Adam Bede: George Eliot and the World of the Novel
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Syllabus topic 1.4, "Adam Bede - George Eliot"
Pages 142 to 145 of 406
In one line
Adam Bede is a novel about a village carpenter, a farmer's niece who is seduced by the young squire, and the trial for child murder that follows, written by a novelist who set out to show ordinary people exactly as they are.
In the wording a student can write in an examination: Adam Bede, published in 1859, is George Eliot's first full-length novel, set in the rural Midlands in 1799 to 1801, in six books, whose central action is the seduction of Hetty Sorrel by Arthur Donnithorne, her trial and conviction for child murder, and her reprieve at the place of execution.
The author's name
The book is by George Eliot, which is a pen name. The writer was Mary Ann Evans. A student should use "George Eliot" throughout an answer, because that is how the book is published and how MU prints it, and may mention the real name once.
Why the pen name matters here. It is the same subject as the novel: a woman's respectability and the difference between what a person is and what a community will allow them to be. Eliot's own position, living with a man she could not marry, is not part of an examination answer, but it explains why the novel treats Hetty's disgrace with an attention nobody else was giving it.
Why a law syllabus sets it
Because Book Fifth is a criminal trial for a capital offence, described from the point of view of the man who loves the accused, and because the novel makes you understand a crime before it lets you judge it.
Three legal questions run through it, and each is a possible essay.
One. What was Hetty actually guilty of? She left a newborn child under timber choppings in a wood and sat down a quarter of a mile away. She did not kill it with her hands. The novel is careful about that, and the law of 1800 was not.
Two. What is a fair trial worth to a person who cannot speak? Hetty does not plead, does not testify, and her counsel is not permitted to address the jury on the facts. Everything that could be said for her is said in a plea for mercy that comes too late to affect the verdict.
Three. Where does responsibility lie? Arthur is not on trial, is not charged with anything, and is the only person who could have prevented all of it. He arrives at the gallows with the reprieve.
The world: Hayslope in 1799
A village where everyone knows everyone. Work, church, chapel and the farm calendar organise the year. Reputation is a public fact and there is nowhere to go with a private one.
Adam Bede: George Eliot and the World of the Novel
Two religions in it. The Church of England, represented by Mr Irwine, the rector, comfortable and humane and not very searching. And Methodism, a movement of open-air preaching and personal conversion, represented by Dinah Morris, a woman preacher. Dinah's right to preach at all is contested in the novel, which is historically accurate.
Three classes that matter. The squire's family at the Chase, who own the land. The tenant farmers, the Poysers at the Hall Farm, respectable and proud. And the craftsmen and labourers, Adam among them. Hetty is a farmer's niece and Arthur is the heir to the estate, and the distance between those two positions is the engine of the plot.
Chapter XVII, and George Eliot's own statement of her method
Chapter XVII is titled "In Which the Story Pauses a Little", and the author stops the novel to explain what she is doing. It is the most quoted chapter in the book after the trial, and it is the source of any answer on realism.
What she argues. That she will not idealise. That she would rather paint people as they are, with their commonness and their mistakes, than invent noble characters who never existed. That there is a truth and a beauty in ordinary faces and ordinary lives that a taste for the heroic misses.
Why it matters for the trial. Because it is the licence for what happens to Hetty. A novelist writing to a pattern would have made Hetty either wicked or wholly innocent. Eliot makes her vain, thoughtless, frightened and very young, and then puts her in a criminal court.
How to use it in an answer. Say that the trial is the test of the doctrine in chapter XVII: the novel refuses to simplify the person the law has to classify.
The main people
| Name | Who they are |
|---|---|
| Adam Bede | A carpenter of Hayslope, upright, proud, hardworking, in love with Hetty |
| Hetty Sorrel | Mrs Poyser's niece, a dairymaid at the Hall Farm, seventeen and beautiful |
| Arthur Donnithorne | The young squire, heir to the estate, twenty-one, well-meaning and weak |
| Dinah Morris | A Methodist preacher, Hetty's cousin, who visits her in the prison |
| Mr Irwine | The rector of Broxton, Arthur's friend and confessor |
| Mrs Poyser | Hetty's aunt, the sharpest tongue in the novel |
| Seth Bede | Adam's gentler brother, who loves Dinah |
| Bartle Massey | The schoolmaster, who stays with Adam through the trial |
The vocabulary you need
Assizes. The periodic sittings at which serious criminal cases were tried in the counties by judges sent out from London. Hetty is tried at the assizes at Stoniton.
The dock. The enclosure in which a prisoner stands during a criminal trial.
Capital offence. One punishable by death.
Adam Bede: George Eliot and the World of the Novel
Reprieve. An order postponing or cancelling the execution of a sentence. What Arthur brings is a commutation, that is, the substitution of a lesser punishment.
Transportation. Removal to a penal colony overseas for a term of years or for life, used as the standard substitute for hanging.
Methodist. A member of the movement founded by John Wesley, which permitted lay and, for a time, women preachers.
What beginners get wrong
They write "Mary Ann Evans" throughout. Use the published name and mention the real one once.
They call it a Victorian novel about Victorian life. It was published in 1859 but it is set sixty years earlier, in 1799 to 1801, and the law that convicts Hetty is the law of that earlier period.
They treat chapter XVII as a digression. It is the novel's statement of its own method and the best material for any question about realism.
They forget the epilogue. The novel ends in 1801 and then adds a short final chapter, and the marriages there are part of the argument.
A worked answer
Question. "What does George Eliot mean by realism, and where does she say it?"
A model answer. She says it in chapter XVII of Adam Bede, titled "In Which the Story Pauses a Little", where she stops the narrative to address the reader directly about her method. Her argument is that she will not idealise: she would rather paint people as they actually are, with their commonness, their dullness and their mistakes, than invent noble characters who never existed, because there is a truth and a beauty in ordinary faces and ordinary lives that a taste for the heroic misses entirely. The doctrine is then tested by the novel itself. A writer working to a pattern would have made Hetty Sorrel either an innocent victim or a wicked girl, and Eliot makes her vain, ignorant, frightened and seventeen, and then puts her in a criminal dock on a capital charge. That is the real force of chapter XVII: it is a promise, and the trial is where the promise is kept.
How to use it. Name the chapter and its title, state the argument in a sentence, and then prove that the novel obeys it. Naming the chapter is worth a mark on its own.
Quick revision
George Eliot is the pen name of Mary Ann Evans. Adam Bede, 1859, six books, fifty-five chapters, set 1799 to 1801.
Hayslope: a village of squire, tenant farmers and craftsmen, with the Church of England and Methodism side by side.
Chapter XVII is the author's defence of realism: ordinary people painted as they are, not idealised.
Central action: Arthur seduces Hetty; she bears a child in secret, abandons it, is tried for child murder, convicted, sentenced to death, and reprieved at the gallows.
Adam Bede: George Eliot and the World of the Novel
The trial is in 1800, which decides which law applies.
Test yourself
1. Who is George Eliot? The pen name of Mary Ann Evans, under which Adam Bede was published in 1859.
2. When is the novel set, and why does the date matter? It opens on 18 June 1799 and closes in 1801, so the trial falls in 1800. The date matters because the law governing a charge of child murder changed in 1803, and Hetty is tried under the older and harsher rule.
3. What is the argument of chapter XVII? That the novelist should paint people as they actually are, including their commonness and their faults, rather than idealise them, and that there is truth and beauty in ordinary lives that a taste for the heroic overlooks.
4. Name the three social levels in Hayslope and place the main characters in them. The squire's family at the Chase, where Arthur Donnithorne is heir; the tenant farmers, the Poysers at the Hall Farm, where Hetty lives as a niece and dairymaid; and the craftsmen and labourers, among whom Adam Bede is a carpenter.
5. Why is Dinah Morris's preaching historically significant in the novel? Because she is a woman preaching in the open air as a Methodist at a time when the right of women to preach was contested, and the novel makes that contest part of its picture of the period.
The rest of this subject
These notes are cut from the University's printed syllabus. Open the syllabus itself, or the past papers, for the same subject.