Dorothea Brooke: The Saint Who Fails Dorothea is the novel’s moral center. She is intelligent, generous, and passionate. She wants to do good. She marries Edward Casaubon, a dried-up scholar who is forty years older. She believes he is a great thinker. He is not. He is pedantic and cold. He treats her as a secretary. She is miserable. He dies. She marries Will Ladislaw, a younger man with no prospects. She loses her inheritance. She lives a small life. She does not change the world. She does good in small ways. Eliot is not punishing Dorothea. She is being realistic. Most idealists do not change the world. They change a few lives. That is enough.
Tertius Lydgate: The Reformer Who Fails Lydgate is a doctor. He has studied in Paris. He wants to bring modern medicine to Middlemarch. He wants to discover the tissue that causes disease. He marries Rosamond Vincy. She is beautiful and shallow. She wants a luxurious life. Lydgate cannot provide it. He goes into debt. He compromises his ideals. He gives up his research. He becomes a fashionable doctor for the rich. He dies at fifty. His discovery is made by someone else. Lydgate is a tragedy. He had talent. He had ambition. He married the wrong woman.
Rosamond Vincy: The Beautiful Monster Rosamond is the novel’s villain. She is not evil. She is selfish. She wants a rich husband. She marries Lydgate because she thinks he is rich. He is not. She destroys him. She manipulates him. She spends his money. She flirts with Will Ladislaw. She feels no guilt. Eliot does not hate Rosamond. She pities her. Rosamond is a product of her upbringing. She was taught to be beautiful, charming, and useless. She has no inner life. That is her punishment.
Casaubon: The Scholar Who Cannot Finish Casaubon is the novel’s most tragic figure. He has spent his life writing a book called “The Key to All Mythologies.” It will never be finished. He knows it. He is afraid that Will Ladislaw will marry Dorothea after his death. He adds a codicil to his will: Dorothea will lose her inheritance if she marries Ladislaw. The codicil is petty and cruel. Casaubon is petty and cruel. He is also pathetic. He knows that he is a failure. He cannot admit it. He dies alone.
The Web: All Lives Connected The novel’s subtitle is “A Study of Provincial Life.” Eliot believed that every life is connected. Dorothea’s marriage affects Lydgate’s career. Lydgate’s debts affect Rosamond’s happiness. Rosamond’s flirtation affects Will’s reputation. Will’s love for Dorothea affects Casaubon’s jealousy. The web is invisible. It is also inescapable. Eliot’s realism is psychological. She shows how small decisions have large consequences.
The Ending: The Final Paragraph The novel ends with a famous paragraph about Dorothea. Eliot writes: “Her finely touched spirit had still its fine issues, and rest in unvisited tombs.” Dorothea did not achieve greatness. She achieved goodness. That is enough.
Conclusion: “Middlemarch” is a novel about failure. Dorothea fails. Lydgate fails. Casaubon fails. They fail because they are human. They fail because they live in a provincial town. They fail because they marry the wrong people. But they also love. They also try. Eliot honors the attempt. “Middlemarch” is not a tragedy. It is a consolation.
