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Article: Eliot's Adam Bede.(George Eliot)
- Article from:
- The Explicator
- Article date:
- June 22, 2004
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 Heldref Publications. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Although Hetty Sorrel actively dislikes children and the business of child-rearing, all of those around her assume that her best future would be as a mother, or at least a wife (in an era before widespread birth control, more often than not the same thing). Hetty's aunt approves of Adam Bede's proposal, and her uncle explicitly prescribes children as a cure for Hetty's selfishness. Even her aristocratic lover, Arthur Donnithorne, suggests an imminent marriage (just not to him) to mend her broken heart. Yet George Eliot deliberately presents childbearing and child rearing as a negative experience throughout her text. In direct contradiction to mid-Victorian ideal of ...
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Article: "To obey and to trust": Adam Bede and the politics ...
Studies in the Novel;
September 22, 2002 ;
700+ words
... ... Commenced in 1857 and published in 1859, Adam Bede, like most of George Eliot's novels ... of the day. (1) Opening in 1799, Adam Bede elides a history of political conflict ... would have been more difficult for Adam Bede's readers; four separate reform measures ...
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