On George Eliot's View Of Feminine Ethics In Middlemarch

In the whole 19^th century, Great changes took place in Britain, spiritually and materially. Due to the improvement of productivity and science and technology, British industry was flourishing, which greatly promoted the economic power and international status of Britain. Just like what Simone de Beauvoir said, the rapid development of industry had changed women's destiny and opened a brand-new time for them. With the arrival of British bourgeoisie revolution and the industrial revolution, British women had more opportunity to accept education, which enabled them to have wisdom and thought, and made them begin to serve the society with their own ability and wisdom to win their own social status which was the same as men did at that time. But the discriminative and oppressive society did not make their wishes become true, and thus made these educated women realize the need to reform their own status. However, the prejudices of the society of thousands of years against women not only had influenced men's notions, but also had actually and deeply influenced the concepts of women. So, they were accustomed to obey these prejudices and the patriarchal society. Therefore we can see that the road to liberate the female was very difficult and long. On the one hand, they needed to revolt against the discrimination and prejudices of the patriarchal society, on the other hand, they also needed to get rid of the influences of the traditional prejudices on them and overcome their psychological barrier of themselves deep-rooted. This was also the reason why they paced back and forth between the new and the old morality. As a British important writer of the 19^th century, George Eliot, who always showed her concern on women's issues, naturally could see this problem, she also profoundly felt the pain of women brought by the discrimination and oppression of the patriarchal society due to her own struggle for an education and the right to participate in the intellectual life of the community and her own experiences on love and marriage. In order to find a better road to women's liberation, she tried her best in the process of her creation.The feminine ethics studies the ethical and moral problems in the social life from the perspective of the female, that is to say it values all kinds of ethical problems such as the world, the society, the opposite sex, self and both sexes and so on and so forth from the perspective of the female. The focus on the feminine ethics can be found in most of George Eliot's novels, but her masterpiece Middlemarch most obviously reflects this point. Many people have studied this novel from the perspective of feminist or the perspective of views of religion and morality which are expressed in the novel. However, this thesis, from the perspective of the feminine ethics, discusses the awakening of self-independent consciousness of the heroines and their rebellion and efforts in that how they pursued their love and marriages in the patriarchal society, and the perplexed and confused condition because of the unavoidable limitation of themselves at that time, and it also makes the moral appraisal ethically to the patriarchal society's oppression against the female and the limitation of the female itself, thus we can see George Eliot's ethical concern on feminine issues.This thesis adopts the comparative methods. Through the description of the different pursuit of love and marriage and the comparison and analysis of the different results of the three heroines, the author of the thesis thinks George Eliot's view of feminine ethics is that if women want to realize their real liberation, win the respect of the patriarchal society and gain their own status, on the one hand, women must get rid of the influences of the prejudices imposed upon them by the patriarchal society, try to win their economical and spiritual independence through their own labor as possible as they can and contribute to the society to realize the social values of their own; on the other hand, women also need to change the male's prejudices as well, get the male's confirmation and make them truly realize their own social values. Such kind view of feminine ethics of George Eliot was advanced at that time, and it even has great significance of the mental enlightenment and ethical guidance for today's women, especially women in China who are deeply influenced by the thousand-year feudalism.