= Adam_Bede =

======================================================================
= Adam_Bede =
======================================================================

Introduction
======================================================================
'Adam Bede' was the first novel by English author George Eliot, pen
name of Mary Ann Evans, first published in 1859. It was published
pseudonymously, even though Evans was a well-published and highly
respected scholar of her time. The novel has remained in print ever
since and is regularly used in university studies of 19th-century
English literature. Eliot described the novel as "a country story full
of the breath of cows and scent of hay".

Plot summary
======================================================================
According to 'The Oxford Companion to English Literature' (1967),
: "the plot is founded on a story told to George Eliot by her aunt
Elizabeth Evans, a Methodist preacher, and the original of Dinah
Morris of the novel, of a confession of child-murder, made to her by a
girl in prison."

The novel follows the lives of four characters in the fictional
community of Hayslope--a rural, pastoral, and close-knit community--in
1799. The novel revolves around a love "rectangle" among the beautiful
but self-absorbed Hetty Sorrel; Captain Arthur Donnithorne, the young
squire who seduces her; Adam Bede, her unacknowledged suitor; and
Dinah Morris, Hetty's cousin, a fervent, virtuous and beautiful
Methodist lay preacher. Newspaper illustration from abridged version
of 'Adam Bede', 1907 Adam, a local carpenter much admired for his
integrity and intelligence, is in love with Hetty. She is attracted to
Arthur, the local squire's charming grandson and heir, and falls in
love with him. When Adam interrupts a tryst between them, Adam and
Arthur fight. Arthur agrees to give up Hetty and leaves Hayslope to
return to his militia. After he leaves, Hetty Sorrel agrees to marry
Adam but shortly before their marriage, discovers that she is
pregnant. In desperation, she leaves in search of Arthur but cannot
find him. Unwilling to return to the village on account of the shame
and ostracism she would have to endure, she delivers her baby with the
assistance of a friendly woman she encounters. She subsequently
abandons the infant in a field but not being able to bear the child's
cries, she tries to retrieve the infant. However, she is too late, the
infant having already died of exposure.

Hetty is caught and tried for child murder. She is found guilty and
sentenced to hang. Dinah enters the prison and pledges to stay with
Hetty until the end. Her compassion brings about Hetty's contrite
confession. When Arthur Donnithorne, on leave from the militia for his
grandfather's funeral, hears of her impending execution, he races to
the court and has the sentence commuted to penal transportation.

Ultimately, Adam and Dinah, who gradually become aware of their mutual
love, marry and live peacefully with his family.

Allusions/references to other works
======================================================================
The importance of William Wordsworth's 'Lyrical Ballads' to the way
'Adam Bede' is written has often been noted. Like Wordsworth's poems,
'Adam Bede' features minutely detailed empirical and psychological
observations about illiterate "common folk" who, because of their
greater proximity to nature than to culture, are taken as emblematic
of human nature in its more pure form. In 'Adam Bede', Eliot sought to
manifest in novelistic form this principle of Wordsworth's aesthetic
philosophy.

Genre painting and the novel arose together as middle-class art forms
and retained close connections until the end of the nineteenth
century. According to Richard Stang, it was a French treatise of 1846
on Dutch and Flemish painting that first popularised the application
of the term realism to fiction. Stang, 'The Theory of the Novel in
England', p.149, refers to Arsène Houssaye, Histoire de la peinture
flamande et hollandaise (1846; 2d ed., Paris: Jules Hetzel, 1866).
Houssaye speaks (p, 179) of Terborch's "gout tout hollandais, empreint
de poesie realiste", and argues that "l'oeuvre de Gerard de Terburg
est le roman intime de la Hollande, comme l'oeuvre de Gerard Dow en
est le roman familiere.", and certainly it is with Dutch, Flemish, and
English genre painting that George Eliot's realism is most often
compared. Eliot herself invites the comparison in chapter 17 of 'Adam
Bede', and Mario Praz applies it to all her works in his study of 'The
Hero in Eclipse in Victorian Fiction'.

Literary significance and criticism
======================================================================
Immediately recognised as a significant literary work, 'Adam Bede' has
enjoyed a largely positive critical reputation since its publication.
An anonymous 1859 review in 'The Athenaeum' praised it as a "novel of
the highest class," and 'The Times' called it "a first-rate novel." An
anonymous review by Anne Mozley was the first to speculate that the
novel was probably written by a woman. Contemporary reviewers, often
influenced by nostalgia for the earlier period represented in 'Bede',
enthusiastically praised Eliot's characterisations and realistic
representations of rural life. Charles Dickens wrote: "The whole
country life that the story is set in, is so real, and so droll and
genuine, and yet so selected and polished by art, that I cannot praise
it enough to you." (Hunter, S. 122)

In fact, in early criticism, the tragedy of infanticide has often been
overlooked in favour of the peaceful idyllic world and familiar
personalities Eliot recreated. Other critics have been less generous.
Henry James, among others, resented the narrator's interventions. In
particular, Chapter 15 has fared poorly among scholars because of the
author's/narrator's moralising and meddling in an attempt to sway
readers' opinions of Hetty and Dinah. Other critics have objected to
the resolution of the story. In the final moments, Hetty, about to be
executed for infanticide, is saved by her seducer, Arthur Donnithorne.
Critics have argued that this 'deus ex machina' ending negates the
moral lessons learned by the main characters. Without the eleventh
hour reprieve, the suffering of Adam, Arthur, and Hetty would have
been more realistically concluded. In addition, some scholars feel
that Adam's marriage to Dinah is another instance of the
author's/narrator's intrusiveness. These instances have been found to
directly conflict with the otherwise realistic images and events of
the novel.

Characters
======================================================================
* The Bede family:
** Adam Bede is described as a tall, stalwart, moral, and unusually
competent carpenter. He is 26 years old at the beginning of the novel,
and bears an "expression of large-hearted intelligence."
** Seth Bede is Adam's younger brother, and is also a carpenter, but
he is not particularly competent, and "his glance, instead of being
keen, is confiding and benign."
** Lisbeth Bede is Adam's and Seth's mother. She is "an anxious,
spare, yet vigorous old woman, clean as a snowdrop."
** Thias (Matthias) Bede is Adam's and Seth's father. He has become an
alcoholic, and drowns in Chapter IV while returning from a tavern.
** Gyp is Adam's dog, who follows his every move, and looks "up in his
master's face with patient expectation."
* The Poyser family:
** Martin Poyser and his wife Rachel rent Hall Farm from Squire
Donnithorne and have turned it into a very successful enterprise.
** Marty and Tommy Poyser are their sons.
** Totty Poyser is their somewhat spoiled and frequently petulant
toddler.
** "Old Martin" Poyser is Mr. Poyser's elderly father, who lives in
retirement with his son's family.
** Hetty Sorrel is Mr. Poyser's orphaned niece, who lives and works at
the Poyser farm. Her beauty, as described by George Eliot, is the sort
"which seems made to turn the heads not only of men, but of all
intelligent mammals, even of women."
** Dinah Morris is another orphaned niece of the Poysers. She is also
beautiful - "It was one of those faces that make one think of white
flowers with light touches of colour on their pure petals" - but has
chosen to become an itinerant Methodist preacher, and dresses very
plainly.
* The Irwine family:
** Adolphus Irwine is the Rector of Broxton. He is patient and
tolerant, and his expression is a "mixture of bonhomie and
distinction". He lives with his mother and sisters.
** Mrs. Irwine, his mother, is "clearly one of those children of
royalty who have never doubted their right divine and never met with
any one so absurd as to question it."
** Pastor Irwine's youngest sister, Miss Anne, is an invalid. His
gentleness is illustrated by a passage in which he takes the time to
remove his boots before going upstairs to visit her, lest she be
disturbed by noise. She and the pastor's other sister, Kate, are
unmarried.
* The Donnithorne family:
** Squire Donnithorne owns an estate.
** Arthur Donnithorne, his grandson, stands to inherit the estate; he
is twenty years old at the opening of the novel. He is a handsome and
charming sportsman.
** Miss Lydia Donnithorne, the old squire's daughter, is Arthur's
unmarried aunt.
* Other characters
** Bartle Massey is the local schoolteacher, a misogynist bachelor who
has taught Adam Bede.
** Mr. Craig is the gardener at the Donnithorne estate.
** Jonathan Burge is Adam's employer at a carpentry workshop. Some
expect his daughter Mary to make a match with Adam Bede.
** Villagers in the area include Ben Cranage, Chad Cranage, Chad's
daughter Bess, and Joshua Rann.

Adaptations
======================================================================
In September 1885 a theatre adaptation of Adam Bede played at the
Theatre Royal, Edinburgh.

In 1918, a silent film adaptation entitled 'Adam Bede' was made,
directed by Maurice Elvey and starring Bransby Williams and Ivy Close.

In 1991, the BBC produced a television version of 'Adam Bede' starring
Iain Glen, Patsy Kensit, Susannah Harker, James Wilby and Julia
McKenzie. It was aired as part of the Masterpiece Theatre anthology in
1992.

In 2001, BBC Radio 4 broadcast an adaptation of the novel with
Katherine Igoe as Hetty, Vicki Liddelle as Dinah, Thomas Arnold and
Crawford Logan as Mr Irwine. This adaptation was later re-broadcast on
BBC Radio 7 and BBC Radio 4 Extra in a fifteen-part version of
15-minute episodes.

Bibliography
======================================================================
* [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/507 'Adam Bede' online, by the
Gutenberg Project]
*'[https://georgeeliotarchive.org/items/show/21 Adam Bede]' free PDF
of Blackwood's 1878 Cabinet Edition (the critical standard with
Eliot's final corrections) at the '[https://georgeeliotarchive.org
George Eliot Archive]'
*
*
* 'The Oxford Companion to English Literature' (1967)

External links
======================================================================
*
*'[https://georgeeliotarchive.org/items/show/21 Adam Bede]' free PDF
of Blackwood's 1878 Cabinet Edition (the critical standard with
Eliot's final corrections) at the '[https://georgeeliotarchive.org
George Eliot Archive]'

License
=========
All content on Gopherpedia comes from Wikipedia, and is licensed under CC-BY-SA
License URL: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
Original Article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Bede