Nimaya Harris's blog

The Role of the Epigraph

Submitted by Nimaya Harris on

 

In Chapter 65 of Middlemarch, Eliot opens with a quotation from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, setting up the reader's expectations for what the chapter is going to be about. However, by the end of the chapter the reader is surprised as the chapter takes a different turn to what the epigraph suggests. What role does the use of the literary device of the epigraph play in Middlemarch and what does it imply about Eliot's intentions for the readers of this novel? 

“One of us two must bowen douteless,

Blog Entry: Dorothea's Perceptions and Personal Reckoning in Middlemarch

Submitted by Nimaya Harris on

“But Dorothea was strangely quiet – not immediately indignant as she has been on a like occasion in Rome. And the cause lay deep. She was no longer struggling against the perception of facts, but adjusting herself to their clearest perception; and now when she looked at her husband’s failure, still more at his possible consciousness of failure, she seemed to be looking along the one track where duty became tenderness.” (400) 

Question

Submitted by Nimaya Harris on

What role does the narrator play in the tension (i.e. exacerbating/ briding etc.) between Dorothea's intellectual pursuit and the reality of her position as a woman bound by expectations of marriage and servitude? 

Question

Submitted by Nimaya Harris on

What role does the narrative voice play in the tension between Dorothea's pusuit of intelligence and knowledge, and her position as a woman who is bound by her sex and dependence on the men in her life? 

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