Modern Criticisms of Middlemarch

Of the recent criticism essays we could read, I liked Robert B. Heilman’s criticism called “Stealthy Convergence” in Middlemarch on page 618. I liked this essay or whatever you want to call it because it talks about Eliot’s use of an extensive character list as well. I really liked the last thing I blogged about because Henry James talked about how the characters were written and interacted with each other so that they projected the a great span of a community. Heilman’s article continues on this sort of path.

He discusses the technique which Eliot so perfectly referenced and utilized, called “stealthy convergence.” This technique allows for “interconnection among people who do not expect it.” What’s great about what Heilman has to say is that through this convergence, Eliot connects various characters whose stories might not directly relate but in reality, with such a small community, they do. That is what she wants to show off about a rural town like Middlemarch. Everyone is connected.

Heilman took a very studies approach to it. What I said above is basically what I think we was trying to say most of the time. He doesn’t talk about the characters so much as the technique in which the story is written. He talks about the chronological tie which was the “oldest and simplest” sort of transition. And it is! Because Eliot and so many authors with large character lists follow a linear chronological path, it’s easy for the reader to understand the transitions between characters. And that’s what Eliot had to master (and according to Heilman, she did): flawless transitions. These transitions had to make sense and Heilman uses a film reference to accomplish his explanation of what Eliot and many others have done, which is panning: “proceeding panoramically from one to another of the neighboring components of groups or scenes.” Heilman praises Eliot saying “no other nineteenth-century novelist, as far as I have observed has hit upon this polished way of transferring us, if not insensibly at least without our feeling the graceless yank of an author’s derrick, from part to part.” Sure, some of us kind of got angsty when we had all those Dorothea-central chapters at the beginning and then it totally switched to Lydgate and co. and we’re left thinking, ‘hey I thought this book was going to be about Dorothea!’ But Heilman breaks it down for us and we realize, ‘o yeah, there was a transition from Dorothea to the Lydgate during the dinner party.’ Ultimately, Eliot creates a cross-over which we can easily follow. These characters do this and that incites a reaction from these characters, etc. and in the end we observe the epitome of a rural community which is a web of interconnected actions and reactions.

p.s. I also really appreciated Heilman’s mentioning of “The Dead Hand” and explaining it as “wills through which dead men seek power over the living.” The book title didn’t make sense until then.

Character Analysis by Henry James

The contemporary reviews of from the back of our copies of Middlemarch contain 
various articles which examine the book and George Eliot's techniques. But to be 
honest I only read a few. I didn't want to anymore. After reading Henry James' 
review titled, "George Eliot's Middlemarch," I didn't want to read anymore. I 
enjoyed it enough that I knew this what what I wanted to write about.

Right from when we started reading Middlemarch, we knew that it would get 
difficult to keep the characters straight. Sure, now that we've read most, if 
not all, of the book we know the characters better. We know the story. We know 
enough to say we notice the absence of a character and wonder when we'll come 
around to their part of the story again. And this is what Henry James talked 
about and that's what I appreciated most. With Mary Barton, there was 
discussion of who the main character really was. Henry James addressed this 
problem with an even greater character list!

James' review opens with the best line! "Middlemarch is at once one of the 
strongest and one of the weakest of English novels." James talks about Eliot's 
range of characters. He speaks best of Dorothea claiming she is the subject of 
the book "a young girl framed for a moral life than circumstance often affords, 
yearning for a motive for sustained spiritual effort and only wasting her ardor 
and soiling her wings against the meanness of opportunity." Dorothea is made out 
to have the "career of an obscure St. Theresa." However while James goes on to 
praise Dorothea as great and genuine creation, he laments that she is not the 
only character to be focused on. She is just a small part, just a part of an 
episode. Other people's relationships become the focus. But James can't help but 
go on about how Dorothea was too superb a heroine to be wasted" especially when 
she loses facetime to the likes of Fred Vincy. But if it's Lydgate, it's 
different. Because Lydgate is a hero as much as Dorothea is...while Ladislaw is 
only a "beautiful attempt." James seems to only wish that Lydgate and Dorothea 
interacted more often because being brought into contact suggests a "wealth of 
dramatic possibility between them." But James acknowledges that if they had, the 
character of Rosamond would've been lost.

Basically, what was awesome about Henry James' review is the way he analyzes 
every character. To truly summarize and analyze the review is merely to copy and 
paste it into the blog. Because what James is really all about is analyzing the 
way the characters interact and the role they play in each other's character 
development. This allows for Eliot's psychological presentation into society.

James claims "the author has desired to be strictly real and to adhere to the 
facts of the common lot..." and had thus presented us with human drama. With 
characters like Dorothea and Lydgate, do you agree?