On The Unbalanced Social Ecological Circumstances In Middlemarch

George Eliot lives in the transitional period of the Victorian Age, in which economic development is accelerated by industrialization and urbanization. Accompanying the development, a great number of environmental problems come into being. As an incisive observer whose mind is full of philosophical thinking, Eliot takes those problems into deep consideration and appeals for constructing a harmonious social ecology in her works, among which Middlemarch arouses the greatest attention.Social ecology holds that the ecological crisis originally emerges from within the social development itself, including the aggravating relationships between man and man, between man and society. From the perspective of social ecology, this thesis is to analyze the unbalanced social ecological circumstances based on a case study of the two female protagonists Dorothea and Rosamond, with Eliot's determinism of circumstances as the background support. In the first place, the protagonist Dorothea is specially affected by the inharmonious circumstances of religious education. Instead of a regular education, what Dorothea receives is a religious one, which leads her to take the religious beliefs, such as austerity, simplicity, abstinence, and religiosity, for the criterion of her acts. These religious thoughts influence her so deeply that she develops very radical or idealized views, anxious to devote herself to any cause that has the characteristic of greatness or grandeur, and that's the root for her failure marriage with Casaubon and her conflicts with her relatives and friends. The unbalanced circumstances of social education determine the male's domination on female. It never occurs to Dorothea that she can realize her dreams by herself; instead she tries to do what she wants to through man, as can be further demonstrated by her remarriage with Will.In the second place, Rosamond is produced by that inharmonious social ecology. The education she receives teaches her how to please male, and how to decorate herself so as to sell well in the marriage market. With snobbish and hypocritical values, she marries Lydgate not for love but for his blue blood social status. Confronted with her husband's being trapped in debts and faith crises caused directly or indirectly by their extravagant life style, she takes no action to help him, instead she stands aloof from him and makes every possible attempt to persuade her husband to leave the town so as not to suffer the pain and disdain. With no means of making a living and no consciousness of independence under the unbalanced social ecology, Rosamond only escapes from the reality and drifts with the social trend. All in all, Rosamond and Dorothea are the victims of unbalanced social ecology.In this age of frequent outbreaks of ecological crisis, great importance should be attached not only to natural ecology, but to social ecology as well. With the case study, this thesis appeals to build up a harmonious relation between man and man, between man and society.