Analysis of George Eliot’s Middlemarch

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on May 9, 2025

Often identified as the greatest English novel ever written, Middlemarch by George Eliot examines the lives of several members of the rising middle class in the early to middle 19th century in a midsized town in the Midlands of England. The title refers to the name of the town that serves as the novel’s setting, but it also suggests the story’s focus.

The plot follows the life changes of a large cast of characters divided into four interconnecting storylines centered on Miss Dorothea Brooke, Dr. Tertius Lydgate, the banker Mr. Bulstrode, and Fred Vincy. Each stands at the center of a group of family members, friends, and acquaintances, some of whom interact with more than one of the main characters, giving the story its complex texture and increasing its social and psychological realism. Each protagonist seeks fulfillment in both ambition and love. Repeatedly, the fulfillment of one goal affects the fulfilling of the other, but the wide range of characters allows the author to explore numerous variations on these double themes.

A young woman of marriageable age, Dorothea Brooke belongs to the gentry. Her behavior and choices, however, derive from her desire to improve conditions of the world rather than to charm the town’s young men. She makes elaborate plans and creates designs for better workers’ cottages on her uncle’s estate; however, since raising the living standards of the workers costs money resulting in no increase of income from labor, her uncle resists her efforts.

Dorothea looks for a way to contribute something to the larger world when she meets Mr. Casaubon, a wealthy older scholar who is working on a key to all mythologies—an ambitious undertaking that has occupied him for years. She sees assisting Casaubon as a way to fulfill her ambition within the narrow range of options open to women, a theme of interest to feminist critics. By marrying and helping Casaubon, she will find satisfaction. Dorothea sacrifices romantic love to her ambition, but soon after her marriage meets Casaubon’s impoverished but talented young cousin Will Ladislaw. Although Dorothea does not at first realize the strength of his effect on her, Casaubon does and amends his will to disinherit her if she marries Ladislaw; soon after, he dies. Dorothea must choose between the wealth and status she possesses as Mr. Casaubon’s widow and the fulfillment of both love and ambition in a union with Will Ladislaw.

In contrast to Dorothea’s devotion to ambition at the cost of love, Dr. Lydgate begins as an ambitious young physician hoping to discover the cause of fever, then thought to be a disease rather than a symptom. When he begins to court beautiful Rosamond Vincy, the daughter of a newly wealthy manufacturer, he thinks that he will find love and continue to pursue his scientific ambitions, even though they do not bring him a lucrative practice. What he finds, however, is that a beautiful wife from a wealthy family cannot be denied the comforts and the status to which she has been accustomed. Dr. Lydgate must relinquish his ambitions to satisfy his wife’s financial needs, and he finds himself increasingly devoted to the gouty feet of clients in fashionable London and Paris who can afford to pay well for his ministrations.

Mr. Bulstrode serves as the novel’s antagonist, both in his business connection to Fred Vincy and in his hidden crime. When his misdeeds stand to be revealed, he makes choices that lead to his life being completely disrupted. Having already fulfilled his ambitions and established a stable emotional bond with his wife, he loses his wealth and status but discovers something valuable in her devotion. While Dorothea and Lydgate place ambition above love but keep it within the bounds of law and morality, Mr. Bulstrode is revealed as a man who would violate laws to pursue ambition. He becomes a social outcast, departing Middlemarch in disgrace.

Only Fred Vincy fulfills his goals in Middlemarch. His expectation of a large inheritance from a wealthy old uncle nearly leads to his destruction. Confident of a financially secure future, he lacks ambition to exert himself and shape a future. His false sense of security sets him on a self-destructive path, and when his hopes of the inheritance are dashed, only the love of his sweetheart Mary Garth draws him back to a realistic understanding of what he can hope for in life. He must curtail the ambitions of a wealthy future and learn to be happy as a man who pursues a profession to earn his way. Mary’s love compensates for his acceptance of reduced ambitions.

Running throughout the story is the historical impact of the political reforms of 1832, which extended the voting franchise to a much wider spectrum of the male population. Dorothea’s uncle finds himself unable to navigate the complex waters of democratic elections and unwilling to make the compromises required of a successful politician. Other characters also are drawn into the redefined political realm, including Will Ladislaw. The class-based elitism that had dominated English social arrangements for centuries begins to erode once the middle class is enfranchised to vote. The march to power of the middle class has begun by the novel’s end, heralding the impending arrival of a more egalitarian order. Eliot’s third-person omniscient narrator allows readers to relive the mid-Victorian era through an understanding of the underlying attitudes that drive the realistic behaviors of the diverse characters. Demonstrating a keen insight into human nature and using a sensitive awareness of narrative pacing, Eliot draws the four storylines to a satisfying resolution.

The Realism of George Eliot

Bibliography
Hutchinson, Stuart, ed. George Eliot: Critical Assessments. 4 vols. East Sussex: Helm Information, 1996.
Pangallo, Karen L., ed. The Critical Response to George Eliot. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1994.
Rignall, John, ed. Oxford Reader’s Companion to George Eliot. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.