Bulstrode's shame...

[Sheila]

I'm a little confused regarding the details of the ostracism of Mr. Bulstrode. I came away with the impression that this came not only as a result of his past actions towards Will's mother, but equally his involvement with the pawnbroker business. Even Will feels tainted by his blood association with this profession?

This seems odd, especially in today's culture, where pawnshop owners are TV rock stars.

Farmer, banker, clerk, doctor, textiles, these were all acceptable trades for the upper-middle-class good folk of Middlemarch, but not pawnbroker? How, then, would've the debt-collectors plaguing Lydgate have fit into this society?

[Nathalia]

I don't think Debt Collectors were popular either. I think the difference is that helping professions, especially the academic sort, had the status of needing money to get, while pawnbroking could be done by anyone, like the lower classes. Also, these professions feed off the misery of other people. I think pawnbroking was also one of the common professions for jews, who were considered shrewd and cunning for it. You can also see that in Eliots Daniel Deronda.

[Sheila]

Thanks Nathalia. I guess I went into this book with a preconceived notion that Middlemarch was a small town without much class distinction. Nobody was quite aristocracy, everyone had a trade, everyone filled a niche - that was mostly my experience (as I remember it) with The Mill on The Floss. But I guess I shouldn't compare the two.

[Cynthia]

Also, keep in mind that Bulstrode was a self-righteous cold fish.

[Nathalia]

Well, everybody having a niche is precisely what it is. Victorian society was very eager to keep everyone in their niche, well-ordered and all. People would rather starve (or put themselves into endless debts) than take on work that was outside of their class.
In Mill on the Floss Maggie may not have run up against the class system, but her fathers losing the mill was a big tragedy for that very reason. She also ran up against her niche as a woman and the less attractive/poorer of the two cousins.

[Sheila]

Cynthia wrote: "Also, keep in mind that Bulstrode was a self-righteous cold fish."

I really didn't pay much attention to him, honestly, until the end of the book. He was the supporting cast, in my head. I didn't expect him to end up on center stage. It was a bit of a surprise.