Marriage in Middlemarch: A Feuerbachian Reading

• Main Authors: Pin-Jyuan Huang, 黃品娟
• Other Authors: 楊明蒼
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2006
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/67633003253880492479

碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 外國語文學研究所 === 94 === In this thesis, I plan to discuss how George Eliot uses a religious eye to look at her ideal concept of marriage in Middlemarch. I will argue that Eliot is influenced by the Essence of Christianity written by Ludwig Feuerbach, a nineteenth-century German religious philosopher, and demonstrates a lot of Feuerbachian hues to distinguish her thoughts from other nineteenth- and twentieth-century feminists. Moreover, I suggest that Eliot compares her main heroine, Dorothea Brooke, to Madonna and St. Theresa to represent a Feuerbachian paradigm. These two aspects will have a close relationship with my three chapters. In chapter one, I will discuss how Eliot uses Dorothea’s St. Theresa image to counterbalance Christian patriarchal oppression in marriage and Eliot’s similarity with St. Theresa in their sympathy. In chapter two, I will explore Eliot’s Feuerbachian influence in her idea of wife, husband and marriage, such as division of labor, organic society, ideal wifehood and husbandhood, love philosophy and suffering issue, etc. In chapter three, I will discuss Eliot’s employment of Dorothea’s Madonna and St. Theresa images to restore woman’s basic human needs and how her home epic reflects Feuerbach’s matter concept. After these discussions, I hope to offer an interesting interpretation of Eliot’s marital concept.