Middlemarch, Obligation, and Dorothea's Duplicity

Utilizing her unorthodox approach to spirituality and her wide readings in the field of ethics, George Eliot, in Middlemarch, portrays forms of ethical behavior that offer innovative depictions of community and human interaction. A translator of Spinoza, Eliot constructs a world where obligation is a necessity in rapidly changing times. By highlighting the importance of obligation, Eliot demonstrates how the power of human relationships must be understood ethically. Middlemarch offers a compelling critique of the status quo. This critique, though, provides a somewhat radical solution to entrenched social problems. Furthermore, this sense of obligation, as seen in the relationship between Dorothea Brooke and Will Ladislaw, must be tied to a spirituality that would confirm the importance of human action and, simultaneously, demonstrate how that grounded action suggests, paradoxically, the trace of a transcendent state.