The cast of characters are rounded out by Adam and Seth’s mother Lisbeth, who favors Adam and has perfected the martyrish-mother act the aforementioned Poysers the local rector, Reverend Irwine, who is compassionate and fair-minded, and the schoolteacher Bartle Massey, a woman-hating grump who is something of a mentor to Adam. Arthur is young and handsome and charming and well-admired by pretty much everyone, including Adam, but his cheerful facade hides some personality flaws that he himself is not even quite aware of.
Poyser they are local tenant farmers who figure prominently in the story.) Hetty is, well, she’s pretty much in love with herself, but she also becomes infatuated with Arthur Donnithorne, the “young squire” and heir to the local landowner. (Dinah is a goody-goody to the nth degree more on that later.) Seth’s brother Adam is in love with Hetty Sorrel, the local beauty and Dinah’s…cousin? (Dinah’s aunt is Mrs. The relationships unfold in the first couple of chapters thusly: Seth is in love with Dinah, but she’s not drawn to him or the notion of marriage (though she cares about Seth) and instead feels that she should leave Hayslope and go back to where she’s from and where she feels that she’s needed more urgently. Dinah preaches on the village green and many are drawn to her gentle and moving style, though others condemn the very idea of a woman preacher. The opening introduces the titular character but focuses more on his brother Seth, and the woman Seth is infatuated with, Methodist preacher Dinah Morris.
It’s set in the fictional village of Hayslope, and focuses on several local families and their interwoven lives. Middlemarch remains a high point for me (I now consider it one of my favorite novels) but I also liked Daniel Deronda and The Mill on the Floss.Īdam Bede was apparently Eliot’s first published novel. I had already read Silas Marner in high school (I should reread it, actually) and hadn’t loved it. Since reading Middlemarch in 2010, I have been working my way through George Eliot’s fairly sparse backlist.
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