Week 5 Reading Journal

Reviewing the excerpt from George Eliot’s Middlemarch list 5 words which most concisely describe each of the following characters: Dorothea, Mr. Casaubon, and Will Ladislaw. Use a dictionary if you can’t come up with the exact word you’re seeking. (Hint, if your 5 words for each character are all fairly synonymous you are not reading carefully enough.) Then cite sentences from Eliot’s text which “show” the reader something about each one of the three characters. Write a matching sentence which “tells” the reader the same concept for each.

Dorothea

Proud/Vane
Lonely
Religious
Confused
Tragic

“I am sorry to add that she was sobbing bitterly, with such abandonment to this relief of an oppressed heart as a woman habitually controlled by pride on her own account and thoughtfulness for others will sometimes allow herself when she feels securely alone” (180).
Dorothea is a woman who is often lonely, she has an unhappy life and is unhappy with her marriage, but must uphold her pride and resilience when she is around others. The only time she really thinks of others is when she is alone, showing that she only thinks of others when she believes she can benefit from their company.

Mr. Casaubon

Learned
Boring
Eager
Unaffectionate
Unchangeable

“He was as genuine a character as any ruminant animal, and he had not actively assisted in creating any illusions about himself” (183).
He is completely fake and does not even attempt to make others believe otherwise.

Will Ladislaw

Timid
Polite
Charming
Good-Humored
Competitive

“But the idea of this dried-up pendant, this elaborator of small explanations about as important as the surplus stock of false antiquities kept in a vendor’s back chamber, having first got this adorable young creature to marry him, and then passing his honeymoon away from her, groping after his mouldy futilities (Will was given to hyperbole)—this sudden picture stirred him with a sort of comic disgust: he was divided between impulse to burst into scornful invective” (192).
Will Ladislaw believes Mr. Casaubon to be boring, full of unimportant and useless remarks, and undeserving of his wife. He finds it comical and disgusting at the same time, and is tempted to insult Mr. Causabon at all times because of his great dislike of him.

In Eliot’s opinion (found in On Realism), what are some of the author’s most important responsibilities when designing characters for fiction?

Eliot writes that she will “give no more than a faithful account of men and things as they have mirrored themselves in my mind” (113). She writes that characters must be accepted as they are, and that they must be tolerated, pitied, and loved. You must tell the truth in your writing, as falsehood is the easy way out. She also emphasizes that writing about characters must contain deep human sympathy, that there must be some familiarity with those characters so that the writer and the reader can identify with them (114-116).

Do you think she “practices what she preaches” in Middlemarch? Why or why not?

I definitely believe that Eliot practices what she preaches in Middlemarch. Her characters are very complex, as they possess a wide variety of characteristics and qualities that define them. Sometimes it can be confusing or “hazy,” but this is the way real people are. She does an extremely effective job of portraying real people, with all their faults and virtues, and that is something that truly draws in the reader. For me, I could imagine these people and relate to some of their emotions, touching on what Eliot called the “fibre of sympathy connecting me with that vulgar citizen…” (116). I love the way that, even if you greatly dislike a character, Eliot will make you feel sympathy for or a connection with that character, forcing yourself to question your own qualities. It seems that through learning and reading more about these seemingly real characters, we can also learn a lot more about ourselves.