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Eliot - Mill on the Floss/MiddlemarchI. Settings - All novels set in the historical past.
A. Sense of continuity
1. Charles Lyell’s influence
2. Nostalgia for the past/oral
3. Role of memory
B. Contrast to the current times
1. Industrialization: Dorlcote Mill vs. Guest and Co.
a. agrarian to industrial economy
b. family-operated to corporate/alienated labor
2. Dominant middle class
a. Economic status
b. Gender ideology
II. The femininity of the middle class
A. The Mill on the Floss
1. Female and Racial Otherness
a. Gypsy figure
b. Maggie’s desire for identity
B. Middlemarch
1. Female sexuality
2. Male gaze
3. Ekphrasis as silent subversiveness
a. Verbal arts over visual arts
b. Ariadne myth
c. Why might Eliot use this method?
III. Caught in the web or a spot in the web?
A. Inaction in Eliot’s writing
B. Eliot’s metaphor of a web
C. Individual vs. community
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