On The Dilemma Of Gentlemanship In Middlemarch

George Eliot is an outstanding and well-respected writer in the history of English literature.One of her masterpiece,Middlemarch,is about the influence of social changes on the way of life in the 1930 s in Britain.This thesis analyzes the identity dilemma of Victorian gentlemen,explores the underlying reasons why middle class gentlemen and aristocratic gentlemen have different reactions to social reforms,and summarizes the qualities of new codes of gentlemanship in the Victorian age.The thesis consists of five parts.It starts with an introduction to George Eliot and social background of Middlemarch followed by a literature review,and the significance of the thesis.Chapter Two generalizes the definition of the term “gentleman” and explores the development of gentlemanship throughout the history,especially in the Victorian age.Chapter Three divides the four gentlemen in Middlemarch into three types according to their attitudes toward social reform: conservative gentleman represented by Sir James Chettam,open-minded gentleman represented by Will Ladislaw and ambivalent gentlemen represented by Tertius Lydgate and Fred Vincy.Chapter Four describes the dilemma of gentlemanship in Victorian age from two aspects.In the first place,the rising middle class make every effort to break the restrain of traditional notion that a gentleman must be an aristocrat in heritage,whereas aristocratic gentlemen feel uneasy with the social reforms that are threatening their traditional superiority.In the second place,the new moral codes that middleclass gentlemen advocate are influenced by the aristocratic gentlemanship.Thereupon,a portion of middle class gentlemen are in an ethical dilemma when confronted with controversial moral codes of gentlemanship.The last chapter concludes that the dilemma of gentlemanship and the dominance of the middleclass gentlemen in Middlemarch mirror a true aspect of the social reforms and social changes of the Victorian Age.The codes of the middle class gentlemanship are actually new moral principles of the middle class in a transitional period of cultural development.