Masaryk University
Faculty of Arts
Department of English
and American Studies
English Language and Literature
Ivan Lencse
Ideals of the Victorian Family in Aspects
of the Fiction of C. Dickens and G. Eliot
Bachelor's Diploma Thesis
Supervisor: Stephen Paul Hardy, Ph. D.
2011
/ declare that I have worked on this thesis independently,
using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.
Ivan Lencse
Acknowledgement
I would like to thank my supervisor Stephen Paul Hardy, Ph.D. for his patient guidance,
valuable advice and kind support he has provided me during the writing of the thesis.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction 5
2. Historical Background 8
2.1 George Eliot's Life and Marriage with George Henry Lewes 8
2.2 Catherine Hogarth and Charles Dickens 9
3. Middlemarch 11
3.1 Dorothea Brooke and Edward Casaubon 12
3.2 Tertius Lydgate and Rosamond Vincy 19
4. Bleak House 23
4.1 Esther Summerson 24
4.2 Richard Carstone and Ada Clark 27
5. Family in the Novels and in Reality 29
6. Conclusion 36
7. Bibliography 38
Resume 40
1. Introduction
In this work I would like to explore the differences and similarities between the
ideal Victorian family, that is the family in its religious and social dimensions, and the
family as it is presented in the contemporary literary works, namely Bleak House by
Charles Dickens and George Eliot's Middlemarch. I have chosen those two novels
because of how they, even with all their differences in focus and artistic approach of
Dickens and Eliot, each provide a very complex picture of Victorian society from the
1830s to the 1850s. The Cambridge Companion to George Eliot goes even further into
stressing the differences between them, stating that "[t]he two great writers were, in
most respects, polar opposites; Dickens the great popular entertainer, George Eliot the
voice of a higher culture, learned, self-reflexive, tormented by her own aesthetic and
moral aspirations." (Levine 1)
The decision to explore the family in the Victorian era is based on an interest in
the way how the historical image of family is often beautified and how the three images
of family: the historical image, the image that the writers provide and the ideal image,
often differ or even contradict each other. Middlemarch and Bleak House are a good
choice for primary sources because they provide an in-depth analysis of the society and
show family within various classes of the society in various times, thus creating a more
complex picture.
One of the principal questions of the thesis can be summed up in a quote from
F.M.L. Thompson's book The Rise of the Respectable Society: "Many early Victorians
supposed that they were witnessing a "crisis of the family' that threatened, unless
successfully tackled and resolved, to undermine the entire fabric of the society and to
sweep the nation into turbulent, uncharted and perilous times of chaos and anarchy."
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The question is whether this rather pessimistic sentiment over the future of the family in
Britain projected itself into the contemporary literature.
The first chapter will deal with the family background of the two writers and
with their relationship with their spouses. The reason behind analyzing these
relationships is the way how non-traditional and complicated they were is worth
comparing to the way how they portrayed family in their works. Be it George Eliot's
relationship with George Henry Lewes or the marriage of Charles Dickens with
Catherine Hogarth, they both provide valuable background information closely related
to the topic of this thesis. The principal source in exploration of these marriages is
Phyllis Rose's Parallel Lives: Five Victorian Marriages, a book which provides many
details on the discussed matter as well as many intimate details not present in other
biographic materials.
The second chapter will explore the marriages in Middlemarch. Besides dealing
with the most important marriages, the marriages of Dorothea Brooks and Edward
Casaubon and eventually Will Ladislaw, as well as the marriage of Tertius Lydgate and
Rosamond Vincy I would also like to dedicate some space to several other marriages
that are also present in the book but Eliot does not look at them in such detail, for
example Celia Brooks and Sir James Chettam or Fred Vincy and Mary Garth. These
marriages, although not pictured in such detail as the two principal ones mentioned
above are however commenting on various phenomena connected with marriage in
Victorian England. These include the actual relationships between the spouses or
marriages between members of different social groups.
After examining Middlemarch, the third chapter will be dedicated to Bleak
House, which although is arguably more story-driven in comparison to the rich
descriptiveness of Middlemarch is still more than worth looking at. Again, as in the
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previous chapter, I shall discuss the marriages of the principal characters as well as the
ones not featured as prominently, trying to find important features of Victorian
marriage. Family status of Esther Summerson and Ada Clark will be discussed in the
most part. Even though Middlemarch was written approximately 20 years after Bleak
House, it is set in the 1830s. This is basically the reason behind the fact that the chapter
concerning Middlemarch comes before Bleak House in this thesis.
The concluding chapter will compare the marriages from the primary sources
with marriages in Victorian England, find their differences and similarities. I will
mainly draw on the works The Victorian Home by Jenni Calder, The Rise of
Respectable society by F.M.L. Thompson and Gender and Domestic Life: Changing
Practices in Families and Households by Tony Chapman. These works contain
descriptions of what the society considered as a perfect family and what were the
expectations placed upon families and traditional views on marrying, raising children,
managing households or the roles of men and women. I shall compare those
descriptions with the conclusions from the second and third chapter to see whether there
is any contrast between the views of the writers and the reality, how the writers see the
ideal state and how this ideal state corresponds with the facts from the works from
Calder and Thompson and other sources dealing with the matter.
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2. Historical Background
The personal lives and marriages of the two authors who are discussed in this
thesis and the influence of or similarities with the two novels should not be omitted.
Thus, the thesis will now shortly summarize the lives of George Eliot and Charles
Dickens, paying particular attention to their marriages and family lives as well as strong
public reactions their marriages provoked. For the sake of this essay, their literary
careers will not be discussed prominently as the thesis is focused on family.
2.1 George Eliot's Life and Marriage with George Henry Lewes
Mary Anne Evans, writing under her pen name George Eliot was born in 1819 to
Robert Evans, a land agent, and Christiana Pearson. She studied at various boarding
schools, excelled at classes and gave piano recitals. In 1844 she translated Strauss's
Leben Jesu and later spent some time in Geneva. (Levine)
She began her literary career in liberal periodical Westminster Review. Because
the work was not paid, Eliot lived from an inheritance that her father left her. (Rose
199) While working in the Westminster Review and living in the house of its publisher
John Chapman she meets various intellectuals and public figures and falls in love with
one of them, Herbert Spencer. Spencer rejected her and as Rose puts it, he "warned her
that he did not love her and had no intention of doing so." (Rose 200). Even after this
rejection, Evans and Spencer continued seeing each other and one day Spencer
introduced George Henry Lewes to Evans. In 1853 the two get seriously involved with
each other, yet they cannot get married because Lewes is married with Agnes Lewes
who gave birth to several children fathered by Leigh Hunt while being married to
George Lewes. Because he had condoned her adultery (Levine XV) the two could not
get legally divorced. As Rose argues, Lewes "refused to be outraged by his wife's
8
infidelity" (Rose 205). Relationship of Lewes and Evans, who lived together without
being lawfully married, caused a great scandal.
Lewes proved to be a great support for Eliot, who was very conscientious about
her writing. Lewes encouraged Eliot to write and she published a series of immensely
popular books, publishing Middlemarch between 1871 and 1872. (Levine)
However, in 1878 Lewes dies and after long mourning Evans marries her longtime
friend John Cross who is 20 years younger than Evans. Rose points out the
interesting fact that even though Evans and Lewes were not legally married, some of her
friends still could not process that she is going to marry another man. "Some people still
thought that fidelity should extend beyond the grave." (Rose 233). In 1880, on their
honeymoon, Cross jumps out of a hotel balcony in what was perceived as a suicide
attempt even though Cross himself called it only a temporary illness. A few months
later, on December 22 Evans died and was buried next to Henry Lewes in Highgate
cemetery. (Rose)
2.2. Catherine Hogarth and Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens was born on 7t h
February 1812. Because of his father's debts he
was imprisoned and the family followed him shortly afterwards. Dickens worked in a
blacking factory. When Dickens complained to his parents about the hardship of his
work, his father told him he could quit the job. However, his mother made him stay
because she insisted that the family needed money. (Rose 152) Rose continues to
propose that it was probably because of the problems Dickens had with his own family
that he often described scenes of family happiness in his novels. "So Dickens valued
highly-perhaps too highly- the kind of family in which the father worked and provided,
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the mother took care of the house and children, and the children had nothing to do but
enjoy themselves."(Rose 152)
Dickens married Catherine Hogarth in 1836, the two had 10 children. Rose
continues to describe the marriage of Dickens and Hogarth and the way how Dickens
grew ever more dissatisfied. Dickens however did not grow dissatisfied immediately
after the marriage; it took several years before he became tired, so to say, of his wife.
Bearing in mind that Catherine was pregnant almost all the time, having ten children
and some miscarriages, she was less and less attractive for Dickens who also started to
complain of the fact that she is not his intellectual equal. As Rose points out, one of the
factors behind Dickens's early accomplishments in literature may have been that he was
happy in his marriage and his household was well managed. This changed over time, as
Catherine grew older and children became more numerous she was not capable of
keeping the household running as efficiently as before. Dickens himself talked of this
incompatibility in his letters: "Poor Catherine and I are not made for each other, and
there is no help for it. It is not only that she makes me uneasy and unhappy, but that I
make her so too—and much more so. She is exactly what you know, in the way of being
amiable and complying; but we are strangely ill-assorted for the bond there is between
us." (Forster, 3:186).
Dickens thought of divorce but the problem was that the Matrimonial Causes
Act of 1857 which enabled divorce did so only under certain circumstances. There had
to be serious causes for the divorce, for example one of the partners had to be an
adulterer (Guttierez). However, Dickens soon realized that there was no way that
Catherine would ever have a lover and Dickens himself could not afford to have a
mistress because it would damage his public image. According to Moore in her article
about divorce, Catherine could actually not get a divorce solely on the fact that Dickens
10
was an adulterer because this procedure was only possible for men divorcing adulterous
women. There were numerous rumours about an affair between Dickens and Ellen
Ternan and this may have played a role in the separation of Dickens and his wife in
1858.
3. Middlemarch
The aim of this chapter is to explore the family in Middlemarch on the example
of the marriages of Dorothea Brooke and Edward Casaubon and Rosamond Vincy and
Tertius Lydgate. These two marriages are the most important ones in the novel and by
analyzing them one can find a large amount of information related to the aims of this
thesis.
First of all, it should be noted that Middlemarch provides the reader with a very
rich and complex picture of a smaller town in the English Midlands around the 1830s.
The complexity means that there are many characters, many relationships and many
marriages depicted in a wide variety of forms and throughout a significant part of the
social spectrum. However, it should be noted that Eliot is mostly interested in the lives
of the upper or middle classes, there is hardly any space dedicated to the lives of the
lower classes. Also, it should be noted that in many cases the families in Middlemarch
are basically only comprised of a husband and a wife. Basically the Mr. and Mrs. Garth
are depicted in a way that somehow reflects their relationship with their children and the
role of mother and father. In cases of a marriage without children, for the purposes of
this thesis, the marriage itself and the relationship between the spouses shall be
explored.
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3.1 Dorothea Brooke and Edward Casaubon
The first marriage that is prominently discussed is the marriage between
Dorothea Brooks and Edward Casaubon, which shall be sometimes for the sake of this
thesis compared with Dorothea's relationship with Will Ladislaw. From the very first
pages of the novel, Dorothea is presented as a very strong character with a vision of
living an active life and being a worthy companion to her husband not only emotionally
but also intellectually. This is however not met with wide understanding from the
people surrounding Dorothea as it is hinted in the first chapter:
And how should Dorothea not marry?—a girl so handsome and with
such prospects? Nothing could hinder it but her love of extremes, and her
insistence on regulating life according to notions which might cause a
wary man to hesitate before he made her an offer, or even might lead her
at last to refuse all offers. A young lady of some birth and fortune, who
knelt suddenly down on a brick floor by the side of a sick labourer and
prayed fervidly as if she thought herself living in the time of the
Apostles—who had strange whims of fasting like a Papist, and of sitting
up at night to read old theological books! Such a wife might awaken you
some fine morning with a new scheme for the application of her income
which would interfere with political economy and the keeping of saddlehorses:
a man would naturally think twice before he risked himself in
such fellowship. Women were expected to have weak opinions; but the
great safeguard of society and of domestic life was, that opinions were
not acted on. Sane people did what their neighbours did, so that if any
lunatics were at large, one might know and avoid them. (Eliot 9)
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It is obvious that someone like Dorothea would not be fit for a traditional
marriage and so she chooses Mr. Casaubon the local scholar. They meet at a dinner
party organized by Mr. Brooke, Dorothea's uncle who is also her guardian. Dorothea
immediately notices the looks of the elderly Mr. Casaubon who is not very handsome;
after Celia, Dorothea's sister points out how ugly Mr. Casaubon is, Dorothea replies
saying "He is one of the most distinguished-looking men I ever saw. He is remarkably
like the portrait of Locke. He has the same deep eye-sockets." (Eliot 20) However, there
is another guest at the party, Sir James Chettam who seems to be a more suitable
husband, owning lands next to the lands of Mr. Brooke and being considerable better
looking. This suitability or unsuitability of a husband becomes a topic of much debate in
Middlemarch. After some time Dorothea exchanges correspondence with Mr. Casaubon
the marriage seems to be drawing near.
After the reader is presented with Dorothea's expectations of marriage, there
follows a picture of Mr. Casaubon's intentions and his view on marriage. Eliot describes
these as comforting to the prevailing views of the society, saying that Mr. Casaubon is
expected to marry a young lady, the younger the better, as she puts it, because young
women tend to be more educable and submissive. She should also be "of a rank equal of
his own, of religious principles, virtuous disposition, and good understanding." (Eliot
10) The husband's role should be to "make handsome settlements" in return for "family
pleasures." This is expressed in Mr. Casaubon's thoughts about being able to work
without a paid secretary because he will have Dorothea who can help him with working
on his Key to all Mythologies, thinking that Dorothea would be an ideal wife, a "modest
young lady with the purely appreciative, unambitious abilities of her sex [...] sure to
think of her husband's mind powerful." (Eliot 10) Apart from this difference in their
13
ideas about marriage, the overall contrast between these two characters is striking. The
society of Middlemarch of course notices this contrast and reacts to it.
It is interesting to watch the reactions of the people in Middlemarch who are
basically divided into two groups. One group, represented by Sir James Chettam and
Mrs. Cadwallader are opposed to the marriage or have their doubts about the fact that
Dorothea should marry a man like Casaubon, Chettam exclaiming that Casaubon is "no
better than a mummy" and Mrs. Cadwallader says that marrying Casaubon is
comparable to entering a nunnery. (Eliot 59). The opinions of this part of the town
reflect the notions about who a woman like Dorothea, a woman from a respectable
family from the higher classes of the society, should marry or should not marry. From
this point of view, a family should be formed by two individuals of roughly similar age
and property (the only positive fact about Casaubon is that he is not poor). Considering
this, Sir James seems as a more suitable partner for Dorothea, just as Mr. Brooke
advised. However, not even he is fundamentally against the marriage and is rather easily
persuaded by Dorothea, claiming that who she marries is more of her business than his.
This reflects a rather strong position of a woman who wants to marry a man who is not
completely failing the expectations of the society and the fact that the choice of husband
is, in this case, far from something that resembles a business operation, only considering
property and money.
The marriage between Dorothea Brooks and Mr. Casaubon may also be seen
from the point of view of Eliot's own experience. Dorothea's choice of a man to whom
she could be a companion and he would be her teacher is remarkably similar to George
Eliot's relationships with older intellectuals mentioned before. However, conclusions
from similarities between Dorothea Brooks and Eliot should not be applied on Eliot's
love life as a whole. As Phylis Rose quotes from Eliot's correspondence with her friend:
14
„Do not for a moment imagine that Dorothea's marriage experience is drawn from my
own. Impossible to conceive any creature less like Mr. Casaubon than my warm,
enthusiastic husband who cares more for my doing than his own." (Rose 224)
After some time, the marriage seems like a disappointment for both Dorothea
and Mr. Casaubon. As Eliot puts it: "There was no denying that Dorothea was as
virtuous and lovely a young lady as he could have obtained for a wife; but a young lady
turned out to be something more troublesome than he had conceived." (Eliot 220) The
trouble seems to be in the fact that Mr. Casaubon thinks that Dorothea is judging him
instead of worshipping him, the way how she nursed him seemed to bear traces of silent
defiance and rebellion. Following this change that happens in Mr. Casaubon's mind, the
fact that Will Ladislaw visits Dorothea more and more often seems to him as something
almost bordering with adultery. The relationship between Casaubon and Dorothea
further deteriorates and quite soon Casaubon suddenly dies.
After Casaubon's death Dorothea marries Will Ladislaw, Casaubon's cousin, a
man who is very much different than her first husband. The marriage of course does not
take place immediately after Casaubon's death. Dorothea is alone for more than a year
but the whole issue naturally becomes a matter of much debate in Middlemarch because
people find it immoral when woman marries too soon after her husband's death which
should mean lack of respect for the deceased spouse; or too late after his death, which
could mean a kind of a morbid obsession and inability to move on with her life. Social
conventions however are not the only things that prohibit her to marry Ladislaw too
soon. Her deceased husband formed his will in such a way as to prohibit her to marry
Ladislaw lest she loses the inheritance which Casaubon left her. This basically means
that if she eventually wanted to marry Ladislaw she would defy the will of her first
husband which would certainly not meet with understanding from the people of
15
Middlemarch. The very fact that she would lose her income and marry Ladislaw, who
was rather poor himself, was also target of some gossip. The public opinion is best
summed up by Mr Cadwallader just before the marriage: "Nobody would have said
anything if she had married the young fellow because he was rich." (Eliot 818). Jen
Ziegenfuss laid down several basic rules according to which a Victorian marriage was
formed and one of them is as follows:"A woman entering into the institute of marriage
had to be equipped with a dowry. The husband-to-be had to prove that he could support
his new bride in the lifestyle she was accustomed to." It is quite obvious to everyone
around Dorothea that Ladislaw, based on his lifestyle, could never provide such degree
of comfort as Mr. Casaubon had.
On the other hand, even though there are people even in Dorothea's family, no
one is actually opposed to the marriage as much as to do anything to prohibit it or do
anything against it. As Mr. Brooks puts it: "I can't turn my back on Dorothea. I must be
a father to her up to a certain point. I said: "My dear, I won't refuse to give you
away."(Eliot 817). He continues to argue that even though the marriage shall most
probably be troublesome and cost money, he will let Dorothea do as she wishes. By
depicting people around Dorothea is rather positive light she shows that society, even
though opposed to the marriage can be eventually grow less and less against it and in
the end will let the woman do as she wishes.
There is again an interesting similarity between what has been said in the
previous paragraph and the life of George Eliot and her "marriage" with Henry Lewes.
As it has been already said, Eliot could not find understanding for her cohabitation with
Lewes even among her closest friends, many of whom considered them living together
as something immoral, something that should not happen to a respected woman, as they
thought that Eliot somehow "stole" Lewes from his lawful wife. It is thus quite striking
16
how differently people react. In Eliot's case she is judged rather harshly and she has to
constantly defend her decision to live with Lewes while he is not really able to divorce
his wife. Dorothea Brooks on the other hand, even though meeting some initial
resistance from the public, is in the final pages met with understanding from her friends
as they wish her to be happy no matter how difficult the marriage shall be. However,
Eliot still renders Dorothea's second marriage in realistic colours, not trying to make the
approach of the public too idyllic. This is most visible in the very final pages of the
novel when she describes the feelings of James Chettam about the marriage:
"Sir James never ceased to regard Dorothea's second marriage as a
mistake; and indeed this remained the tradition concerning it in
Middlemarch, where she was spoken of to a younger generation as a fine
girl who married a sickly clergyman, old enough to be her father, and in
little more than a year after his death gave up her estate to marry his
cousin—young enough to have been his son, with no property, and not
well-born. Those who had not seen anything of Dorothea usually
observed that she could not have been "a nice woman," else she would
not have married either the one or the other." (Eliot 837)
In general, Eliot manages to show various aspects of Victorian marriage on the
marriage of Dorothea and Mr. Casaubon. This case shows how the public opinion is
aimed against marriages of partners who are deemed not exactly fitting each other and
thus showing criteria based on which the society differentiates between families and
marriages that are to be deemed respectable and those that are not.
Another aspect of marriage that is present in Middlemarch is the role of love.
The presence or lack of love in the forming of a couple is explored by Eliot in almost
every family present in the novel but the marriage of Dorothea and Mr. Casaubon is
17
actually one of the few, or even the only one, where love (as a romantic feeling rather
than affection) is not really present. In the very beginning of the book, her thoughts of
marriage are presented as "childish" (Eliot 10) and she seems to be mostly concerned
about the intellectual side of her future husband. Her desire to be a wife to a person like
Milton, help him with his work and be better than his daughters. She remarks that it
would actually be delightful to endure the odd habits of such a husband. These ideas are
explicitly pronounced shortly afterwards: "The really delightful marriage must be that
where your husband was a sort of father, and could teach you even Hebrew, if you
wished it." (Eliot 10) Whether it is caused by the absence of her father or simply by her
love of knowledge, she thinks that she would be happiest in a relationship like this and
she does not really mention any romantic feelings.
When considering romantic feelings in a marriage, the relationship between
Dorothea and Will Ladislaw does seem almost like a polar opposite of her first
marriage. Dorothea and Will are both of similar age and the aspect of a young wife
taking care of her intellectually superior husband is not present anymore. Ladislaw
loves Dorothea and she seems to return these feelings, their marriage is a lasting
relationship built on mutual love rather than on reason like the first marriage. This way,
Eliot seems to stress the fact that ideal functional marriage should be built upon these
principles as it, on the example of the two marriages from the novel, works much better.
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3.2 Tertius Lydgate and Rosamond Vincy
The story of Tertius Lydgate was intended to be a separate story and was only
later connected with the story of Dorothea Brooke. (Levine, XVII). It was maybe
because the stories of these two were first intended to be separated did they turn out to
be such strong characters. It is sometimes quite hard to decide who the central character
of Middlemarch is, as Eliot devotes a lot of time and space to the character of Tertius
Lydgate and his wife Rosamond Vincy.
It is hinted in the beginning of the novel that Lydgate comes to Middlemarch
after spending some time in France, having there an affair with an actress. He intends to
start a new hospital in Middlemarch and has several conversations about hospitals and
cottages with Dorothea. They both seem to be philanthropists, opened to new ideas even
though this is not always met with appreciation. Dorothea was not taken really seriously
because she was a woman and Lydgate seemed to be a bit too open to new ideas. This
often creates a sense of distrust among his patients which in turns makes his practice not
as profitable as he would wish. One of Lydgate's first Middlemarch patients is Fred
Vincy, brother of Rosamond Vincy who eventually marries Lydgate. The two marry
even though Lydgate's income is not really sufficient for starting a family.
Nevertheless, Lydgate simply supposes that as soon as his practice gets bigger, he will
simply make enough money to support Rosamond and repay his debts. As this fails to
happen and creditors start to come to Lydgate's house, Rosamond often tries to take
matters into her own hands even despite Lydgate forbidding. She secretly asks her
father to lend Lydgate some money which Mr. Vincy refuses. This disobedience of a
wife, as Lydgate sees it, connected with growing debts creates tensions between the two
and Rosamond insist on separation or moving to London. When moving to London
19
seems the last resort, Mr. Bulstrode offers a loan that would allow Lydgate to repay his
debts and have a fresh start. As soon as Lydgate takes the money, there is a rumour
going around Middlemarch saying that Lydgate helped Bulstrode to kill a man with
information about Bulstrode's past and that the loan was in fact a bribe. Almost no one
except Dorothea believes in his innocence and it is Dorothea who gives him 1000£ so
he can repay Bulstrode's loan and clean his name. Even though Dorothea urges him to
stay in Middlemarch, he eventually sets up a practice, travelling between London and a
bathing place on the continent. He dies relatively young and his life insurance helps to
provide for his wife and children.
The description of story and the events connected with the marriage are very
important as these events often form milestones in the marriage and many problems and
issues that appear in the marriage are a direct result of the events described above.
Probably the key issue among these is Lydgate's loss of money and the subsequent loss
of social prestige (even though Lydgate does not, throughout the novel, seem to aspire
to be a part of the higher levels of society). When Lydgate proposes that they should sell
some things from the household and try to manage with less money, Rosamond seems
shocked and almost terrified by the fact that her husband can not provide her with
enough and her "respectability" could be hurt by this. Rosamond immediately tries to
ask not only her father for money, but also Lydgate's relatives, which in turn angers
Lydgate because he perceives this as a breach of his authority as a husband. Yet their
matrimonial trouble did not begin with Lydgate going deeper and deeper into debts,
their trouble start to surface when Eliot pictures a scene in which Lydgate realizes that
for Rosamond, her husband's status is very important and points out that Rosamond
would in fact like him to be like other men, men of certain status and prestige:
20
"Those words of Lydgate's were like a sad milestone marking how far he
had travelled from his old dreamland, in which Rosamond Vincy
appeared to be that perfect piece of womanhood who would reverence
her husband's mind after the fashion of an accomplished mermaid, using
her comb and looking-glass and singing her song for the relaxation of his
adored wisdom alone. He had begun to distinguish between that
imagined adoration and the attraction towards a man's talent because it
gives him prestige, and is like an order in his button-hole or an
Honorable before his name."
Rosamond seems somehow disenchanted with her husband and there is a sense
of resistance against anything that Lydgate tells her to do or forbids her to do. When she
is forbidden from riding during her pregnancy, she still tries to ride a horse during
Lydgate's absence and when the horse throws her off, she loses the baby. Lydgate
observes that he is growing powerless over Rosamond and his "superior knowledge and
mental force, instead of being as he had imagined, a shrine to consult on all occasions,
was simply set aside on every practical question. It is after this incident that their
troubles with money actually begin and their marriage gets worse.
The deterioration of their marriage is connected with another aspect of the
relationship between spouses - the mutual trust and the ability to rely on the spouse in
bad times. This aspect is contrasted in two marriages, one between Lydgate and
Rosamond and the other between Mr. and Mrs. Bulstrode. Although the reader does not
really have any specific information about Mr. and Mrs. Bulstrode's marriage for the
most of the novel and their relationship is only described in the final chapters, it is still
significant in the context of this thesis. The subplot dealing with the scandal concerning
the bribe of 1000£ which becomes the centre for all gossip in Middlemarch is the
21
moment when a clear difference between Rosamond and Mrs. Bulstrode becomes
visible. Rosamond is not really supportive towards her husband and it is only after
Dorothea's intervention that she becomes more so. Mrs. Bulstrode on the other hand,
although devastated by the loss of her respectability, stands with her husband no matter
how serious the troubles are. The way how society put pressure on wives of husbands
whose behaviour was deemed immoral is suggested by Eliot when she describes the
public opinion about Mrs. Bulstrode:
"In Middlemarch a wife could not long remain ignorant that the
town held a bad opinion of her husband. No feminine intimate might
carry her friendship so far as to make a plain statement to the wife of the
unpleasant fact known or believed about her husband; but when a woman
with her thoughts much at leisure got them suddenly employed on
something grievously disadvantageous to her neighbours, various moral
impulses were called into play which tended to stimulate utterance."
The behaviour of Mrs. Bulstrode in this case shows the difference between
approach to marriage between Rosamond and Mrs. Bulstrode. While Rosamond is
concerned with the social dimension of the whole problem and its impact on her
property and respectability, for Mrs. Bulstrode her husband is still the central point.
In general, Eliot manages to show several key features of Victorian marriage in
Middlemarch and she often shows two sides of a problem, sometimes proposing an
ideal state when entering into the narrative with her personal reflections. The
concluding chapter of the thesis shall compare Eliot's thoughts about this ideal state
with the true state of Victorian marriage.
22
4. Bleak House
The aim of this chapter is to examine families and family relationships of the
principal characters of Bleak House, mostly looking for information that could be used
in the next chapter where Bleak House and Middlemarch shall be compared. As in the
case of the previous chapter, there shall be two subchapters, one dealing with Esther
Summerson and the other with Richard Carstone and Ada Clare.
Charles Dickens wrote Bleak House between 1852 and 1853. The novel itself is
a very complex work with multiple plots and subplots populated by countless minor and
major characters. On the background of a court case Jarndyce and Jarndyce Dickens
depicts a story of Esther Summerson. Esther is the primary narrator, although Dickens
often changes the narrative perspective and even renders Esther a rather unreliable
narrator as she often recollects events not exactly in the way they happened. Esther does
not know who her parents are and is basically brought up as an orphan by guardians.
While Eliot committed very little space to children or orphans in Middlemarch, Bleak
House contains several such characters and children have a very important role. The
presence of so many orphans is certainly a form of critique of the society. Dickens is
also obviously focused on different social groups than Eliot. This does not, however,
mean that Bleak House is entirely about the lower classes but they play arguably more
important role in the narrative. This difference in focus should be taken into account
when comparing the two images of families. Comparison is of course possible with
major characters like Esther and Dorothea, which are on a similar level.
When Harumi Matsuura is dealing with Esther's personality and her role as a
narrator in his essay The Survival of an Injured Daughter, he argues that "children
appear and draw around Esther. Most of them are excluded from good fortune and
23
happiness because of being tortured by the selfishness of their parents or the social
organism."(63) Esther indeed seems to be a centre of this discourse about orphans and
their status and so this chapter will begin with description of Esther and the
development of her family relationships throughout the novel.
4.1 Esther Summerson
J. Hills Miller in his essay Bleak House and the Moral Life asserts that "[t]hough
the world of Bleak House is not, we discover, the sheer atomistic chaos it at first appears
to be, the connection, by repetition, of successive moments in isolated locations does
not organize this chaos. It does not seem that a truly human existence is possible here no
organization of time into a lived duration, no relation between people making
possible significant communication."
It seems that this disorganization and lack of relations are somehow connected
with the family status of so many characters in Bleak House - the orphans. These
orphans, just like Esther Summerson seem to be severed from their parents and
therefore severed from the organized society; their relation to society is thus altered
from the natural way. Esther's first guardian, Miss Barbary is very particular in not
allowing Esther to find out who is her real mother. As she puts it, Esther is a disgrace to
her mother just as her mother is a disgrace to Esther. Miss Barbary is a rather stern
guardian but Esther still creates a rather positive picture of the woman. After some time,
however, Esther moves to Bleak House and Mr. Jarndyce becomes her guardian. Mr.
Jarndyce is a strong fatherly figure, a figure that was absent in Esther's life and she feels
a strong affection and feelings of gratitude towards him. However, it soon becomes
obvious that Mr. Jarndyce is interested in being more than a guardian and asks Esther to
marry him. As it has been mentioned before, Esther is deeply grateful to him for all he
24
has done for her and thus decides to accept his offer. It should be noted that even Esther
feels that it is not true love she feels (for she has some feelings for Mr. Woodcourt the
surgeon) yet she still accepts the offer. When Esther accepts the offer while she
simultaneously likes Mr. Woodcourt, Dickens creates a contrast between love and
reason and their role in the creation of a marriage. It should however be noted that
Dickens does not use any passion or sexuality in portraying Esther's actions. As Valerie
Kennedy argues, there have indeed been only very few women in the works of Dickens
that would be openly sexual. Esther is one of the characters who do not exhibit their
sexuality and her love towards Mr. Jarndyce or Mr. Woodcourt is shown in very
innocent terms, so to say.
While Mr. Jarndyce is perfectly suitable as a husband for Esther, based on his
property, social standing and his relationship with Esther, he is not really suitable from
the point of view of Esther's feelings. Dickens recognizes this and by the end of the
novel Mr. Jarndyce is also aware of the lack of real feelings and the marriage actually
does not take place, Esther marrying Mr. Woodcourt instead. When the narrative ends,
seven years after the events described in the novel, things seem to reach happy ending
for Esther. Her marriage with Mr. Woodcourt appears to be a happy one, he becomes a
respectable doctor and they have two children. Dickens thus moves Esther from being
an orphan without a mother to being a respectable wife with children who has found her
mother (who turned out to be Lady Dedlock, adding some more to Esther's social
status). From the point of view of family status, Esther Summerson from the beginning
of the novel is almost a polar opposite of the Esther Summerson from the final pages.
This sense of repetition and renewal in one is strengthened by new household, the new
Bleak House which is a new version of the old house just as Esther is a new person from
the point of view of her family status. Brenda Welch argues however that even though
25
Esther may have overcome her status as a bastard by marrying, she still is legally
"nobody." She argues that Dickens "leaves open the question of how, if
someone is a legal nobody—a bastard—she can ever become a legal somebody when, in
Esther's case, her non-person bastardy status by birth is exchanged for her non-person
coverture status by marriage. (20-21). All in all, the ending of the novel and Esther's
almost idyllic family is very much in concord with Phyllis Rose's assertions about
Dickens and his novels ending with happy families and scenes of domestic tranquility
that occur in so many of his books (Rose 152).
26
4.2 Richard Carstone and Ada Clare
The previous subchapter suggested that Bleak House ends with a scene of family
happiness for Esther. However, the other major character who is married throughout the
novel, Ada Clare, is not that lucky. The marriage of Ada and Richard is a rather
unhappy and troubled one. This chapter will explore this marriage and attempt to find a
reason behind the fact that one marriage was successful and the other was not.
Almost from the very beginning of the novel, from the first moments when Ada
and Richard are together on the scene, it becomes obvious that there shall eventually be
a romance. It does indeed evolve and very little time passes until Ada confesses that she
and Richard are in love. However, even though they intend to marry, they cannot do so
immediately. As it has been hinted before, the ability of a husband to sustain his family
was very much prized and it was one of the crucial factors in the marriages discussed
previously. The relationship of Ada and Richard is of no difference in this respect.
Richard first has to start a career that would enable him to make enough money to have
a well-run household adequate to his social status.
Based on the advice of Mr. Jarndyce, Richard starts various careers but because
of his lack of concentration he cannot work on one place for long enough. Esther
comments on his lack of concentration in the following manner: "I liked him more and
more the better I knew him, I still felt more and more how much it was to be regretted
that he had been educated in no habits of application and concentration" (Dickens,
XVII). When Richard moves to London, his careless lifestyle becomes even more
obvious. "He immediately began to spend all the money he had in buying the oddest
little ornaments and luxuries for this lodging; and so often as Ada and I dissuaded him
from making any purchase that he had in contemplation which was particularly
27
unnecessary and expensive, he took credit for what it would have cost and made out that
to spend anything less on something else was to save the difference" (Dickens, XVIII).
His behaviour is quite similar to Mr. Skimpole's who is presented as a very careless and
childlike man, making debts wherever he can. He is not married and it starts to be clear
that Richard's behaviour is not very fitting for a man who is about to be married.
Dickens is postponing the marriage again and again until Richard and Ada marry in
secrecy, even though they still do not have enough money to set up a household. This
meets with opposition from both Esther and Mr. Jarndyce. As Dickens puts it, after
Esther finds out that Ada was secretly married with Richard, she starts crying just as she
was crying when she was to marry Mr. Jarndyce. This way Dickens actually shows
similarity between a marriage made through reason without love and a marriage made
through love but without any reasonable grounds. When Richard becomes more and
more obsessed with the Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce court case it becomes obvious that the
marriage will not end well. Dickens connects the life of Richard with the "life" of the
case and when the case is over, so is Richard's life. Just before his death Richard admits
that his behavior was not very reasonable and swears that when he is healthy again, he
shall start anew: "I will not begin it in the old way now," said Richard with a sad smile.
"I have learned a lesson now, sir. It was a hard one, but you shall be assured, indeed,
that I have learned it (Dickens, LXV). Richard however dies and this marks the end of
the marriage as well, creating a stark contrast with the happiness of Esther Summerson.
All in all, the marriage of Ada and Richard was not a particularly happy one and
the fact that Richard's actions, which differed so much from the ideal of a breadwinning
husband, were the chief reasons behind the failed marriage. Dickens ultimately creates a
strong contrast between Esther's happy marriage where the man is a responsible for the
28
income of the family and Ada's failed one where the husband is not really able to secure
the family and jumps from one occupation into another.
5. Family in the Novels and in Reality
The aim of this chapter is to compare the facts about marriages and families
gathered in the two previous chapters and compare how these images from
Middlemarch and Bleak House correspond with each other and with accounts of real
Victorian families from various secondary sources.
The fact that many Victorians considered the dissolution of family in its
traditional sense as the greatest threat menacing the Victorian society clearly shows how
important the institute of family was for the people living in the era. What they thought
was threatening the family the most was the rise of the feminist movements or ongoing
industrialization of the Great Britain that meant that more and more women were
becoming employed in the industry, thus, in the views of some neglecting their roles as
mothers and wives. The importance of roles in Victorian families should be further
stressed. Chiefly in the middle-class and higher-class families, these was a strictly
identified set of roles for males and for females, these roles being quite strictly
separated. The husband was the provider of income for the family while the wife's task
was to create a safe haven for the husband, to create a place where the husband can be
relieved of stress accumulated during the day at work. As Jenni Calder puts it in The
Victorian Home: „For a woman the marriage meant the acquisition of the
'establishment', her own place, financed by her husband." (Calder 9). She also provides
a view on what marriage and home meant for males, citing John Ruskin: "This is the
true nature of home - it is the place of Peace; the shelter, not only from injury, but from
all terror, doubt and division." (Calder 10). These two quotations can very well be used
29
to explain why some Victorians were so afraid that the ongoing industrialization might
destroy the family. The fact that a woman might be working and thus providing income
for the family while in the same time possibly neglect her role as the keeper of the peace
in the household meant that the whole state of family, marriage and home would be
destroyed. Bearing in mind the importance of status which the family bore in the
society, this would in turn mean the destruction of the whole society.
To prevent this danger, several precautions could be taken. The public opinion
kept close watch on how the gender roles are fulfilled, frowning upon men who were
not able to keep the income of their family on a sufficiently high level while at the same
time not allowing women to become too much employed in anything except their
marital roles and keeping the household in suitable shape. However, as Calder puts it, a
woman in a well-off household did not actually do much of the housekeeping works by
herself. "It was important that the housewife should know how to do all that was
necessary in the running of the house, however rarely it was necessary for her to do so."
(Calder 20). This meant that the woman would mostly oversee her servants, give
instruction and keep an eye on what they were doing while only rarely actually doing
the work that had to be done. In case of the Middlemarch the novel is in accordance
with these historical accounts. Dorothea, Celia or Rosamond do not seem to have any
duties at home that they would have to physically do, they mostly overseer their
servants. Servants themselves are not mentioned very often, they act mostly as a kind of
background, being as invisible as possible while keeping the household running. In
Bleak House, similarly, it is Esther who attends to the housework and gets a bundle of
keys from the house. It seems, on the other hand, those she too only overseers that the
household is running smoothly and does not do anything physical. Another aspect of
this issue is the way how Dorothea in Middlemarch wants to be beneficial to society in
30
terms of cottage design. As this is considered a kind of an occupation or a job by most
people, it is not viewed upon very positively in general. It may be seen quite progressive
in fact, for as Chapman argues, "there were few alternatives available to women other
than marriage if they were to gain security and status in society" (2004: 75).
As it was mentioned above, the role of the husband was to provide enough
money for the family to keep up the impression of respectability and to keep up to the
needs of their particular class. Eliza Cook, an English poet active in the second half of
the 19th
century describes the needs of a modest household. The poem's name Three
Hundred Pounds a Year show that this was basically the minimal income, so to say, to
be able to have five servants, three reception rooms and organize social events that were
so necessary. As Calder argues when dealing with income: "Victorian husbands were
expected to keep their wives not just in the style to which they were accustomed, but
often in the style to which they aspired, which was a reason why most middle and
upper-class men married relatively late." This tendency to find a wife only after being
able to financially support her clearly shows that there must have been a degree of
social pressure on the husbands which rendered marrying without being able to establish
a respectable household socially unacceptable. The most fitting example for this is
Rosamond Vincy and Tertius Lydgate from Middlemarch. On the example of their
marriage Eliot shows how important property was for some people in the formation of
marriage and family. Rosamond's greatest fear is that she and Tertius will somehow
lose their property and their respectability would be inevitably hurt, as the property of a
married couple was under close scrutiny of the public in Middlemarch. Yet even though
Rosamond seems to be very much interested in property, Eliot herself seems to put
greater stress on other qualities of the married couple. When Dorothea marries Ladislaw
even though she is to lose her inheritance and the larger part of her property even
31
though she knows that Ladislaw himself is not a rich man, meaning that she would have
to live her life as a much poorer woman than she was when she was married with Mr.
Casaubon, she still does it even though Mr. Brooke warns her that the society as a whole
will not be on her side. All in all, Eliot seems to consider property less important than
the contemporary society.
Dickens, on the other hand, seems to recognize the importance of property, as
Esther Summerson does marry a respectable surgeon and ends up being rather rich. It
should be however stressed that Eliot rarely deals with characters that would actually be
poor (her narrative is focused on the middle or upper class) while Dickens does often
portray poor people in Bleak House. Not even Dickens, however, puts property above
feelings. This is most obvious when Esther marries Mr. Woodcourt instead of Mr.
Jarndyce even though the latter is arguably a perfect husband as well, considering his
property and social status. Esther, however, chooses Mr. Woodcourt which can be
considered as a victory of romantic love and the marriage itself is surely far from a
business operation which would put the importance of the property of the spouses above
all else.
It should be noted that the social status of the married couple connected with the
income of the husband was particularly important in the middle and chiefly upper-class
families. "The middle-class image of marriage was clearly one of a union between
social equals, with the penchant of welcoming the good fortune of the occasional lucky
alliance with a social superior and to be unforgiving if a son or a daughter became
entangled with an inferior" (Thompson 99). However, Thompson immediately
continues to stress that the unforgiving disrespect for marrying a social inferior did not
by any means mean that there were no cases of people marrying with a partner who was
from a lower social sphere. On the other hand, the social pressure against marrying
32
without being materially and financially secured as well as against moving downwards
on the social ladder meant that there had to be a considerable amount of men and
women who chose or were forced by circumstances not to get married. Thompson
argues that before 1870 the proportion of unmarried males at the age of forty-five was
close to 11% while unmarried women constituted 12% of all women of the same age
(Thompson 90).
This historical fact does, again, project itself into Middlemarch and Bleak House.
Richard Carstone and Tertius Lydgate are perfect examples of men who have to be
secured, both from the point of view of their finances as well as their careers, before
they can properly marry. Eliot shows Lydgate unpreparedness when he realizes that he
is not secured enough and falls into debts. He asserts that were he a bachelor, he would
have money enough but his medical practice is simply not profitable enough for a
married couple aiming to create a respectable middle- or upper-class family. Lydgate's
inability to secure his family is criticized not only by his wife and her parents but also
from the rest of the society. The marriage does not seem to be a very happy one and
Lydgate dies rather young. Even thought he manages to keep his family secured through
a life insurance, Eliot seems to picture the whole marriage as being far from perfect.
In Bleak House, the importance of being financially secured is most visible on
the marriage of Ada and Richard. Even though Ada accepts Richard's marriage
proposal, they are not to get married until Richard finds a career path that would allow
him to manage a household. Because of his inability to do so and the way how he
constantly changes his intended occupation from being a doctor to studying law and
then being in army, the marriage does not actually take place for the most part of the
novel and even when Ada and Richard do marry, they do so in secrecy and people
around them, including Esther and Mr. Jarndyce are not actually too happy about the
33
whole marriage. When Dickens ends the Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce case in the final chapters
of the novel, he ends Richard's life as well, as Richard seems to be too much connected
with the case. This way, the marriage of Richard and Ada ends in a rather pessimistic
way.
Even though the role of property in the process of choosing a suitable spouse is
certainly an important aspect in both novels, the role of love is also an important one. It
is worth noticing that almost all the marriages that are formed in the course of the both
novels and are successful, are based on mutual love. None of the marriages are formed
as a simple business operation where the property is the most important factor. The
characters do, however, tend to marry persons from their own social groups and it is
only in the case of Dorothea and Ladislaw when this principle is broken. Others seem to
marry with a certain amount of respect paid to the role of property but there is also a
degree of mutual affection between the partners.
The negative way how both Dickens and Eliot portray marriages that have
financial trouble or some sort of trouble with property is quite interesting, considering
that in general they tend to put more stress on the role of love in the marriage rather than
on the role of money and property. As it has been said, both primary characters,
Dorothea and Esther, end up in marriages that are based on mutual love and it is only
the secondary characters like Rosamond or Ada with Richard who are more focused on
property. In addition, these marriages do not tend to end well in general.
Another issue that is present in both novels and has been already discussed is the
role of women in the process of choosing a suitable husband. Thompson describes the
role of women in this process The Rise of Respectable Society. "It was womenfolk,
however, who devised and organized the whole apparatus of chaperoning, which was
designed to channel their daughters' social contacts and marrying opportunities into
34
clearly defined acceptable circles, and to control their behaviour and premarital conduct
within them" (1988: 103). Even though Thompson shows that it was the role of women
to choose a husband, Eliot and Dickens approached this topic from a different angle in
their novels. Both major characters, Dorothea and Esther, are orphans and their
guardians are men. This way Eliot and Dickens create the paradox that even though it
should be women family members who should help with the choice of a spouse, when
these women are not present it is Dorothea and Esther who, in the end, choose their own
husbands. Their guardians do not assert any strong role in the process of choosing a
husband and particularly in Dorothea's case it is entirely up to her who she chooses as a
husband.
All things considered, after examining families and marriages in both
Middlemarch and Bleak House it becomes quite clear that the ideals of family which
Dickens and Eliot propose in their two novels are different from the historical ideals of
the late 19th
century. It should however be noted that these differences are not
fundamental in their essence. Basically, what Dickens and Eliot propose is to lessen the
pressure which the society creates and thus make people, particularly women, more free
in their marriages and families. As it has been said, these notions are not too radical and
the novels often portray the historical situation very realistically.
35
6. Conclusion
Family was considered one of the most important pillars of the state and the
society as a whole during the Victorian Era. There were certain norms to which a family
or a married couple had to adhere in order to keep a certain level of respectability and
thus avoid criticism from the people around them. Among the most important were the
norms of behaviour of the spouses, the very choice of spouses, their property and wealth
as well as the way how the household was run and also the way how both spouses
fulfilled the roles proscribed to their respective genders.
As it has been shown, the two writers, George Eliot and Charles Dickens, did not
respect these rules very much and their relationships were a target of much public
critique. Bearing in mind this discrepancy between the lives of the authors and the ideal
image which the society created, it seemed only natural to explore marriage and family
life in their novels to find out what are the ideals which the writers propose and how
these ideals are compatible with contemporary reality.
Evidence from the novels shows that the writers are certainly not moralizing in
their writings and their proposed ideals seem to be much more liberal than the reality of
the 19th
century was. Female characters in both Bleak House and Middlemarch are, to a
certain degree, free in their choices of husbands and their choices are, mostly in the case
of Middlemarch, quite different from what is expected to be their ideal husbands (from
the point of view of social standing and wealth). The way how these ideal spouses
adhere to their respective roles in marriages was prominently discussed in both novels.
Eliot managed to create characters who adhere to these prescribed roles as well as those
defying them while favouring those more rebellious in their nature. Dickens on the other
hand seems to be less interested in these roles and his ideal of family consists of a
36
breadwinning father and a housekeeping wife, very much in accordance with
contemporary ideals.
All in all, the thesis shows that, even though Dickens and Eliot were sometimes
considered polar opposites, they shared their rather liberal views on family and
marriage. These views are clearly visible and identifiable in the two discussed novels
and in many ways challenge the traditional Victorian opinions about what a family
should look like. On the other hand, both writers provide a realistic picture of the era
and show marriage from the traditional point of view as well, standing the traditional
ideals into contrast with their own ideals.
37
7. Bibliography
Primary Sources
Dickens, Charles. Bleak House. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971. Print.
Eliot, George. Middlemarch. London: Penguin, 2008. Print.
Secondary Sources
Calder, Jenni. The Victorian Home. London: B.T. Batsford, 1997. Print.
Cook, Eliza. Three Hundred Pounds a Year. Edinburgh: Morrison and Gtub, 1928.
Internet Archive. Web. 12 May 2011.
Chapman, Tony. Gender and Domestic Life: Changing Practices in Families and
Households. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.
Printed.
Dickens, Charles; Dyson, A.E. Bleak House: A Casebook. London: Macmillan, 1969.
Print.
Forster, John. The Life of Charles Dickens. Boston: James R. Osgood & Company,
1875. Project Gutenberg, n.d. Web. 10 April 2011
Gutierrez, Richard. "Bound in Union: The Difficulties of Obtaining a Divorce in
Victorian England." University of Florida, n.d. Web. 11 Nov 2010.
Kennedy, Valerie. "Challenging figures: Three of Charles Dickens' Marginal Women."
The Victorian Web, 2000. Web. 11 Nov 2010.
Levine, George.,ed. The Cambridge Companion to George Eliot. Cambridge:
Cambridge UP, 2001. Print.
Moore, Melissa. "Women's Issue Then and Now." University of Texas at Austin, 3 May
2002. Web. 11 Nov 2010.
38
Rose, Phyllis. Parallel Lives: Five Victorian Marriages. New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
1983. Print.
Thompson, F. M . L. The Rise of Respectable Society: A Social History of Victorian
Britain, 1830-1900. London: Fontana Press, 1988.
Welch, Brenda Jean. Charles Dickens s Bleak House: Benthamite Jurisprudence and
the Law, or What the Law Is and What the Law Ought to Be. Baylor University,
n.d. Web. 25 Jan 2011.
Ziegenfuss, Jan. "Marriage in the Victorian Era."University of Florida. Web. 11 Nov
2010.
39
Resume
The bachelor's diploma thesis attempts to find and analyze ideals of Victorian
marriage in Middlemarch and Bleak House, two novels by Victorian authors George
Eliot and Charles Dickens.
The first chapter briefly deals with the families of the two authors, primarily
focusing on the fact that their marriages were very non-traditional and the possible
influence of these marriages on their literature. The two subsequent chapters deal with
Middlemarch and Bleak House and the depiction of families in these two novels, mainly
focusing on the major characters and their relationships. The last chapter summarizes
the information from the preceding chapters and compares the marriages and their ideals
from novels with the real state of Victorian family in the 19th
century.
Resume
Bakalárska diplomová práca sa pokúša nájsť a analyzovať ideálne manželstvo
v románoch Bleak House a Middlemarch od Viktoriánskych autorov Georgea Elliota
a Charlesa Dickensa.
Prvá kapitola krátko rozoberá manželstvá týchto dvoch autorov, zameriavajúc sa
pri tom hlavne na netradičnosť týchto manželstiev a ich paralely s literárnou tvorbou
týchto autorov. Dve nasledujúce kapitoly rozoberajú Middlemarch a Bleak House
a zobrazenie rodiny v týchto dvoch románoch s prihliadnutím na hlavné postavy a ich
vzťahy. Posledná kapitola sumarizuje poznatky z predchádzajúcich kapitol a porovnáva
stav rodiny a rodinné ideály v románoch s reálnym stavom Viktoriánskej rodiny v 19.
storočí.
40