Victorians! discussion

This section focusses on the trials of Lydgate and Bulstrode.

For Lydgate, his deepening financial woes are placing a strain on both his personal and his professional life. What sort of challenges is he facing in both these areas, and how successful do you think he will be in overcoming them?

Bulstrode is finding that history is catching up with him, and his reputation is at stake. How does he choose to deal with this, and what is the outcome?

What are the Two Temptations of the section title?

How do these men's personal trials fit into the wider issue of how society is changing at this period in time, both in the practice of medicine and of business?

Oops! Sorry---I got a little enthused and forgot where I was posting.

Wow, can you believe with all the class and high society schooling that Rosemond went through, she had the audacity to go behind her husband's back to manipulate his affairs as head of the house. What a embarrassment. She is not the type to yell or be "mean," but her unreturning love and behavior is even more cruel. It looks like she's just a gold-digger.

I feel bad for Lydgate.

I feel very conflicted by this section. On the one hand, I so badly want to see Rosamond publicly evicted from her house and all her belongings sold in the town square at high noon, with her watching, but I don't want to see this happen to Lydgate.

I think that there are two types of self-centeredness (and this is just based on my experience, not on any scientific evidence). One is the selfishness of the young and some of the overly-indulged. I have known people like this--they unthinkingly do selfish things, but when it is pointed out to them, they are remorseful and immediately apologize and try to repair their action. Theirs was not an intentional selfishness. Then there are the people who knowingly place their own interests over everyone else's, no matter the cost to others. They are indifferent to the difficulties or pain their course will cause because their own well-being is their only concern.

Rosamond, to me, somewhat seems to hover in a gray area. She is young and has been spoiled by indulgent parents; she has been accustomed to admiration from most of the people she meets. Her desire to change her circumstances to fit her own agenda is understandable, but her tactics and her stubborn refusal to listen, once the facts are laid out, tend to shift to the less-excusable type of selfishness. I think Eliot is trying to remind us of the circumstances of Rosamond's upbringing to give us a balanced view, but we can also clearly see that, when Rosamond is faced with her husband's despair and the pain her actions cause him, she is unmoved. Her only emotions are disgust and disappointment--and, of course, pity for herself. Although she seems to be unaware of the selfishness of her actions, thus acquitting her of intention, she exhibits an equally disturbing lack of awareness of the feelings of others, and that their feelings actually matter. If she truly had a loving heart, or the ability to empathize with others, this would have been the time for that to show itself. She seems incapable of it, however, and my pity is all for Lydgate.

I agree, Cindy. While Rosamond was clearly a beloved and perhaps somewhat spoiled daughter, the family was not immensely rich and I assume she had still been expected to do the tasks which would normally fall to the eldest daughter, and she certainly would have seen what her mother was expected to do to run the household, including economizing when the business was struggling. I think that she was at the stage when most young people would grow up, accept some responsibility for their life situation and try to support the person they had married ostensibly for love. Rosamond's failure to do this suggests a larger degree of selfishness than can be explained by upbringing alone.

Cindy wrote: "when Rosamond is faced with her husband's despair and the pain her actions cause him, she is unmoved. Her only emotions are disgust and disappointment--and, of course, pity for herself."

True, and well said.

She has never had to face hardship, never learned how to deal with a male authority figure who refused to indulge her whims (she could twist her father, we have been told, around her little finger, and we see plenty examples of this). She believed that in marrying a medical man from a wealthy family who adored her she was going to continue this lifestyle, indeed had earned the right to it by molding herself into the model young woman of her class.

Nobody ever taught her how to deal with such disappointment, and she is totally uninterested in learning.

Frances wrote: " I assume she had still been expected to do the tasks which would normally fall to the eldest daughter, ."

I wonder. She was sent to the finishing school, so the question is what they taught her about the role and responsibilities of an eldest daughter (one of which, we are told, is how to exit a carriage). I don't recall, though I admit not looking for it, any evidence that she was expected to engage in domestic labors.

One of the key points for me in this section was Lydgate's conscious decision that it is preferable for his wife not to love him than him to fall out of love with her.
This idea has stuck in my mind and I haven't reached any real conclusions, normally people prefer to be the one in control of emotional relationships, but for Lydgate looking ahead at the long years of his marriage he cannot face it without believing himself to be in love with Rosamund even when such an emotion will be shallow and based on deceit and he recognises that his young wife has absolutely no respect for him.

Clari wrote: "One of the key points for me in this section was Lydgate's conscious decision that it is preferable for his wife not to love him than him to fall out of love with her.
This idea has stuck in my mi..."

I had not noticed that! That for Lydgate it is more important to love than be loved. Now that prompts some thoughts for me too. If Rosamund continues as she has so far proceeded, I find it hard to imagine that anyone could sustain loving her. Love aside, the lack of respect might be even harder to tolerate in the long-term. We know from the beginning of the novel that Lydgate is the kind of guy who leads with his heart, and even during Middlemarch he is young and thinks he has learned from unhappy early experience. Obviously, learning isn't part of it. You can't help who you love seems to be his mantra.

Lynne wrote: "Obviously, learning isn't part of it. You can't help who you love seems to be his mantra. ."

I think this novel examines the notion of love. The two men pursuing Mary Garth seem to know her as she knows them, but Dorothea and Lydgate both marry an illusion rather than a real person, which makes me classify their relationships as not based on love. Although I think given some compatibility both of them would have worked to make their marriages work and probably fallen in love with their spouses real personalities.

Absolutely, I agree. Seems like many of the Victorian classics have love in there somewhere. One of the things humans have been investigating, trying to understand, make sense of forever.

Clari wrote: "I think this novel examines the notion of love. ."

Love and marriage. (They don't always go together!) The marriage part I think is perhaps even more significant than the love part, but both are central.

Is everyone aware of the unconventional love life of Eliot? She lived in adultery with her lover, George Lewes, who she couldn't marry because he was married and unable to get a divorce, but they lived openly together and she used his name and called him her husband. After her death, she married a man 20 years her junior, but she died within the year.

I've never worked out what, if any (I'm sure there was some) influence her personal love/marriage life had on Middlemarch.

Everyman wrote: "Clari wrote: "I think this novel examines the notion of love. ."

Love and marriage. (They don't always go together!) The marriage part I think is perhaps even more significant than the love part, ..."

In my edition of the novel, it mentioned something about it being a bad period in her life because they were caring for Lewes son who I think died (?), she abandoned her first attempt at a novel about a doctor, started the one about Dorothea and then integrated them over time.
I find it always interesting how much knowledge of the author influences our appreciation of the work. Personally I identified more Eliot in 'The Mill on the Floss' which I saw as wish fulfillment for her own unhappily flawed relationship with her brother.

Clari wrote: "Everyman wrote: "Clari wrote: "I think this novel examines the notion of love. ."

Love and marriage. (They don't always go together!) The marriage part I think is perhaps even more significant tha..."

Absolutely! Knowledge of the author is very helpful in understanding where the characters and situations in their books comes from. I freely admit to not knowing as much as I should about the Victorian authors, so I pretty much take their writing at face value with no backstory.

Lynne wrote: "I freely admit to not knowing as much as I should about the Victorian authors, so I pretty much take their writing at face value with no backstory. "

The 11th Edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica is online. It was the best edition ever, IMO, and is still very readable and informative on people up to 1911, which is when it was published and covers all of Victorian England. Good information on most significant Victorian authors.

Here's one source, but seems to be without the illustrations (the same is true of the Gutenberg edition, which they republished as the Gutenberg Encyclopedia since the text was out of copyright but the name Encyclopedia Britannica wasn't). But the illustrations may not be so important for biographical information.

http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/ARN_AUD

Here's a nice article about the 11th ed from the Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/books/boo...

An excerpt:
"I think Hans Koning of the New Yorker nailed the appeal 30 years ago. He said it was the last great work of the age of reason, the final instance when all human knowledge could be presented with a single point of view. Four years later, the confidence and optimism that had produced the 11th would be, as he puts it, 'a casualty in the slaughter at Ypres and the Argonne.'"

And he's right. To open an 11th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica is to open a worldview lost forever in the staggering slaughter of the first world war. The 11th edition of the Britannica represents the high tide of optimism and belief in human progress that had dominated the Anglo-Saxon vision since the Enlightenment.

I'm lucky enough to own two complete copies of the 11th, one from each side of my family.

Everyman wrote: "Lynne wrote: "I freely admit to not knowing as much as I should about the Victorian authors, so I pretty much take their writing at face value with no backstory. "

The 11th Edition of the Encyclop..."

Thanks for the input and info!

Bulstrode's ability to rationalize his behaviour was extraordinary in this section -- to the extent that he can view murder as Providence. The steps he takes, as Raffles' condition worsens, are chilling, and particularly the conclusion about his end: that haunting ghost of his earlier life… he was trusting that Providence had delivered him from. Yes, Providence. He had not confessed to himself yet that he had done anything in the way of contrivance to this end; he had accepted what seemed to have been offered. It was impossible to prove that he had done anything which had hastened the departure of that man's soul.
In comparison, Lydgate's temptation seems unclear, especially since he was unaware of Bulstrode's motivation in lending him the money, and at first even believes the banker's change of heart was due to generosity. Is it a temptation, if he doesn't know it's wrong? Or was the temptation in not questioning Bulstrode about Raffles' unexpected death? I found it so ironic that Lydgate, who is in the business of saving lives, becomes complicit in the actions of Bulstrode (the patron of the hospital!) willfully precipitating a death.
And as much as I dislike Rosamond's underhanded behaviour, I think she has a valid point that it is unfair that Lydgate is not paid for his work at the hospital.

Clari wrote: "One of the key points for me in this section was Lydgate's conscious decision that it is preferable for his wife not to love him than him to fall out of love with her.
This idea has stuck in my mi..."

I was struck by this, too. I think it points to the prison that marriage could become in this era -- no escape from the "hideous fettering of domestic hate."

Everyman wrote: "Lynne wrote: "I freely admit to not knowing as much as I should about the Victorian authors, so I pretty much take their writing at face value with no backstory. "

The 11th Edition of the Encyclop..."

Very interesting links, do you dip into your Encyclopedias much or do you just like knowing they are there?

Lynne wrote: "In my book, there is an introduction about George Eliott and her life. It says she lived quite a controversial life. She had quite a few affairs with married men. I only imagine what that must have been like for her at the time! This book seems to reflect some of her colorful past! "

There is lots of criticism about how much you need to know about the author, I think for the majority of the books I read I know absolutely nothing, but sometimes it can add extra layers to the experience. In the age of the internet though, I find the wealth of information available occasionally so overwhelming that I end up not reading anything outside the text as I have no idea where to start, if that makes any sense?

Vanessa wrote: "I was struck by this, too. I think it points to the prison that marriage could become in this era -- no escape from the "hideous fettering of domestic hate.".."

She really captures the sense of isolation and imprisonment that a bad marriage can be in this novel. The goal is not happiness or lifelong love and support, but just trying to survive without falling into a total depression.

Clari wrote: "Lynne wrote: "In my book, there is an introduction about George Eliott and her life. It says she lived quite a controversial life. She had quite a few affairs with married men. I only imagine what ..."

Yes it makes sense!! I lurked at GoodReads for ages simply because there was so much on this one site that I was overwhelmed. My problem with the 'Net as a whole, is that there is so much data (I won't say information) that it can easily put a person on overload. In fact, there has been research to this effect.

Lynne wrote: "Clari wrote: "Lynne wrote: "In my book, there is an introduction about George Eliott and her life. It says she lived quite a controversial life. She had quite a few affairs with married men. I only..."

I am glad I'm not the only one! Even just within this groups there are lots of posts and interesting discussions that I somehow miss completely, I sometimes think I am at primary school level of being able to navigate the internet!

There is the Internet, and then there is GoodReads! If you need help navigating, Please ask. I don't know everything, but I am pretty good at finding out if I don't. To follow the discussions you really want to, make sure that you click down at the bottom of the discussion where it says "Notify Me if People Comment". It will change to "You are following this discussion." Then at the top where it says Home, My Books, Browse, Community, click community and choose Discussions. You should get a list of discussions you are following that have new comments. OR you can go to the upper right corner and click the little thought balloons icon between the bell and the envelope and you will get a list that way too.

I can tell you it is not perfect--there are some discussions I am following that haven't shown up in the list. But I usually poke around a bit on the discussions I am following and can find any missing messages.

I agree that the internet can be overwhelming
Goodreads is set up pretty well
There are some books such as this one which contain a lot of information and history that it would be nice to find a study guide for. I downloaded one. It helps a little with summarizing all the content and giving background. It is certainly not great so I won't recommend it to you guys.

Lynne wrote: "There is the Internet, and then there is GoodReads! If you need help navigating, Please ask. I don't know everything, but I am pretty good at finding out if I don't. To follow the discussions you r..."

Thank you for all the tips!