Middlemarch

Middlemarch

Middlemarch is a long novel by George Eliot -(Mary Anne Evans Eliot).

 The narrative is variably considered to consist of three or four plots of unequal emphasis:  the life of Dorothea Brooke; the career of Tertius Lydgate; the courtship of Mary Garth by Fred Vincy; and the disgrace of Bulstrode. The two main plots are those of Dorothea and Lydgate. Each plot happens concurrently, although Bulstrode's is centred in the later chapters.

Middlemarch is a provincial town. Mainly it is a story about Dorothea. She chooses to marry Casaubon - an elderly scholar, who was doing some research work. The reason behind marring him was that she wanted to help him in his research work. But this is not the thing for which one gets married.

After marriage Dorothea realises his vold behaviour towards him.Dorothea discovers his animosity towards her ambitions during an unhappy honeymoon in Rome. Realising his great project is doomed to failure, her feelings change to pity. Dorothea forms a warm friendship with a young cousin of Casaubon's, Will Ladislaw, but her husband's antipathy towards him is clear and he is forbidden to visit. In poor health, Casaubon attempts to extract from Dorothea a promise that, should he die, she will "avoid doing what I should deprecate and apply yourself to do what I desire". He dies before she is able to reply, and she later learns of a provision to his will that, if she marries Ladislaw, she will lose her inheritance.

But Dorothea chooses love over money.

The young doctor Tertius Lydgate arrives in Middlemarch. Through his voluntary hospital work he meets the town's financier, Mr. Bulstrode, and through him Bulstrode's niece, the mayor's beautiful daughter Rosamond Vincy; Rosamond is attracted to Lydgate, particularly by what she believes to be his aristocratic connections. They marry, and in Lydgate's efforts to please Rosamond is soon deeply in debt and forced to seek help from Bulstrode. He is partly sustained through this by his friendship with Camden Farebrother.

Then Fred and Mary Garth's love story is also interwoven very well.

At last Bulstrode's past is revealed. The peculiar nature of Casaubon's will leads to suspicion that Ladislaw and Dorothea are lovers, creating an awkwardness between the two. Ladislaw is secretly in love with Dorothea, but keeps that to himself, having no desire to involve her in scandal or to cause her disinheritance. He remains in Middlemarch, working as a newspaper editor for Mr Brooke; when Brooke's election campaign collapses, he decides to leave the town and visits Dorothea

to make his farewell. But Dorothea has also fallen in love with Ladislaw, whom she had previously seen only as her husband's unfortunate relative. However, the peculiar nature of Casaubon's will led her to begin to see him in a new light. Renouncing Casaubon's fortune, she shocks her family again by announcing that she will marry Ladislaw. At the same time, Fred, who has been successful

in his career, marries Mary. The "Finale" details the eventual fortunes of the main characters. Fred and Mary marry and live contently with their three sons.

Lydgate operates a practice outside of Middlemarch but never finds fulfilment and dies aged fifty; after he dies, Rosamond marries a wealthy physician. Ladislaw engages in public reform and Dorothea proves to be contented as a wife and mother; their son inherits Arthur Brooke's estate.