Presentation: Victorian Literature

The limit of social justice in Oliver Twist

Presentation: Literary Theory/Criticism-2

Reading the jokes from the Feminist perspective

Literary Criticism/Theory - 2

Quest of identity and self-respect

in

Anubhav Sinha’s film

“THAPPAD

(bas itani si bat”)

Introduction

Jim Rohn has quoted, “Reading is essential for those who seek to rise above the ordinary.” But Paulo Coelho says, ‘The book is a film that takes place in the mind of the reader. That’s why we go to movies and say, “oh, the book is better.” If we say literature is x-ray image of society, there is always covered reality into literature while films are actual mirror of society and so society is used to say ‘It is just films, nothing at all. Actually this is what everything at all.’ Certainly there are movies which leads us towards aristocratic world, but there are movies which are needed to read rather than watch and whenever matter comes of reading or studying it itself becomes much significant than surface. Sometimes this kind of film readings wants to reach reality or wants to bring the change into society. As we know, 21st century is the century of knowledge, revolution and technology. Now even idea of feminism seems very ridiculous, meaningless and useless. Women are reaching to the stars but what about patriarchy which is used to encode from one generation to another. Women are still considering as Simon De-Beauvoir said ‘second-sex.’

In this present time, condition is similar for women just situations and manners are changed. The question is only that what if, if woman is at the position instead of man? If answer of this question lead towards nothingness then why we are not accepting problems as problem itself? Namrata Joshi reviews that, Thapped is throwing punch at patriarchy.

This assignment intentions to read ‘Quest of identity and self-respect in Anubhav Sinha’s film-Thappad’.

Thappad prompts you to question the relationship dynamics between a man and woman, and makes you uncomfortable: Have we normalized far too many things?

Now let’s bring into being our discussion.

As mind is not the problem but mindset is problematic, instead of saying the film Thappad, Anubhav Sinha’s Thappad attempts to explain that it is not simply the only slap. If it is just a single slap, it should be questioned and unacceptable but entirety that the response to such violence that is problem. Ultimate question is, women also want same need & rights as men. Sometimes it becomes very obvious to hit girlfriend or wife. When family and friends minimize the violence of the act, it is detrimental not just to the woman in question, but to society as a whole. Even within the strictures of a traditional marriage, the agency of women must be recognized as important. Covered violence against women within families and especially from spouse is a massive problem in Indian Society.

Thappad is not only unjust about a slap, but about its male privilege. Simple narrative technique perhaps emphasis upon slap, especially upon just a slap but rather its encoded meaning questions social conditioning by both men and women. To discourse it, it is essential for women themselves to recognize that they must have equal respect in every relationship; nothing less is conventional.

Whenever it comes to think, what is required in life, this question becomes hollow without the identity of a person and crucial question is, what is this identity?  Is anything else than social status, self-respect or self-assurance?  Of course nothing more but we live in a society where all this is part of a person's identity but if one is a man!  If there is a woman, her self-esteem, honor and status are tied with her husband or father.  It presents a nude picture of such a reality and not for anything else on the screen of the cinema but for the fight for self-esteem and respect, that is Anubhav Sinha’s Thappad.

If you haven’t watch THAPPAD still, please must have a look on this trailer.

Even if a wife talks in a loud to her husband among of all, and if her husband does not even try to know what the problem actually it is, as part of rationality, it will prove good in the definition of self-esteem of man. But if we just change the women instead of man, she will be proving as arrogant, arrogant and arrogant!  Just comes in the form of a self-deprecating woman.  Anubhav Sinha has begun lifting up the curtains one by one, beginning to uncover reality and perhaps that's why his films are going to flop instead of what should be a block-buster.   People found the trailer boring, as justifying the demand for a woman's divorce for a slap is itself a matter of joke.  And yes, I do not have the slightest desire to relate this to the violence of the years ago, but if the curtains that are lifted do not find any support, then there is no need for proof to prove that we are preparing this generation for the 19th century. If this makes us laugh, there is certainly highly problematic because laughter is device and weapon at deeper level!

Thappad - bas itani si bat!

This film questions against the unwritten but encoded rules in marriage.

Thappad, as if the slap itself is on the mindset of this society, on the name of safety from the society and also upon on the stigma imposed by the society.

The most effective parts of the film are the ones in which we are shown just how women are always being told how to feel, how to keep their feelings in check, how not to give into them. It’s not just Amrita who is dealing with ‘sirf ke thappad hi toh tha’, and how Vikram (the husband) who slaps her is ‘only’ taking out his workplace frustration on her. The film also pays attention to the other women who are in Amrita’s orbit; how her lawyer (Sarao), and her mother, and mother-in-law have dealt with their own disappointments, and how the maid (Ohlyan), who is routinely beaten by her drunken husband, has learnt to combat it.

Quest of identity and role of camera in THAPPAD

Moving inside from the artistic point of view then not just the actors’ acting or the sets raised afterwards, the camera's ambition to show that set makes the filmmaker's intention clear, perhaps even vision, and perhaps it does not seek for only identity and feminism but also for gender equality. A loose end for a slap and finally gets divorce at the end, means a happy ending. So, what is it like to watch?   The question starts with this happy ending, is it really a happy ending?  Can a woman get happiness in this society even if she has what she wants?

When it comes to film, the camera becomes so important that one picture is equal to thousands words and that is why the experience gives scope to these words only in Sinha's films where they suffer in silent suffering.  Their attempt is not to insert a new ideology but to break a polluted mindset that we have simply accepted as truth.  If we want proof of this, let’s take another travel to this movie.  When Amruta's father comes to the scene working in the kitchen, it is not as groundbreaking as some of the innovators but if a man does housework, there is nothing special about it.  He moves the veil as if doing some favor by working part of.  The female character in the camera suddenly blurs when talk is being made at the table at the time of the meal and when the discussion takes place of serious discussion.  The camera in this film is not only fixed on housework but also to show that the responsibility of housework in this society is female.  Over the years, with the passing of time, the male character stands at a top in his life and his daily routine is changing even though the female character also works with the male, but in her daily routine, her behavior or even her partner’s behavior, change is not worthy to note. Means nothing change at all.

 Is it just because she works at home or because she accepts the housework assigned to her?  All the women who live by accepting the fact that they are truly happy in their lives think once and for all, the pain of the golden cage becomes unbearable.

Even Sinha does not forget that if such a case starts happening, then more than half of the marriages in India will end.  But the question is, should they afford such slaps?  Of course, this is probably at the heart of the film, with no assurance that justice, honor, self-esteem and status will be returned as a result of not being tolerated.

Fare play & self-respect

Fare play, as if it is at the center throughout the film, but the father of the main character (Amrita-Tapasi Pannu) has a very broad thinking.  Even after interacting with Amrita and her husband, Vikram, after slapping Amrita, Sinha has shown the camera's buzzing words, the words of Vikrama and the face of Amrita!  What turned out to be just an unexpected experience of humiliation that has been conducted in Amrita's life, Vikram decided to leave the company.  If a man does not need anyone's permission to leave work from the place where he works, then why should a woman have to get permission to leave her place permanently?  If the place where it works for a man can be instinctively accepted as a company, why can't the woman name the as a company to home?  Don’t you think home is also a company?  If a man can carry a woman into his or her own success, why does the perspective change when the man becomes a woman's tag?  Can a man not have a woman's tag?  Otherwise why anyone should make each other tag!

Significance is that if women play fare play, will they be given not justice but equality at all?

Choice or politics of choice:

Sinha includes very subtle dialogue through Amruta, to be housewife was her choice but at the very end of the film he himself questions that was it really her choice or her choice was politicized? No one is asking that why each and every girl wants to be housewife ultimately? Do women like to do household works instead of working outside? As it is said, experience is the best teacher. Only believe, if you have heard and seen. But what if, your experience, choice and thinking is also controlled by patriarchy!

‘He Just Slap You’.

The woman is only woman when the talk comes to home. Doesn’t matter there is a senior lawyer, a homeowner or a working woman or housewife.  Is the love received in the name of honor and self-esteem really worthy of even the name of love?

Quest of identity as a whole

The movie brings these subtle insights through not just its lead pair, but through several parallel stories involving Amrita’s parents, her mother-in-law, her house helper maid, the equation of Amrita’s brother with his fiancé and her lawyer who is struggling with her own personal conflicts, while putting up a bold face to the world. Thappad also takes a clever insult the infamous stance on how slapping each other can be an expression of love in a couple through one of its characters.

तन्ने मारने के लिए मुझे लाइसेंस चाहिए का?!

It is said that he is the true artist who can transform the reality of life, compassion, suffering into his art.  If you want to get to the root of the fact that film is an art, then you have to go to films like Vijay Sinha's Book, ARTICLE 15, Mulk and Gulab Gang.  If desired, the film could have been more interesting and attracted more audiences, a two-item song could have come and even a bit of romance, but the truth that pervades the heart of reality, where is the truth?

Really this is the Thappad over the SLAP!

If one can slap, why another can’t ask for justice even?

Conclusion

To sum it up, 'Thappad' is a silent slap on our society's age-old belief — shaadi mein sab kuch chalta hain. But, honestly, should it be that way? And that is what we need to start talking about... now!

जो तटस्थ हैं समय उनके भी अपराध लिखेगा!

It’s significant to remember that Thappad has released only eight months after Kabir Singh, a celebration of misogyny that was the second-highest grossing Bollywood film of last year. In the dark by-lanes of status quo-reverential Bollywood, Sinha has lit a match. Now it’s up to the audience whether it wants to see the light.

Like the nature of that work, the film doesn’t make a big deal about those scenes – it simply repeats them as a matter of fact at least half-a-dozen times. So that we know, so that we realise. That is the best thing about Thappad: it shows us a reality, a story hidden in plain sight all along. A story so ubiquitous that we don’t even think of it as one.

Slap!

Does it really nothing else?

References

Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory - an Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory: Fourth. Manchester University Press, 2017.

BHARAT, MEENAKSHI. “PICTURE ABHI BAAKI HAI: Bollywood as a Guide to Modern India.” India International Centre Quarterly, vol. 42, no. 1, 2015, pp. 151–154. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/26316671. Accessed 8 Mar. 2020.

Dey Purkayastha, Pallabi. “Thappad Movie Review : An Impactful Social Drama That Questions the Unsaid Rules of Marriage.” Times of India, https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/hindi/movie-reviews/thappad/movie-review/74290604.cms.

Dwyer, Rachel. Picture Abhi Baaki Hai: Bollywood as a Guide to Modern India. Hachette India, 2014.

Gupta, Shubhra. “Thappad Movie Review: Anubhav Sinha Film Is Important.” TheIndianEXPRESS, https://indianexpress.com/article/entertainment/movie-review/thappad-review-rating-taapsee-pannu-anubhav-sinha-6287484/.

Cultural Studies

 Four Goals of Cultural Studies

Introduction

Many times we might have heard, what others are doing is seems unnatural, sometimes it looks abnormal too. Why? It is because of cultural diversity. What some outsiders are doing is like unlikely it’s just because what they are or what they are doing is not part of our culture at all. It is also possible that what we are doing is also quite surprising to other as it obviously not part of their culture. This cultural conflict can be found not only between two countries but also between two class and castes! As far one can understand this concept of cultural diversity, what Matthew Arnold defines in his ‘Culture and Anarchy’ is why problematic! We know that, balance within the society is much required but yet question arises that ‘Though we are denying that such problems/issues do not in exist in our society but is it true?’ Answer of this question may lead anyone to the silence only! Here, cultural studies help a lot and that is why what Arnold defines and where cultural studies stand is quite different at all.

This assignment aims to study four major goals of Cultural Studies with examples.

Before entering into the heavy discussion, let’s have a brief look upon,

what is Cultural Studies?

or

 what Cultural Studies does?

Cultural studies help us not only in reading power but also to what is emergence of reading power! Perhaps that question can also come that it seems it must be full of controversy and then why it should teach to students? It is like what difference a cultural studies approach make does for the student? It is necessary because learning by controversy is sound training for citizenship in future. Today a student can go form the one class in which the values of Western Culture are never questioned to the next class where Western Culture is portrayed as hopelessly compromised by racism, sexism and homophobia. It is the demand of time that student is needed to construct a conversation as the most exciting part of their education.

Worthy to note…

Through this arguments one can certainly say, it studies the text against itself and so, it is provoking at some level.  Then why students need to learn Cultural Studies?

What is need of teaching controversy?

The answer is given by Gerald Graff and James Phelan in simplistic manner, as they observe…

“It is a common prediction that the culture of the next century will put a premium on people’s ability to deal productively with conflict and cultural difference, learning by controversy is sound training for citizenship in that future.”

After studying what is Cultural Studies, let’s begin our discussion of four goals of cultural studies.

(1)Transcends the confines of a particular discipline

Primarily, cultural studies transcend the confines of a particular discipline such as literary criticism or history.

We need to note here, Cultural Studies is not just necessarily about literature in the old-fashioned sense or even about art. Now question rises, ‘what’s these all about?’ It is said that, intellectual ability of cultural studies lies in its attempts to, “cut-across diverse social and political interest and address many of the struggle within the current scene.’’

Intellectual works are limited by their own ‘borders’ as single texts. Historical complications or disciplines and the critic’s own personal relations to what is being analyzed may also to be defined and described. Thus, Cultural Studies is also a kind of a Criticism, like feminism and post-colonialism, is an engaged rather than detached activity. 

For example,

Italian Opera, a Latino telenovela, the architectural styles of prison, body piercing and drawing conclusions about the changes in textual phenomena over time.

(2)Politically engaged

As we discussed earlier, cultural studies is politically engaged. It studies all the relations in power relations. Cultural Studies, studies as ‘oppositional’ not only within their own disciplines but too many of the power structures of society at large discourse. It is quite obvious to understand that cultural studies questions hierarchies and inequalities within the power structure and pursue to discover models for restructuring relationships among dominant and minority or also at subaltern discourses.

Now let’s enter into very interesting questions.

Because it is not the man who speaks but the language speaks, meaning and individual subjectivity are culturally constructed, they can thus be reconstructed as construction seems naturalized.

(3)Denies separation between high & Law

Worthy to note, cultural studies denies separation between high and law & elite and popular culture.

Cultural critics work hard to transfer the term ‘culture’ to include mass culture, whether popular, folk or urban. Being a ‘cultured’ person used to define used to separate own self being aware with highbrow art and intellectual pursuits. Prominent theorists Jean Baudrilland and Andrew Huyssen, cultural critics argue, after world war-II, the distinction among high low and mass culture collapsed and they cite other theorists like Pierre Bourdieu and Dick Hebdige on how ‘good taste’ often any reflects prevailing social as well as economic and political power bases.

What cultural critics studies while studying Cultural Studies?

Cultural Studies examines the ‘everyday life’, ‘studying literature as an anthropologist would, as a phenomenon of culture. Instead of determining which are the ‘best’ work produced, Cultural Studies, studies what is produced and how various productions relate to one another. They purposes to discover the political, economic reasons why a certain product is more valued at certain times than other.

(4)The Means of Production

Cultural studies hammers into basement and that’s why it analyzes not only the cultural work, but also the means of production.

Now-a-days we find that several literary works become widely read and popular. We believe that we are free to choose whatever we want to read but it is not so. It would be surprising to know that our choices are also controlled by political powers because our likes and dislikes dependent upon what comes in front of us and also equally important in which narration that is coming. As cultural studies try to read everything into power relationship, it emphasis upon how & where power works and so it is important to read writer & writer’s market.

While discussing means of production in Cultural Studies, how can we forget Marxist Critics have a long questions of such Paraliterary as these:

Cultural studies approach sometimes concerns with not only work that is produced but also the means of production. Question of how to support the author, of finding a publisher, and even marketing the particular work to the cultural milieu on which the work is produced. Now, let’s read Chetan Bhagat and his market through cultural studies.

Chetan Bhagat: A study of writer

Chetan Bhagat knows very well the process of production – marketing and consumption of anything as he has graduated from IIT and IIM. He knows how best to use the cultural studies milieu and economic conditions of the readers.  He also knows well the demographic of India as the country with most young people.

(1)Youth

His all narrative of works chiefly focus on youth means they all are youth centric. As he knows, India is the country where majority of group is youth and to be popular it is very necessary to serve what youth wants!

(2)Problems of youth

As his all works are youth centric, he discusses the problems of youth from the way young would like to narrate and solutions which young would like to have it. Worthy to note, solutions given by Chetan Bhagat are not truth or deeply thought solutions, but sweet and coated solution.  He gives not what is truth, but what is loved to read!

                                             

(3)Price of the book

Price of the book is one of the major reasons behind some highly qualitative books are not widely read. Chetan Bhagat knows how to target the audience and specially youth and so price of the books are affordable to young pockets approx. 99 to 150 RS.

(4)Length of narratives

We are living in that era where people don’t have enough time for even the self and if people are paying their valuable time in reading it might be very selective thus length of narrative plays very significant role in marketing. Not only people do not have enough time to read longer narratives but also not even time even to ponder deeply on the single sought.  Chetan Bhagat’s all novels are shorter like novella. Almost his novels can be read in single seating.

(5)Narrative style

Not only that important what is served to us but also how we are served.  His narrative style is very simple as rarely dictionary is required. His style is conversational and youth friendly style.

(6)Language

He uses very simple language. His novels are like campus novel, campus slangs and uses symbols and metaphors.

(7)Target audience and zeitgeist

Cheatan Bhagat has very better understanding of target audience and their zeitgeist

            (1) Getting admission in IIM/IIT

            (2) Callcentre    

            (3) Job, entrepreneurship, marriage

      (4) Education system as enterprice.

(8)Marketing

Chetan Bahgat knows very well how to market and to propagate the work. He uses social media platform like Facebook, Youtube, twitter, personal website, blog etc.

(9)Basic tone

         Hindutva Capitalism

Conclusion

Thus, we can say that Cultural Studies is an umbrella term, Culture is itself so difficult to pin down. Cultural Studies hard to define. Elaine Showalter also describes Cultural Studies is the model of feminine difference, Cultural Studies is not so much a discrete approach at all, but rather a set of practices. For example, looking from Roland Barthes on the nature of literary language and Claud-Levi-Strauss on anthropology.  

So, Cultural Studies’ discourse accepted the ways of thinking, writing and speaking- and practices that embody, exercise and amount to power.

References

Guerin, Wilfred L. A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature. Oxford University Press, 2011.

Jenks, Frederick L. Planning to Teach Culture: an Instructional Manual. University Publications, 1972.

Nayar, Pramod K. An Introduction to Cultural Studies. Viva Books, 2011.

 

Victorian Literature

Middlemarch

(Failed Idealism)

Introduction:

Idealism is used to define from the centuries in several discourses. You might have heard the word Utopia as very hard to reach out, Idealism is also very tough to grasp. In the patriarchal society where we are living, women are always expected to be a kind, beautiful, hardworking, having endurance and because of this women are more interested to move towards idealism. As we distinguish, where rigidity of religion there is is always darkness, same way made-up attraction towards idealism, it results into unhappiness, longer disquiet and anxiety. George Eliot’s Middlemarch also stresses upon failed idealism. Eyeing from surface level in Middlemarch, seems that idealism has been seized or happy ending is done but it is not so. It symbolizes the failed idealism. Every character’s suffering becomes more painful from the end itself. 

This assignment purposes to stretch out the connotation of idealism and illustration of failed idealism in Middlemarch.

We live in society where marriage has been made very vital part of life. What marriage does, actually nothing! Tendency towards marriage is been made is nothing more than another form of stereotyping. This assignment goals to stretch out idealism in Middlemarch – Failed idealism in Middlemarch.

What is idealism?

Before entering into discussion of heavy term, let me make simply clear that idealism is such complex term which very difficult to define in given context. M.H.Abrams defines Idealism as “Idealism is the name for a philosophical doctrine, arising at the end of the eighteenth century, was transformed over the course of the nineteenth century into an important concept for literature as well. Idealism was found on the distinction drawn by Immanuel Kant between the realms of freedom and necessity.

Idealism was articulated as a utopian program, at the center of which is the image of a harmonious human being perfectly at the home in the world.

Middle March is about the process of understanding the experience and perceptions of others, and also of suffering and through self-deception and disillusionment, social positioning, class-consciousness and ambition for self-improvement with its concomitants: education and money.

According to Virginia Wolfe,

George Eliot’s Middle March is ‘One of the few English novels for grown-up people’.

Middlemarch investigates into the question of just how literature relates to life and our accepted wisdom of idealism.

How idealism fails in Middlemarch

In remarks of these discussions of the idea of idealism and progress in the novel, it is noticeable that the Eliot insightfully comments on the radical, social and cultural not only offers a realistic image of the social order with a psychological portrayal of its characters, but also makes any kind of survival impossible without this realistic awakening to the societal conditions.

Michael York writes in his article “Middlemarch and History” that…

“Lydgate and Dorothea are idealists “whose dreams are destroyed as they come up against the harsh realities of daily existence”. However, the Victorian England is not the time of Romantic idealists like Lydgate, but realists like Marty Garth and Fred Vincy, the happy couple of the novel, and Will Ladislaw, the husband of Dorothea. Yet Eliot attracts the sympathy of readers for all her characters on each side, which is another aim of her, since she says in a letter to Charles Bray in 1959 just before writing the novel, “if Art does not enlarge men's sympathies, it does nothing morally.”

It is a common human tendency to cast ourselves as the central amount in the drama of our life—and the mixture but, like Mary Garth “take life very much as a comedy.”  While tragedy sets up a central hero or heroine, comedy, similar to life, provides a gathering of characters of relatively equal importance, mixed motives, and struggling interests. Characters are at one moment absurd and at another profound. For precisely this reason, comedy offers a revitalizing remedy to our inherently self-centered view of the world. Books like Middlemarch, and perhaps comedies in general, can help us engaging batter with and understand the humans around us.

Ideally failed characters in Middlemarch

Elliot is high-pitched and straight forward to the subject of the irresponsibility of some people that are of higher class who live better than others not by the merits of their own merited work. This issue is much more examined with controversial issues of the rising class as accepted and affordable of idiotic, selfish and harsh actions. The lower class has to labor for a meager living day by day with no hope of prosperity.

Now, let’s study these characters with wearing the lens of idealism.

Dorothea Brooks

Dorothea Brooks is ostensible heroine of Middlemarch. Her representation in the novel is rather heart-rending and tragic, in fact designed for herself and eager to fill. A dreamy idealist of the first degree, her days are paid out in dreaming up and trying to gather provision for her well-intentioned but unrealizable plans to renovate homes for the unfortunate.

She ignores the genuine attention of a kind but typical local lord, choosing instead to marry Mr. Casaubon, an aged minister who spends his days in historical and philosophical studies.

Mr. Casaubon

We can consider Mr. Casaubon as absurd figure. Narcissistic approach can be studies in his character.

He is ill-mannered in his conceit and self-centeredness, and his pride separates him from his family and from the community too.  Dorothea falls into love for him because she errors this reality in her incoherent sentiments of unclear nobility and abstract excellence. He seems to be noble enough for her to dedicate her life to serving his vision, and she willingly throws herself upon the altar of self-immolation—only to discover in the first few weeks of her marriage that his idealism is nothing but a mask for his selfishness, his fear of living actively and well, and his fear of being surpassed by his quick-minded young wife. In short, it represents falsified assumption of idealism, failed idealism.

Dorothea’s role as the “heroine” is quietly undermined as Eliot slowly but consistently forces us to focus on other characters with equal.  Two of these characters are women who instantiate the tension between idealism and realism. Rosie, daughter of the town mayor, is a ruined but sweet young woman who sets her cap for the handsome new doctor in town. Imagining a life of leisure and finery far beyond what his new practice can support, she drives them into debt and social degradation—all because she is determined to fit her life into the role she has cast for herself as a socialite and chivalric lady, a role that her real life doesn’t provide lodgings.

Lydgate:

The character who has his drives and ideals brought most obviously low is Lydgate. The earliest example is when he has to make the choice between the both Fair brother and Tyke. Both of these characters are rather poor instances of the clergy.

Failure of marriage in Middlemarch

Marriage is a theme as well as an portion of realism, marriage and its pursuit are at the center in Middlemarch, but it is different from other novels, marriage is not considered the final source of love and happiness but an direction of morality values. Eliot considers the moral growth as an act of abandoning egoistic spiritual concerns and meeting a concerned response to the sufferings of the helpless. All the characters of the novel are concerned with marriage. They all tend to fall in love with someone and then get married. The main thing in the marriages of Middlemarch people is that they are all disappointed and disillusioned. Dorothea as the main character suffers from disillusion too. Her expectations about her marriage with Edward Casaubon are totally far behind the reality.

The marriages of the secondary characters also tell us stories for example the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Bulstrode face a marital crisis. Another couple having difficulties uniting are Fred Vincy and Mary Garth, they have loved each other from long ago, but Mary’s different points of view from Vincy and her decision that she won’t marry him without having a stabile profession, but never as a clerk. So they face a very great deal of hardship. And as we may think of it none of the marriages have the fairy happy ending. Middlemarch is one of the few novels that do not portray marriage as romantic and unproblematic relation.

Middlemarch can be considered as, construction of liberalistic views and the values of Catholicism once married forever married. It supports treaties in favor of divorce.

Almost every characters in Middlemarch marry for love rather than obligation, yet marriage still appears negative and unromantic. Marriage and pursuit of it are central concerns in Middlemarch, but unlike in many novels of the time, marriage is not considered the ultimate source of happiness. In Middlemarch, two are the failed marriages of  Dorothea and Lydgate.

As we discussed earlier both Lydgate and Dorothea’s marriage fails. Undeveloped question is that why? If both the marriages are essentially based upon love rather than anything else then why it fails? Does Eliot wants us to highlighting upon question,  does marriage always bring happiness?

(1)Dorothea’s marriage

Dorothea’s marriage miss the mark because of her youth and of her disillusions about marrying a much older man.

(2)Lydgate’s marriage

Lydgate’s marriage fails because of her conflicting personalities.

As a result, none of the marriages reach a perfect fairytale ending and so, perhaps it deals with failed idealism.

Brian Swann says, Middlemarch is treasure house of details, but it is an indifferent whole. George Eliot was been peculiarly intelligent.

What Is It About Middlemarch?

It was began as works of art with an unexpected connection. It is not like romantic novel, though it is a very adoring one. It is anti-romantic. It does not lead from unsatisfied love to fulfilled love to climactic marriage. It initiates with the mistaken marriage choices of its "heroine" and "hero" and shows the inexorable workings of their coming to terms with their folly. Both are idealists. Both are very intelligent yet their intelligence and idealistic thinking fails.

Epilogue

Thus, we can conclude that..

As characters are more significant than plot in Middlemarch, it depicts slow moving plot as an element of realism. Throughout the novel, there are numerous references to her desire to help the poor, though this is more often than not frustrated by her surroundings.  Eliot's refusal to conform to happy endings demonstrates the fact that Middlemarch is not meant to be entertainment. She wants to deal with real-life issues, not the fantasy world to which women writers were often confined. Her ambition was to create a portrait of the complexity of ordinary human life: quiet tragedies, petty character failings, small triumphs, and quiet moments of dignity..

References

Abrams, M. H., and Geoffrey Galt Harpham. A Glossary of Literary Terms. Cengage Learning, 2015.

Eliot, George. Middlemarch, by George Eliot. Dent, 1967.

James, Henry. “George Eliot's ‘Middlemarch.’” Nineteenth-Century Fiction, vol. 8, no. 3, 1953, pp. 161–170. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3044335. Accessed 6 Mar. 2020.

Mason, Michael York. “Middlemarch and History.” Nineteenth-Century Fiction, vol. 25, no. 4, 1971, pp. 417–431. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2933120. Accessed 7 Mar. 2020.

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