The Strategy Of Characterization In Middlemarch

Middlemarch has been recognized as one of the great English novels since the date of its publication. It portrays the provincial life of a small town standing in the middle of England and English history. It is widely regarded as George Eliot's finest achievement, written when she was at the height of her powers. Middlemarch is a very carefully woven work of social commentary and human analysis, with many living, breathing characters who are as real as the historical time period they inhabit. There are more than one hundred and fifty characters in the novel. To create so many living characters is obviously not an easy job and to study the way George Eliot has portrayed so many characters is, no doubt, of important research value.This thesis begins with a brief introduction of George Eliot and her novel Middlemarch. And then it provides a theoretical exposition of the concepts of Character and Characterization. The second part is a thematic analysis of the novel, which is intended to prepare for the investigation of characterization in the next part. The focus of the present study is placed on George Eliot's strategies of characterization. My study claims that George Eliot has mainly adopted three major characterization strategies: excessiveness, irony and psychological study. Some other minor approaches of characterization such as dramatic scenes, authorial intervention, direct exposition and linguistic features peculiar to characters have also been discussed. The last part is the conclusion of the present study.