Adam Bede: Week 1 - Book First

[Everyman]

MadgeUK wrote: "Evidently the gate is never opened, for the long grass and the great hemlocks grow close against it...'. Poison from the hemlock killed Socrates and in Ancient Greece it was traditionally used to kill criminals. "

However, as one well educated in the classics and a meticulous researcher, Eliot likely would have known that the hemlock tree and the hemlock plant used by the Greeks for executions are totally different plants. (We have both in Northwest Washington; the hemlock plant is considered a noxious weed and property owners are obligated to destroy it when they find it on their property. Hemlock trees are widely used in landscaping.)

[[deleted user]]

I find myself drawn to the two youthful fribbles; Arthur whose self-approbation is so very important to him, and Hetty who would find the words in a novel too hard and loves to gaze at her reflection. Dinah and Adam are both annoying me at this point. Kathy's idea is an interesting one. We'll have to see how this plays out.

[Everyman]

Kate wrote: "I find myself drawn to the two youthful fribbles; Arthur whose self-approbation is so very important to him, and Hetty who would find the words in a novel too hard and loves to gaze at her reflecti..."

We learn something every day -- I had never heard fribble before. I'm was a bit assuaged by noticing that Firefox's spellchecker doesn't recognize fribble, until I found that it is in the OED, so I certainly should have known it. First used, says the OED, in 1664, so I can't even defend my ignorance by claiming that it is a newcomer to the English language.

And I love the way it's used in Merivale's History of the Romans under the Empire: Merivale says that Pliny and Juvenal drew a frightful picture of their society, "but the criminals they lash were at least no milksops in crime, no fribbles in vice."

Anyhow, it's a great description for Arthur, though I'm not so sure that Hetty is a true fribble since she does have work to do in the dairy, so perhaps she's only a semi-fribble.

Thanks for the education, Kate!

And, btw, I understand how Dinah and Adam are annoying, but my initial annoyance at Dinah melted when I saw how good she was with Adam's mother. Any person who can put up calmly and lovingly with such a harridan deserves respect, IMO.

[MadgeUK]

Kate wrote: "Hemlock trees aren't the source....."

'Great hemlocks' aren't trees Kate - they are tall plants which grown in our hedgerows, conium maculatum.

http://www.whitedragon.org.uk/article...

http://cal.vet.upenn.edu/projects/poi...

[[deleted user]]

Thanks Madge. My confusion. They grow around here too, but mostly in marshy areas so I didn't think of them as something that would grow in hedgerows.

ETA: We have lots of hemlock trees too, though :D

[MadgeUK]

That's OK Kate - understandable mistake when the US also has the Tsuga (hemlock) tree - which we don't have over here. The other interesting mythological link to hemlock maculatum is that the dry hollow stem can make a reed pipes sometime's called Pan's pipes and the god Pan is connected with fertility - so more foreshadowing.

[Kathy]

I don't at all mind Dinah's piety because she reminds me of Dorothea Brooke (Middlemarch), whose social class prevents her from preaching on the village green, but who similarly has an ambition to change the world for the better. I think Eliot wants us to realise how difficult and limited were the opportunities for women to play any part in public life or in changing their society. The nineteenth century was a time of massive economic and social change, but most intelligent, articulate women who may have wished to be active participants in this change were utterly thwarted. In the prelude to Middlemarch, Eliot refers to St Theresa of Avila as a woman who lived an 'epic life'. Eliot seems to regard certain types of religious expression as ways for women to attain a kind of freedom that the rest of society did not allow them. Dinah certainly seems to have a level of independence that the rest of the women do not - she has a life in the mill town and also travels to the country, so actually has a much wider view of the world than most of the other characters that we have met so far. Dinah is idealistic and is prepared to put her ideals into practice. Hetty, on the other hand, I find to be a complete blank. What's the phrase I'm looking for? She makes a puddle seem deep?

[Laurel]

Kate wrote: "I find myself drawn to the two youthful fribbles; Arthur whose self-approbation is so very important to him, and Hetty who would find the words in a novel too hard and loves to gaze at her reflecti..."

Lovely word, Kate, and new to me.

[Everyman]

Kathy wrote: "I don't at all mind Dinah's piety because she reminds me of Dorothea Brooke (Middlemarch), whose social class prevents her from preaching on the village green, but who similarly has an ambition to ..."

WARNING: Potential spoilers for Middlemarch if you haven't read it yet

I was thinking about Dinah and Dorothea also. I think there's more difference between them than you covered. I see Dorothea as having a more a cerebral, intellectual approach to doing good. She wants to do things that she thinks will be good for people, but she doesn't really want to interact with those she thinks she is helping. She will fund the fever hospital, but I can't see her, frankly, ever going into it to comfort the sick patients. Whereas Dinah's religion is very people-centered. She doesn't really care about institutions or theories or books, other of course than the Bible; she cares about comforting the distressed, speaking directly to those she thinks she can help. She would very definitely go into the hospital, move from bed to bed giving all the comfort she could (which would be a great deal) without taking any care at all for the possibility that she herself might get sick.

It's a very different approach to religion, isn't it?

[Rosemary]

Kate wrote: "I find myself drawn to the two youthful fribbles; Arthur whose self-approbation is so very important to him, and Hetty who would find the words in a novel too hard and loves to gaze at her reflecti..."

I don't care for Hetty, though she is very well drawn, but I can relate to Arthur's need to see himself well. It's one of the few traits in all the characters I can relate to!

It's portrayed very poorly in the book, but (and of course this is my need to see myself well speaking!) I know very few people with any sort of conscience that don't need to be easy with theirs, andbe comfortable with how they acted.

Granted in Arthur's case he justifies things to himself endlessly to the point of total dishonesty . . . but I'm sure I've been guilty of that too.

I've seen very little discussion thus far of how people view Arthur and Hetty's behavior. What's interesting to me is that while I find Hetty to be more amoral than Arthur, her behavior thus far has been much better- his is rather awful.

(As characters they're both very well drawn, much more life-like than either Adam or Dinah.)

I have more reflections on Eliot's ideas about morality, but I'll save 'em for later.

[MadgeUK]

Kathy wrote: "Eliot seems to regard certain types of religious expression as ways for women to attain a kind of freedom... ..."

I put something in the background info about this. It was largely John Wesley's decision to allow women to preach (as Dinah does) which created a raft of women preachers in the Dissenting churches at this time, both volunteers and paid employees. It is these women which I think GE is showing as having this kind of independence because they were considered 'respectable' and were free to move around the country, staying at the homes of either relatives or fellow church members. The Methodists and Salvation Army preachers were the most prominent of these early itinerant preachers.

[MadgeUK]

S. Rosemary wrote: "I don't care for Hetty......."

Hetty is only 17 and I think she behaves like an empty-headed, poorly educated teenager would behave. It is not that she is immoral but that she has unrealistic expectations of 20 year old Arthur, who is of a higher class. She will have been brought up to think of the squire's son as an honourable person and she treats him as such. He, on the other hand, has been brought to to see the Hetty's of his world as his servants, to be discarded upon a whim. It was Victorian moral values, particularly those to do with class, which were wrong, as Thomas Hardy so often tried to point out. I don't think that Eliot does such a good job of pointing this out and, as someone has already posted, she was perhaps prejudiced against pretty women because of her own so-called 'ugliness' (not that I think she was ugly).

[[deleted user]]

Book one seems to me to be a series of introductions. We've met a number of characters, been introduced to the neighborhood they inhabit, and given a little foreshadowing of how they all will interact. So the scene is set. This first book feels very "staged" to me, as if Elliot has moved all of her players into place and is now ready to bring up the curtain.

[MadgeUK]

Everyman wrote: "However, as one educationed in the classics and a meticulous researcher, Eliot......"

Not much research would have been needed as it is a well known poisonous plant growing in hedgerows and seeding itself in gardens. The adjective 'great' appears to have confused folks. Eliot is using it to mean tall but not to describe a tree. We do not have hemlock trees in the UK (except in arboretums).

[Kathy]

I don't see Eliot as being prejudiced against pretty women - after all, Dinah is quite strikingly beautiful (as is Dorothea Brooke). I just think that she is protesting against the excessive value that is put on women's outward appearance. I also don't think that Eliot's own personal appearance is relevant at all. The fact is that it was a given in art and literature for centuries that outward appearance was somehow an indicator of inner virtue. I think that Eliot is questioning this assumption. I also think that it is a sign of a flaw in Adam's character that he - a mature, intelligent, responsible man in his mid twenties - is infatuated with a seventeen year old girl (with whom he has nothing in common), just because of her looks. (Actually, I find Adam slightly creepy from this point of view!!)

[Kathy]

MadgeUK wrote: "Everyman wrote: "However, as one educationed in the classics and a meticulous researcher, Eliot......"

Not much research would have been needed as it is a well known poisonous plant growing in hed..."

Hemlock looks like cow parsley, only it has purple blotches on its stems. Like cow parsley, it can grow over six feet tall.

[MadgeUK]

Yes, but Dinah and Dorothea Brooke are 'good' characters, Hetty is not. I agree that GE 'is protesting against the excessive value that is put on women's outward appearance' but her own feelings about this may have been affected by the rebuffs she had received from two men around the time she wrote AE. Her hurt about this is well documented.

Younger women were then favoured as brides because they were healthier and more likely to survive childbirth - mortality rates for pregnant women, babies and children were very high in Victorian times. Aren't a lot of men swayed by looks and might this not be another point Eliot is making based on her own experience?

So I am not so sure that GEs personal appearance is not relevant to how she perceived her characters.

[MadgeUK]

I have just read a New Statesman review of a GE biog by Brenda Maddox. I thought folks here would be interested in the final paragraph of the review:-

'One wonders how long Eliot will continue to be read. After all, the close-knit agricultural communities described in her fiction are a distant memory for most of us, and her emphasis on moral instruction – her abandonment of conventional Christianity made her feel it was important to show that morals could exist without religion – seems alien. We can identify with Jane Austen’s characters, who probably wouldn’t know what to call a spade if they saw one, and who share our concern with making a good match. We are still entertained by Dickens’s grotesques, since we live, as they do, in squalid, segregated cities; and, if we no longer weep at the death of Little Nell, we respond to his sentimental-hysterical pleas for tolerance and charity. Will Eliot find a new audience of idealists receptive to her lessons in virtue, or will they end up as a record of the vanished hopes of a distant century?'

[Kathy]

MadgeUK wrote: "Yes, but Dinah and Dorothea Brooke are 'good' characters, Hetty is not. I agree that GE 'is protesting against the excessive value that is put on women's outward appearance' but her own feelings a..."

I don't think there's any need to speculate about the connection between incidents in Eliot's life and what she puts into her work. Although it is possible that her own life experiences may have given her a rather cynical view of men's behaviour, I don't think she is being at all negative about beauty - in fact, her descriptions of Hetty's beauty are very lyrical. Surely the point she is making is that it doesn't matter how beautiful your are on the outside if there's nothing going on inside.

[MadgeUK]

Kathy wrote: "Hemlock looks like cow parsley......"

Yes, I expect US children are taught, like UK children, to spot the difference. Cow parsley is known as 'little hemlock' here because it does not grow so tall as 'great hemlock' - it may grow taller in sub tropical parts of the US I guess.

[MadgeUK]

Kathy wrote: "I don't think there is any need to speculate about the connection......"

I like to look at the author's life and experiences in relation to their work. Just another way of looking at things.

I find the description of Hetty too lyrical, too unrealistic in a novel the author dedicated to realism, and therefore think there is some irony there. Again, another way of looking at things.

[Rosemary]

MadgeUK wrote: "Kathy wrote: "Hemlock looks like cow parsley......"

Yes, I expect US children are taught, like UK children, to spot the difference. Cow parsley is known as 'little hemlock' here because it does no..."

In my neck of the woods although cow parsley is abundant and grows over six feet high, I have never even seen poison hemlock; it's quite rare. The water poison hemlock is more common.

Actually, here we call cow parsley cow parsnip, and poison hemlock is just poison hemlock.

[MadgeUK]

Kate wrote: "Book one seems to me to be a series of introductions. We've met a number of characters, been introduced to the neighborhood they inhabit, and given a little foreshadowing of how they all will inte..."

I agree Kate, it is a 'staging'. It also has some unrealistic, idealised, descriptions of the characters and when she raises the curtain on Book Second I think it will be to show a more realistic view of the 'play' which is about to unfold.

[[deleted user]]

S. Rosemary wrote: "MadgeUK wrote: "Kathy wrote: "Hemlock looks like cow parsley......"

Yes, I expect US children are taught, like UK children, to spot the difference. Cow parsley is known as 'little hemlock' here be..."

My neck of the woods are like that too. And I'm on the other side of the country from you. It's actually pretty difficult to find around here.