The Narrative Authority Of George Eliot In Middlemarch

In English literary history, George Eliot is no doubt one of the greatest and most influential novelists and the leading intellectuals in the nineteenth century. In the past one hundred years, she has remained at the center of literary tradition with an apparent increase in the interest of the contemporary critics. Middlemarch is considered Eliot's finest achievement and one of the greatest novels in the English language; nevertheless, it is also a bone of contention. Most critics apply feminist criticism to unscramble the novel and draw that it's a comedown of feminist fight and a loss of feminist discursive authority for the three protagonists in the novel hide in the protection of marriage, especially Dorothea, she marries Will who is inferior to her in every aspect.Feminist narratology is the integration of feminist criticism and orthodox narrative. It has two objectives: (1) it introduces narrative into feminist criticism so as to improve and enrich the traditional feminist criticism; (2) from the feminist standpoint, it applies the woman writer's works as the basis to construct narrative poetics, so that narrative is tinted with political and sexual color.The dissertation aims to employ the theory of feminist narratology to reinterpret Middlemarch. Through the analysis of the three heroines and their marriage status, the dissertation draws the conclusion that Eliot manages to win the discursive authority in a man-dominating era, and the authority is based on a dual voice-the voice of a woman writing in the name and company of men.