The Readers Review: Literature from 1714 to 1910 discussion

Christopher seems to be tied up traveling, but we can start a discussion of Book 6 without him.

Maybe I'm feeling grumpy, but the last book seemed to to dilute the impact of the rest of the story. Adam and Dinah's romance feels like it's tacked on in order to give poor Adam a happy ending and I found Dinah's blushing lovelorn behavior really inconsistent with her previous character.

We don't seem to have discussed Books IV and V very much:(. Maybe we needed Christopher to spur us on.

I agree with you Kate that the last book seems strangely out of place and romantic, not real.

I found Seth's situation to be unrealistic. He has been in love with this woman to the extent that he can't even do his job properly (Chapter 1). But by the end of the book he is quite calmly not only seeing his brother marry the woman he loves, but is living in the same house with them, watching his brother take his former love up to bed at night, watching them bear the children he hoped to bear, just going on with his life as though nothing of significance had happened. I don't see it.

Everyman wrote: "I found Seth's situation to be unrealistic. He has been in love with this woman to the extent that he can't even do his job properly (Chapter 1). But by the end of the book he is quite calmly no..."

I thought the same thing. Initially I felt sorry for Seth and then even that was impossible as he became too unbelievably accepting of Adam and Dinah. The characterizations really faltered here. Adam becomes very two dimensional and emotionless, Dinah undergoes a personality transformation and Seth is just completely emasculated. The best part of this book was the turn up between Mrs. P and Bartle Massey.

ETA: And Hetty conveniently dies on the way home, thereby avoiding all kinds of messiness. I sometimes get frustrated with the Victorians and their need to tidy everything up. AB would have been more interesting with a few sharp edges left.

I love the way the book ends. We saw foreshadowing of it 'way back when Adam first met Dinah, and I do think they deserve each other. The Seth part is strange, but as I recall, the same thing happens in War and Peace.

Laurele wrote: "I love the way the book ends. We saw foreshadowing of it 'way back when Adam first met Dinah, and I do think they deserve each other. The Seth part is strange, but as I recall, the same thing happe..."

Seth is the younger brother and at that time it was thought to be right and proper that the elder brother inherited all the 'goodies' in life so Eliot is just reflecting society's mores here.

Also, if we compare the descriptions to Adam and Seth in Chapter I we get a foreshadowing of who will be the stronger man who will bear all the vicissitudes which are to come:-

ADAM:

'Such a voice could only come from a broad chest, and the broad chest belonged to a large-boned, muscular man nearly six feet high, with a back so flat and a head so well poised that when he drew himself up to take a more distant survey of his work, he had the air of a soldier standing at ease. The sleeve rolled up above the elbow showed an arm that was likely to win the prize for feats of strength; yet the long supple hand, with its broad finger-tips, looked ready for works of skill. In his tall stalwartness Adam Bede was a Saxon, and justified his name; but the jet-black hair, made the more noticeable by its contrast with the light paper cap, and the keen glance of the dark eyes that shone from under strongly marked, prominent and mobile eyebrows, indicated a mixture of Celtic blood. The face was large and roughly hewn, and when in repose had no other beauty than such as belongs to an expression of good-humoured honest intelligence.'


SETH:

'He is nearly as tall; he has the same type of features, the same hue of hair and complexion; but the strength of the family likeness seems only to render more conspicuous the remarkable difference of expression both in form and face. Seth's broad shoulders have a slight stoop; his eyes are grey; his eyebrows have less prominence and more repose than his brother's; and his glance, instead of being keen, is confiding and benign. He has thrown off his paper cap, and you see that his hair is not thick and straight, like Adam's, but thin and wavy, allowing you to discern the exact contour of a coronal arch that predominates very decidedly over the brow.'

These are descriptions based on the pseudo-science of Phrenology,which Eliot studied with one of her lovers, Charles Bray and in which Lewes was also keenly interested. There is also a hint of Eugenics, another popular Victorian pseudo-science.

http://www.victorianweb.org/science/p...

MadgeUK wrote: "Laurele wrote: "I love the way the book ends. We saw foreshadowing of it 'way back when Adam first met Dinah, and I do think they deserve each other. The Seth part is strange, but as I recall, the ..."

Adam's hymn that works ts way all through chapter one is important for the whole book, I think. I've got to go meet my mother at the eye doctor's now, but maybe someone can resurrect it for us. If not, I'll try later.

Here you go Laurel:-

http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/a/w/aw...

I must agree with everyone on this last Book. It was not necessary. As everyman intimated, I cannot fathom how Seth could be at peace with that living situation. You have loved this woman right up to the last and now your brother comes to ask you if it is ok if he marries her and you say "by all means go ahead"? It really detracts from the realism of the previous 5 Books but I can see how an editor or publisher who wishes to turn it into a bestseller may decide to leave it in or demand it be written.

I have a terrible confession to make. I first read this book when I was about Hetty's age (quite a long time ago,) and had in the interim before reading it, remembered it as being about Adam, Seth,and Dinah. Period. I totally forgot the whole Hetty and Arthur thing. Rereading it now, I find this incredible, as A & D seem like a minor part of the novel, a subplot nearly.
I also remembered for all these years, Mrs. Poyser saying that someone was like the cock who thought the sun had risen to hear him crow. Memory is a mysterious thing.

I felt that the ending was a little "tacked on to satisfy the reader," but it satisfied me. I will never read Tess or Jude the Obscure again because their endings were so horrible. In rereading The Mayor of Castorbridge, Far from the Madding Crowd, and The Return of the Native in the last year, I felt that these also had "tacked on," somewhat unlikely endings as well, but I did not object to them either. They were all wonderful books, tragedies for the most part, with some redeeming finally "requited love" added to soothe the pain.

Joanna wrote: "I will never read Tess or Jude the Obscure again because their endings were so horrible. "

I actually liked the ending of Tess. It reminds me of the story of the Phoenix: out of the ashes of one Phoenix arises the next. Tess made tragic mistakes in her life, or perhaps it is more accurate to say that she was manipulated by others into making tragic mistakes, starting with her father and going on to almost every man she met, but out of the tragic example of her life, 'Liza-Lu might arises in her place to live a happy, content life.

Remember that country song?

Go tell my baby sister
Not to do what I have done
But shun that house in New Orleans
They call the risin' sun.

Tess spend her days, not by choice, under the risin' sun, but there is hope for her baby sister not to do what she had done.

I think one of the problems that all the more radical Victorian authors had was that their public demanded happy, moral endings when they often wanted to portray a different outcome. This is why so many of their endings seem out of tune with what has gone before. We have become used to 'alternative' endings or even no ending at all and so find the Victorian compromises difficult to deal with. In the case of both Tess and Hetty, for instance, a modern ending might not have had them tried for murder but for manslaughter 'while the balance of the mind was disturbed', or something similar but not only was the law harsher then, so was the reading public.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infantic...

http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/h_to_k/ho...

This has been a fascinating discussion! I really enjoyed the comparison to Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles too. I think in both cases it was important for both authors to create the endings we have. I actually see Hetty as the precursor to Tess. I mean, after all, isn't her story almost identical to that of Tess? Having said that though, I do believe that Tess had a better head on her shoulders, and handled things generally in a more mature fashion (well, with the exception of her action near the end of the novel). Hetty seemed flighty and more prone to rash or hasty decision-making. Finally, I love the analogy that Everyman provided for the ending of Tess as the Phoenix rising from the ashes of catastrophe. I think that is precisely the meaning of Tess's wishes for her sister, Liza-Lu. Beautiful image, Everyman!

Another interesting Hardy-Eliot similarity was all of the bloody walking that everybody does. Hardy has poor Tess tramping all about the bloody countryside, north-to-south, and east-to-west; and darned if Eliot doesn't have Hetty doing the same thing. Lord knows it certainly does contribute to the overall pathos and drama associated with these poor completely worn out, exhausted, and emotionally-frazzled women.

I, too, was less interested in Adam's and Dinah's blossoming feelings. I was also struck with the oddness of Adam asking Seth if it was alright with him if he married Dinah. My God, he knew how much Seth loved her. And then to ask Seth to live them. I can't imagine that dynamic working in too many families then or now.

Largely, I think the ending of Adam Bede works. Of all of Eliot's novels that I've read, AB is pretty consistent with her M.O. in her other works (with maybe an exception for The Mill on the Floss). In this respect, i.e., from the perspective of quasi-neatly tied up endings, Hardy was certainly quite different from Eliot. And I do wonder how much of the ending was editorially-driven or was solely authorial intent?

I thought Madge's compilation and 'side-by-side' comparison of the two brother's was fascinating too. It really does highlight the differences between the two brothers, and as much as Eliot joins them in thought and deed, she seems to have gone to great lengths to subtly demarcate the differences too.

George Eliot was criticised by her female contemporaries for not taking up up the Woman Question and in The Epilogue of Adam Bede we have a couple of paragraphs which must have infuriated them:

"Aye; and we talked a deal about thee [Dinah], for he says he never saw a woman a bit like thee. 'I shall turn Methodist some day,' he said, 'when she preaches out of doors, and go to hear her.' And I said, 'Nay, sir, you can't do that, for Conference has forbid the women preaching, and she's given it up, all but talking to the people a bit in their houses.'"

"Ah," said Seth, who could not repress a comment on this point, "and a sore pity it was o' Conference; and if Dinah had seen as I did, we'd ha' left the Wesleyans and joined a body that 'ud put no bonds on Christian liberty."

"Nay, lad, nay," said Adam, "she was right and thee wast wrong. There's no rules so wise but what it's a pity for somebody or other. Most o' the women do more harm nor good with their preaching--they've not got Dinah's gift nor her sperrit--and she's seen that, and she thought it right to set th' example o' submitting, for she's not held from other sorts o' teaching. And I agree with her, and approve o' what she did."

Nowadays Methodists do have women preachers but the Church of England is currently tearing itself apart over the issue and the Pope recently issued a papal bull reaffirming the Catholic church's opposition to them. This aspect of The Woman Question is still ongoing.

Although Eliot's characterisation of Dinah was sympathetic and in contrast to the feelings held about Methodists at the time, she nevertheless presents her as being quite 'ordinary' at the end of the novel, almost another Mrs Poyser, devoted to her home and family. Perhaps Dinah's transition from a devout young preacher to a plump matron is a reflection of George Eliot's own life since she was once a devout daughter who 'lost' her religion but eventually became a respectable matron.

The ending of the book fails to address the Woman Question too as we learn that poor Hetty, 'a simple farmer's girl, to whom a gentleman with a white hand was dazzling as an Olympian God', had died just as she was about to return from exile, although her aristocratic lover, Arthur, is being nursed back to health. Eliot could have written a redemption scene for Hetty which would have satisfied her Victorian readers but she chose to let her die on the altar of realism. The earlier idealism of Seth also died, instead we see him living in the wake of a woman he once loved and admired for being a preacher and who he wished 'ha' left the Wesleyans and joined a body that 'ud put no bonds on Christian liberty.' Even the good Mr Irwine finally condemns Hetty by opining 'There's a sort of wrong that can never be made up for.' Hardly a Christian sentiment:(. Having thus dispensed of Hetty the book then ends on the happy domestic scene of Mr and Mrs Poyser 'coming in at the yard gate'.

I find it both a sad and unsatisfactory ending:(.

http://www.wwnorton.com/college/engli...