Dorothea and the Written Word: Feminism and Heroism in Middlemarch

Authors

  • Marla Lee Weitzman University of Virginia's College at Wise

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18533/journal.v4i4.699

Keywords:

Feminism, gender, genre, George Eliot, Middlemarch.

Abstract

In her novel Middlemarch, George Eliot challenges assumptions about gender and genre by associating Dorothea Brooke with both masculine authority and feminine emotion. Eliot does so by connecting Dorothea both to the act of writing and to the artistic production itself. Unlike Rosamond Vincy, who is associated with the romance and with popular poetry in order to devalue her, Dorothea is connected to a number of more elevated genres, which are also associated with male authority. By driving the plot, Dorothea assumes the role of the writer in several ways: she ensures Celia’s marriage with Sir James by choosing Casaubon, she reunites Lydgate and Rosamond, and helps restore Lydgate’s good name. The letter she writes to accept Casaubon’s offer of marriage is written “three times, not because she wished to change the wording, but because her hand was unusually uncertain” (Eliot, 1968, p. 33). Her ardor gets in the way of her handwriting, but not of her “wording.” Eliot endows Dorothea’s writing with characteristics that are stereotypically feminine (motivated by love and intimacy) and stereotypically masculine (growing out of ardor, and expressing vigor, force and energy). By infusing the intimate with the powerful, and associating both with the act of writing, Eliot conflates the typical province of woman with the typical province of men thus disrupting conventions of both gender and genre.

Author Biography

  • Marla Lee Weitzman, University of Virginia's College at Wise

    Associate Professor, Department of Language and Literature

    M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Virginia

    B.A. from Brandeis University

References

Butler, J. (1990). Gender trouble. New York: Routledge. http://www.observem.com/upload/e87c812be54dccfedbeb710870fb7d66.pdf.

Eliot, G. (1968). Middlemarch. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/145/145-h/145-h.htm.

Gubar, S. (1985). “The Blank Page” and the issues of female creativity. In Elaine Showalter (Ed.), The New Feminist Criticism: Essays on Women, Literature and Theory (pp. 292-313). New York: Pantheon Books. https://books.google.com/books?id=D1T5WTe3xakC&pg=PA10&lpg=PA10&dq=The+Blank+Page%E2%80%9D+and+the+issues+of+female+creativity&source=bl&ots=_aFha7qTgV&sig=IHj_fti35Ld3fSi2_pObKEwnbnk&hl=en&sa=X&ei=H0M5VfyvF8GkgwTQnIGoBw&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=The%20Blank%20Page%E2%80%9D%20and%20the%20issues%20of%20female%20creativity&f=false.

Haight, G.S. (1973). “The true heroine of Middlemarch.” The George Eliot Fellowship Review 4: pp. 8-10. https://books.google.com/books?id=-DwSyVT0uxQC&pg=PA58&dq=The+true+heroine+of+Middlemarch&hl=en&sa=X&ei=V0M5VczCH8qdNrjJgJgH&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=The%20true%20heroine%20of%20Middlemarch&f=false.

Harvey, W. J. (Ed.). (1981). In G. Eliot, Middlemarch. New York: Penguin Books.

Johnson, P.E. (1997). The gendered politics of the gaze: Henry James and GeorgeEliot. Mosaic 30.1: pp. 39-54. https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1G1-19417235/the-gendered-politics-of-the-gaze-henry-james-and

Marotta, K. (1982). Middlemarch: The home epic. Genre: Forms of Discourse and Culture 15: pp. 403-20.

Ringler, E. (1983). Middlemarch: A feminist perspective. Studies in the Novel 15 (1983): 55-61. http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/literary-criticism/7089315/middlemarch-feminist-perspective.

Shelston, A. (1993). What Rosy knew: Language, learning and lore in Middlemarch.Critical Quarterly 35.4: pp. 21-30. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8705.1993.tb00502.x/pdf.

Siegel, C. (1998). “This thing I like my sister may not do”: Shakespearean erotics and a clash of wills in Middlemarch. Style 32: pp. 36-59. http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/1516862/this-thing-like-my-sister-may-not-do-shakespearean-erotics-clash-wills-middlemarch.

Smith, D.L. (2001). Middlemarch: Eliot’s tender subversion. George Eliot-George Henry Lewes Studies. 40-41: pp. 34-46.

Downloads

Published

2015-05-04

Issue

Section

Article

Similar Articles

21-30 of 104

You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.