanthropic efforts. She believed in him as an excellent man whose piety carried a peculiar eminence in belonging to a layman, whose influence had turned her own mind toward seriousness, and whose share of perishable good had been the means of raising her own position.” (613)

Question: What is the significance of a character’s legitimate membership in the town has in the story of Middlemarch?

Anderson’s Imagined Communities proposed an explanation of how any named nation was merely “imagined”, which the sense of legitimacy given to a terrorized region to be called a “nation” can be traced back to historical, social and cultural constituents. Interestingly, many of those may not be visibly provable or even be scientifically traceable, e.g. the Greeks explained their common origin with the Greek mythologies.

While Elliot’s “web” analogy emphasized the interconnected relationships between the members of Middlemarch, the proposition of the “imagined community” drew our attention to something we have long overlooked: the novel’s location was acknowledged by default as a terrorized region, supplemented with invisible cultural boundaries. More importantly, the question we want to answer is, how did the behaviours of the characters make sense of their legitimacy membership in the Middlemarch?

In the quoted passage, we observe that Mr. Bulstrode’s origin prior to his arrival upon Middlemarch was unclear. He arrived as an unacquainted man of no trustee from the town to prove his history. Ironically, in Mrs. Bulstrode’s narrative of marrying Mr. Bulstrode, the prioritized consideration was they supposedly shared similar standings in the society, just because Mr. Bulstrode’s “share of perishable good” acted as a piece of evidence, and his “piety carried a peculiar eminence in belonging to a layman” (613) made her into believing they belong to the same layman ranking, which their families must have shared good histories and standings.

Coming with a suspicious amount of wealth, and a self-claimed narrative of “early bent towards religion, his inclination to be a preacher, and his association with missionary and philanthropic efforts” (613). By normal sense, Mr. Bulstrode should have faced lots of hardships in return for acceptance among the members of Middlemarch. With all the luck, his marriage to Mrs. Bulstrode secured his first layer to relation to the town – blood relation. Interestingly, this layer heavily based upon the “high consideration from his wife” (614), in other words, trust exerted by existing members of the town. The concern to “maintain his recognized supremacy” (614) rose from the very existence and nature of “unreformed provincial minded” (614) Middlemarch, which its members took the legitimacy of blood origin seriously. And this relationship can only be recognized and enabled by no other, but the existing members of this community.  

To give credit, Mr. Bulstrode built his second layer of relationship with Middlemarch himself – a shared belief in the religion. In Dorothea and Casaubon's relationship, we can easily observe the commonly shared sincere attitude to serve the religion, hence the couple was brought together. What about Mr. Bulstrode? In Chapter 61, in Mr. Bulstrode’s exchange with Will Ladislaw, it was made obvious that Mr. Bulstrode’s perceived philanthropic behaviour was out of guilt and the hope for redemption. Even though Mr. Bulstrode convinced members of the town to consider him honourable – which appealed to the provincial preference and the shared honour of serving the religion – this recognition of Mr. Bulstrode as a respected member of the Middlemarch is fraudulent and paradoxical.

No matter it is blood relation or social relation, honour lays much of the foundation for the legitimacy of respect among the people of Middlemarch. It seems that when it comes to honour, members of the town have a strong opinion on the matter of honour. Mrs. Bulstrode found Raffles “very disagreeable” (613) to claim himself a friend of Mr. Bulstrode, men of seemingly different ranks of honour; even when Will rejected Mr. Bulstrode’s offering of inheritance, his reason was “My unblemished honour is important to me. It is important to me to have no stain on my birth and connections.” (624) Mr. Bulstrode as a “later-comer”, his status of honour at his arrival would be determining of his later development and fate in Middlemarch. Upon Mr. Bulstrode’s affiliation with the religion, members of Middlemarch perceived him as if he were from a super territorial group of figures of what Anderson suggested as the “civilised” (Anderson 416). As existing members of the Middlemarch imagined the civilization of where Mr. Bulstrode came from was of equal to that in the Middlemarch, Mr. Bulstrode was relatively easily assimilated into one of the “insiders” or “us” because of this label. Upon this foundation, Mr. Bulstrode was able to build up his influence and reputation in the town.  

On the other hand, if he were to be exposed to his turmoil connection to the thievery upon arrival at the town, he would have been otherwise labelled as the “barbarian” (Anderson 416). As a “late-comer” to a stably established community, Mr. Bulstrode would have been expected to be educated and civilised by the higher-ranking culture of the Middlemarch, in order to be accepted as a member. On this note, it is worth thinking that other characters with less clear origin and a relatively new arrival at the town, like Will Ladislaw and Tertius Lydgate, how has their legitimacy of membership in Middlemarch affected their behaviour and development in the novel?