That Besetting Sin: How George Eliot Punishes Her Ambitious Female Characters

Abstract

George Eliot was not a typical woman of the Victorian era. She lived openly with a man who was not her husband despite familial and societal disapproval. Eliot was also an ambitious woman, one who would become one of the greatest authors of her time. Yet in spite of -- or because of -- her unique lifestyle, Eliot punishes her female characters that pursue their own ambitions. Those who meet or attempt to meet her rigorous standards of female behavior -- service to others and resignation to fate -- are permitted some measure of happiness in the end. Hetty Sorrel of Adam Bede and Gwendolen Harleth of Daniel Deronda are Eliot's spoiled girls. Their greatest ambition is to marry into wealth and live a life of luxury and freedom. This ambition is furthest from Eliot's ideal, and Hetty and Gwendolen are harshly punished. Dinah Morris of Adam Bede and Dorothea Brooke of Middlemarch are George Eliot's martyrs. They begin closest to Eliot's standard, and therefore, though they are punished for pursuing their ambitions, they are rewarded with happiness at the end of their respective novels. Maggie Tulliver of The Mill on the Floss is, much like Eliot herself, too clever for her simple country existence and unable to find her place in society. While Eliot was able to find love and success in her own life, Maggie Tulliver is never able to find a vent for her passionate nature, and after repeated discouragements and punishments, she is killed in a flood. Eliot was the exception to the rule with regard to female ambition in Victorian society, and her own successes were not without their sacrifices. She illustrates this in her work by exacting punishment on her ambitious female characters.