Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T06:41:27.109Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

“THE USUAL SAD CATASTROPHE”: FROM THE STREET TO THE PARLOR IN ADAM BEDE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 September 2004

Miriam Jones
Miriam Jones
Affiliation:
University of New Brunswick, Saint John
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

A shocking child murder has just been committed at Nottingham. A girl named Wragg left the workhouse there on Saturday morning with her young illegitimate child. The child was soon afterwards found dead on Mapperly Hills, having been strangled. Wragg is in custody.—Matthew Arnold THE ONLY SURPRISING THING about the above concise narrative is its location, not in a broadside or newspaper, but in Matthew Arnold's “The Function of Criticism at the Present Time” (1865). Six years after the publication of George Eliot's Adam Bede, Matthew Arnold finds, or postulates, an “infanticidal woman” named “Wragg” and uses her as a symbol of all that is imperfect in Great Britain. He offers her in answer to the “retarding and vulgarising” (21) self-satisfaction he sees about him, the falsity, jingoism, and hyperbole of politics. But he is not using her as a symbol of the oppressed, ground under by those politics; rather, she represents the dreary reality that gives lie to the nationalist smugness of the Philistines, both of which necessitate the role of the critic. And the first thing upon which he focuses, rather than her actions, is her name: “Wragg! If we are to talk of ideal perfection, of ‘the best in the whole world,’ has any one reflected what a touch of grossness in our race, what an original shortcoming in the more delicate spiritual perceptions, is shown by the natural growth amongst us of such hideous names. Higginbottom, Stiggins, Bugg!” (23–24). Her worst crime, it becomes apparent, is being plebian: of being, in fact, poor. Her next is a consequent lack of taste: “And ‘our unrivalled happiness;’–what an element of grimness, bareness, and hideousness mixes with it and blurs it; the workhouse, the dismal Mapperly Hills,–how dismal those who have seen them will remember;–the gloom, the smoke, the cold, the strangled illegitimate child!” (24). Eliot's Hetty Sorrel has a much prettier name, and for most of the narrative her surroundings are bucolic. Eliot, however, is no more a Romantic than Arnold. She reacts against the stock sentimental image of the “infanticidal woman” as victim, and while at first glance Hetty Sorrel may seem a prototype, or rather, a culmination, of the outcast wanderer figure so common in both Romantic texts and popular literature, she is nevertheless part of the same field of representation as Arnold's wretched Wragg. Eliot's biographer Frederick Karl makes direct comparison between her elitism and that of Matthew Arnold (423); in fact, he draws a series of comparisons throughout the volume. A sense of beleaguered conservatism, a nostalgic nationalism, and anxiety about the laboring classes and working-class sexuality as a troubling marker of that worrisome group, all come together in the figures of both Wragg and Hetty. Eliot's text is not sentimental. It reinterprets the familiar wrenching tale of the abandoned woman, alone on her doomed journey, but with close attention to realistic psychological detail. Hetty is simultaneously the beautiful heroine of the folkloric ballad, the lonely outcast of Romantics such as Wordsworth, and the temptress and even murderess of the lurid “good nights” sold on the street, but she is transmogrified by the parameters of the realist novel and fixed, like a specimen ready for study, by Eliot's avowedly dispassionate eye.

Type
Research Article
Information
Victorian Literature and Culture , Volume 32 , Issue 2 , September 2004 , pp. 305 - 326
Copyright
© 2004 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anderson Roland R. 1973–74 “George Eliot provoked: John Blackwood and chapter seventeen of Adam Bede.” Modern Philology 71. 1: 39– 47.Google Scholar
Arnold Matthew. 1925. “The Function of Criticism at the Present Time.” Essays in Criticism. First series. 1865. London: MacMillan 1– 41.
Ashton Rosemary. 1987. The German Idea: Four English Writers and the Reception of German Thought, 1800–1860. Cambridge: Cambridge UP
Auerbach Nina. 1982. Woman and the Demon: The Life of a Victorian Myth. Cambridge: Harvard UP
Baker William. 1993. “‘Her Longest-Venerated and Best-Loved Romancist’: George Eliot and Sir Walter Scott.” Scott in Carnival: Selected Papers from the Fourth International Scott Conference, Edinburgh, 1991. Ed. J. H. Alexander and David Hewitt. Aberdeen: Association for Scottish Literary Studies 523– 29.
Barthes Roland. 1974. S/Z. 1970. Trans. Richard Miller. New York: Hill & Wang
Beer Gillian. 1986. George Eliot. Bloomington: Indiana UP
Belsey Catherine. 1980. Critical Practice. London: Methuen
Berger John. 1977. Ways of Seeing. 1972. Rpt. London: BBC/Penguin
Billingsley Bruce Alder. 1962. “‘Take Her Up Tenderly’: A Study of the Fallen Woman in the 19th-Century English Novel.” U of Texas Ph.D. Thesis, Ann Arbor, MI: U Microfilms.
Bodenheimer Rosemarie. 1988. The Politics of Story in Victorian Social Fiction. Ithaca: Cornell UP
Bodichon Barbara. 1869. A Brief Summery, in plain language, of the most important laws of England concerning women; together with a few observations thereon. 1854. 3rd. ed. London: Trübner
Brown Monika. 1990 “Dutch Painters and British Novel-Readers: Adam Bede in the Context of Victorian Cultural Literacy.” Victorians Institute Journal 18: 113– 33.Google Scholar
Carroll Alicia. 1989 “Tried by Earthly Fires: Hetty Wesley, Hetty Sorrel, and Adam Bede.” Nineteenth-Century Literature 44 Sept: 218– 24.Google Scholar
Carroll David, ed. 1971. George Eliot: The Critical Heritage. New York: Barnes & Noble
Clayton Jay. 1991. “The Alphabet of Suffering: Effie Deans, Tess Durbeyfield, Martha Ray, and Hetty Sorrel.” Influence and Intertextuality in Literary History. Ed. Jay Clayton and Eric Rothstein. Madison: U of Wisconsin P 37– 60.
Cobbett William. Cottage Economy. London: 1821– 22.
Corbett Mary Jean. 1988 “Representing the Rural: The Critique of Loamshire in Adam Bede.” Studies in the Novel 20.3 Fall: 288– 301.Google Scholar
Crook G. T., ed. 1926. The Complete Newgate Calender[,] being Captain Charles Johnsons's General History of the Lives and Adventures of the Most Famous Highwaymen, Murderers, Street-Robbers and Account of the Voyages and Plunders of the Most Notorious Pyrates, 1734; Captain Alexander Smith's Compleat History of the Lives and Robberies of the Most Notorious Highwaymen, Foot-Pads, Shop-Lifts and Cheats, 1719; The Tyburn Chronicle, 1768; The Malefactors' Register, 1796; George Borrow's Celebrated Trials, 1825; Camden Pelham's Chronicles of Crime, 1841; etc. 5 vols. London: Privately printed for the Navarre Soc.
Davidoff Leonore. 1983. “Class and Gender in Victorian England: The Diaries of Arthur J.Munby and Hannah Cullwick.” Sex and Class in Women's History. Ed. Judith L. Newton, Mary P. Ryan, and Judith R. Walkowitz. London: Routledge 17– 71.
Eliot George. 1996. Adam Bede. 1859. Ed. Valentine Cunningham. Oxford: Oxford UP
Eliot George. 1968. Adam Bede. 1859. Ed. John Paterson. Boston: Riverside
Eliot George. 1967. Essays of George Eliot. Ed. Thomas Pinney, 1963. New York: Columbia UP
Eliot George. The George Eliot Letters. Ed. Gordon Haight. 9 Vols. New Haven: Yale UP, 1954– 78.
Eliot George. 1856 “The Natural History of German Life.” Westminster Review 66 July: 51– 79. Rpt. Essays of George Eliot. Ed. Thomas Pinney, 1963. New York: Columbia UP, 1967. 266–99.Google Scholar
Eliot George. 1865 “Servants' Logic.” Pall Mall Gazette 1 17 Mar: 310– 11. Rpt. Essays of George Eliot. Ed. Thomas Pinney, 1963. New York: Columbia UP, 1967. 391–96.Google Scholar
Eliot George. 1981. A Writer's Notebook, 1854–1879, and uncollected writings. Ed. Joseph Wiesenfarth. Charlottesville: U of Virginia P
Fairchilds Cissie C. 1984. Domestic Enemies: Servants and Their Masters in Old Regime France. Baltimore: John Hopkins UP
[1802]. “A full and particular Account of the Life, Trial, and Behaviour of Mary Voce…” [Nottingham]. Sutton. Rpt. Adam Bede by George Eliot. Ed. Valentine Cunningham. 550.
Furst Lilian R. 1995. All is True: The Claims and Strategies of Realist Fiction. Durham: Duke UP
1907. Gentleman's Magazine; or, Monthly Intelligencer. London: W. H. Allen. Jan. 1731-Sept.
Goethe Johann Wolfgang von. 1963. Faust. 1808. Trans. Walter Kaufmann. 1961. New York: Doubleday
Gunn Daniel P. 1992 “Dutch Painting and the Simple Truth in Adam Bede.” Studies in the Novel 24.4 Winter: 366– 80.Google Scholar
Haight Gordon. 1985. George Eliot: A Biography. 1968. New York: Penguin
Harris Mason. 1978 “Arthur's Misuse of the Imagination: Sentimental Benevolence and Wordsworthian Realism in Adam Bede.” English Studies in Canada 4.1 Spring: 41– 59.Google Scholar
Harris Mason. 1983 “Infanticide and Respectability: Hetty Sorrel as Abandoned Child in Adam Bede.” English Studies in Canada 9.2 June: 177– 96.Google Scholar
Higginbotham Ann R. 1989 “‘Sin of the Age’: Infanticide and Illegitimacy in Victorian London.” Victorian Studies 32.3 Spring: 319– 37.Google Scholar
Homans Margaret. 1986. Bearing the Word: Language and Female Experience in Nineteenth-Century Women's Writing. Chicago: U of Chicago P
Hunter William. 1812. On The Uncertainty Of Signs Of Murder In The Case Of Bastard Children. 1783. London: J. Callow
1861–71 “Infanticide Memoranda.” London: Harvard Law Library.
Jameson Fredric. 1982. The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act. 1981; rpt. Ithaca: Cornell UP
Johnstone Peggy Fitzhugh. 1989 “Self-Disorder and Aggression in Adam Bede: A Kohutian Analysis.” Mosaic 22.4 Fall: 59– 70.Google Scholar
Karl Frederick R. 1995. George Eliot: Voice of a Century. New York: Norton
Keating P. J. 1971. The Working Classes in Victorian Fiction. London: Routledge
Kord Susanne. 1993 “Women as Children, Women as Childkillers: Poetic Images of Infanticide in Eighteenth-Century Germany.” Eighteenth-Century Studies 26.3 Spring: 449– 66.Google Scholar
Krueger Christine L. “Witnessing Women: Trial Testimony in Novels by Tonna, Gaskell, and Eliot.” Representing Women: Law, Literature, and Feminism. Ed. Susan Sage Heinzelman and Zipporah Batshaw Wiseman. Durham: Duke UP 337– 55.
Langbauer Laurie. 1990. Women and Romance: The Consolations of Gender in the English Novel. Ithaca: Cornell UP
Laqueur Thomas W. 1989. “Bodies, Details, and the Humanitarian Narrative.” The New Cultural History. Ed. Lynn Hunt. Berkeley: U of California P 176– 204.
Lawless Elaine. 1990 “The Silencing of the Preacher Woman: The Muted Message of George Eliot's Adam Bede.” Women's Studies 18.2/3: 249– 68.Google Scholar
[1802]. “The Life, Character, Behaviour at the Place of Execution and Dying Speech of Mary Voce…” [Nottingham]: Burbage and Stretton. Rpt. Adam Bede, by George Eliot. Ed. Valentine Cunningham. 547.
MacPike Loralee. 1984. “The Fallen Woman's Sexuality: Childbirth and Censure.” Sexuality and Victorian Fiction. Ed. Don Richard Cox. Knoxville: U of Tennessee P 54– 71.
Malcolmson R. W. 1977. “Infanticide in the 18th C.” Crime in England, 1550–1800. Ed. J. S. Cockburn. Princeton: Princeton UP 187– 211.
Martin Carol A. 1994. George Eliot's Serial Fiction. Columbus: Ohio State UP
Martin Carol A. 1995 “Two Unpublished Letters from John Blackwood on the Serialization of Scenes of Clerical Life and Adam Bede.” Publishing History 37: 51– 59.Google Scholar
McLaughlin Mark Warren. 1994 “Adam Bede: history, narrative, culture.” VIT: Victorians Institute Journal 22: 55– 83.Google Scholar
Mintz Steven. 1983. A Prison of Expectations: The Family in Victorian Culture. New York: New York UP
Monholland Cathy Sherill. 1989. Infanticide in Victorian England, 1856–1878: Thirty Legal Cases. Diss. Rice U, 1989. Ann Arbor: UMI 1338774.
Morgan Susan. 1985. “Paradise Reconsidered: Eden without Eve.” Historical Studies and Literary Criticism. Ed. Jerome J. McGann. Madison: U of Wisconsin P 266– 82.
Mottram William. 1905. The True Story of George Eliot in relation to Adam Bede, giving the real life history of the more prominent characters. London: Francis Griffiths
Pell Nancy. 1981 “The Friendship Between George Eliot and Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon.” George Eliot Fellowship Review 12: 19– 24.Google Scholar
Pettit Alexander. 1990. “Sympathetic Criminality in Hard Times and Adam Bede.” Dickens Studies Annual: Essays on Victorian Fiction. Vol. 19. Ed. Michael Timko et al. New York: AMS 281– 300.
Purkis John. 1985. A Preface to George Eliot. London: Longman
Rose Lionel. 1986. The Massacre of the Innocents: Infanticide in Britain, 1800–1939. London: Routledge
Scott Sir Walter. 1966. The Heart of Mid-Lothian. 1818. Ed. John Henry Raleigh. Boston: Riverside
Semmel Bernard. 1994. George Eliot and the Politics of National Inheritance. New York: Oxford UP
Showalter Elaine. 1977. A Literature of Their Own. Princeton: Princeton UP
Shuttleworth Sally. 1984. George Eliot and Nineteenth-Century Science: The Make-Believe of a Beginning. Cambridge: Cambridge UP
Smith Roger. 1981. Trial By Medicine: Insanity and Responsibility in Victorian Trials. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP
Swindells, Julia. 1985. Victorian Writing and Working Women: The Other Side of Silence. Cambridge: Polity
Taft Henry. [1802]. “An Account of the Experience and Happy Death of Mary Voce…” [Nottingham]: C. Sutton. Rpt. Adam Bede by George Eliot. Ed. Cunningham. 544.
Tillotson Kathleen. 1985. Novels of the Eighteen-Forties. 1954; rpt. Oxford: Clarendon
Trodd Anthea. 1989. Domestic Crime in the Victorian Novel. Houndmills, Hemps.: Macmillan
Victoria (19th-Century British Culture and Society). <>. Archived at <http://www.indiana.edu/~libref/victoria/>.
Watt George. 1984. The Fallen Women in the Nineteenth-Century English Novel. London: Croom Helm
Weeks Jeffrey. 1989. Sex, Politics, and Society: The Regulation of Sexuality Since 1800. 1981. 2nd ed. London: Longman
Weissman Judith. 1987. Half Savage and Hardy and Free: Women and Rural Radicalism in the Nineteenth-Century Novel. Middletown: Wesleyan UP
Widdowson Peter, Paul Stigant, and Peter Brooker. 1979 “History and ‘literary value’: The Case of Adam Bede and Salem Chapel.” Literature and History 5.1 Spring; Rpt. Popular Fictions: Essays in Literature and History. Ed. Peter Humm, Paul Stigant, and Peter Widdowson. London: Methuen, 1986. 68–93.Google Scholar
Wilt Judith. 1981 “Steamboat Surfacing: Scott and the English novelists.” Nineteenth-Century Literature 35.4 March: 459– 86.Google Scholar