"Adam Bede"

Paper Summary:

This paper makes the argument that George Eliot uses some of the conventions of the romantic novel while violating others in her work "Adam Bede". It looks at how Eliot goes beyond asking the question of whether or not a particular romantic pairing will turn out well and addresses the larger issue of what makes a human life happy. Her use of romanticism and realism is explored through the plot of the novel.

From the Paper:

"Adam and Dinah have some real chance at happiness as this book ends because we understand that Dinah - unlike Hetty - is a force that brings moral as well as emotional order into Adam's life. Hetty, with her lack of intellectual and ethical depth brought chaos and confusion to Adam, but Dinah reverses this process. Dinah is in some ways a stereotypical Victorian heroine, the angel in the home that redeems men from their baser natures and the temptations of the world. But she is also a Romantic heroine, and we see in her natural goodness something of the nurturance that women - with what was perceived as their close connection to the natural world - could provide to men."

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