George Eliot And Critical Realism

George Eliot, the last Victorian novelist in the19thcentury, has occupied animportant and extraordinary position in the world literary history. On one hand, sheinherits and develops the tradition of realistic novel writing and provides valuableresources and truthful pictures for scholars and readers to understand the life ofVictorian society; on the other hand, her distinctive writing on detailed exploration ofreality, typical illustrations of the characters and truthful depiction of psychology,reflects the turbulence and vicissitudes of the common people. George Eliot’s unusualpersonal experiences and ambivalent attitudes towards social questions are fullyrevealed in her works, which opened a new chapter in the history of English and theworld literature.However, until now the domestic and foreign researches on George Eliot and herworks concentrated mainly on several themes, such as on feminine questions, on herreligion of humanity and on her biographies. In these long years of literary studies andanalysis, George Eliot, hidden by the shininess of some other famous writers, likeCharles Dickens and William Makepeace Thackeray, was not being taken seriously inliterary studies and research until this century.Therefore, grasping the perspective of critical realism, this thesis intends tointerpret and analyze one of George Eliot’s represented and greatest novels——Middlemarch. This novel represents the small town Middlemarch in the mid-century ofVictorian era, showing the social problems from certain perspectives and many vividdetails in people’s life. In this novel, Eliot shapes more than one hundred and fiftyvivid and real characters in different living backgrounds and with different lifeexperience——it is an English version A Dream in Red Mansions.By the means of analyzing in depth of the historic background, the personality ofvarious represented characters and the conflict between the ideal and the truthful socialreality in this novel, this thesis delves deeper, and explores, in detail, critical realismfrom specific and unique angle.