Middlemarch: A Structural Study

George Eliot (1819-1880) is one of the greatest Victorian writers. Her masterpiece Middlemareh has been the focus of concern to various critics past and present. In recent years, people have found interest in her seemingly "loose" structure. This paper intends to join in the heated structuralist study of Middlemareh and hopes, through textual reading and structural analysis, to prove that Middlemareh is indeed a living entirety of multiple layered, polyphonic, web-like organism, and that George Eliot, instead of lacking in structuring ability, has gone far beyond her time and the Victorian literary traditions.The paper is mainly divided into five parts. Part one and two is a brief introduction to the author, literature reviews and the basic concepts of narratology. Part three, mainly deals with the structure of the work, beginning with the apparent fragmentation to the deep-structured unity implemented in the form of interrelation and mutual referentiality between plots and characters. Part four is devoted to a detailed study of the different discourses or voices, a result of constant shifting and sliding of the narrator or the author's roles and functions. The last part is the conclusion.