Adam Bede: the Story, Books First to Fourth
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Syllabus topic 1.4, "Adam Bede - George Eliot"
Pages 146 to 149 of 406
In one line
The first four books show a village at work, a young squire who cannot resist a beautiful dairymaid, a carpenter who loves her and does not know, and the point at which the two men fight in a wood and everything after that becomes inevitable.
Book First, chapters I to XVI: Hayslope
The opening. The novel begins in Adam's workshop on 18 June 1799, with the workmen singing and Adam finishing a job after hours. Chapter II is the preaching: Dinah Morris preaches on the village green, and the chapter is the reader's introduction to Methodism and to her.
The households. Chapter IV brings the death of Adam's father, Thias Bede, drowned in the brook, and the sorrow of the Bede home. Chapter V introduces Mr Irwine, the rector. Chapter VI takes the reader to the Hall Farm, the Poysers' place, and chapter VII to the dairy, where Arthur first sees Hetty at work.
Hetty's world. Chapter IX is titled "Hetty's World", and it is where an examiner will look for evidence of her character. She dreams of finery, of being a lady, of Arthur; she has almost no imagination for other people. Chapter XV, "The Two Bed-Chambers", sets her beside Dinah in the plainest possible contrast, the one dressing up in secret before a mirror, the other praying.
The wood. Chapters XII and XIII, "In the Wood" and "Evening in the Wood", are the beginning of it. Arthur meets Hetty in the Chase, kisses her, tells himself that nothing serious is happening, and resolves each time to stop.
Chapter XVI, "Links". Arthur, uneasy, half tries to confess to Mr Irwine and does not manage it. This is one of the novel's great near-misses: the whole tragedy could have stopped in one conversation.
Book Second, chapters XVII to XXI
Chapter XVII, "In Which the Story Pauses a Little". The author's defence of realism, dealt with in the previous chapter of these notes.
The rest. Chapter XVIII is church, chapter XIX Adam on a working day, chapter XX Adam visiting the Hall Farm, and chapter XXI the night school. These chapters build Adam's world and his prospects: he is about to be made manager of the woods, and he intends to marry Hetty.
Book Third, chapters XXII to XXVI: the birthday feast
Arthur comes of age, and the whole neighbourhood is entertained at the Chase. Chapters XXII to XXVI are the going, the dinner, the health-drinking, the games and the dance. Adam is publicly honoured; Hetty dances with Arthur; and in the middle of the festivity Hetty loses the locket Arthur gave her, which is the small physical sign that the secret is not safe.
How to use these chapters. They are the novel's picture of the whole community at its happiest, placed immediately before the catastrophe. In an essay on structure, say that Eliot spends a book on the feast so that the reader knows exactly what Hetty loses.
Adam Bede: the Story, Books First to Fourth
Book Fourth, chapters XXVII to XXXV: the crisis and the betrothal
Chapter XXVII, "A crisis". Adam, walking home through the Chase, sees Arthur and Hetty together, and understands. He confronts Arthur, they fight, and Adam knocks him down. It is the pivot of the novel: the friendship between the two men ends, and Adam forces Arthur to write to Hetty and break it off.
Chapters XXVIII to XXXI. Arthur writes the letter. Adam delivers it. Hetty reads it alone in her bed-chamber, and the chapter titled "In Hetty's Bed-Chamber" is where the reader sees the extent of her hopelessness. She is already pregnant, though the novel says so only by implication.
Chapter XXXII, "Mrs Poyser 'Has Her Say Out'". The comic high point of the novel, and famous on its own: Mrs Poyser tells the old squire exactly what she thinks of him and his farm management, to his face. It is often set as a passage, and it matters because it shows that plain speech is possible in this village for everybody except the person who needs it most.
Chapter XXXIV, "The Betrothal". Hetty accepts Adam. She does not love him; she is trying to save herself. Adam is happier than he has ever been.
Chapter XXXV, "The Hidden Dread". Hetty understands her condition and what it will mean. The last chapter of Book Fourth leaves her preparing to run.
The two silences that cause the tragedy
Any essay on this novel should notice them.
Arthur does not tell Mr Irwine. Chapter XVI puts him in the rector's room with the words nearly out of his mouth. He talks about a hypothetical man in trouble and cannot go on. One sentence would have ended it.
Hetty tells nobody. She cannot tell the Poysers, because respectability is the whole of their standing. She cannot tell Adam. She thinks of Dinah and decides that if she tells Dinah, others will know at last. Her isolation is complete before she leaves the farm, and the novel builds it carefully.
What beginners get wrong
They call Hetty wicked from the start. She is vain, ignorant and seventeen, and the novel takes trouble over the difference.
They think Arthur intends harm. He does not, and that is the criticism. He intends nothing at all, repeatedly, and the novel treats thoughtlessness as a form of responsibility.
They skip Mrs Poyser. Her scene with the squire is one of the most quoted passages in the book.
Adam Bede: the Story, Books First to Fourth
A worked answer
Question. "Trace the steps by which Hetty Sorrel becomes isolated."
A model answer in five steps, each anchored to a chapter. First, in chapters XII and XIII Arthur meets her in the Chase and the affair begins in secret, so from the start there is something she cannot tell. Second, in chapter XVI Arthur half tries to confess to Mr Irwine and cannot, so the one adult who could have stopped it never learns. Third, in chapter XXVII Adam sees them together, knocks Arthur down, and forces him to write a letter breaking it off, which she reads alone in chapter XXXI. Fourth, she cannot tell the Poysers, whose entire standing in Hayslope is respectability, and she cannot tell Adam, whom in chapter XXXIV she accepts in the hope of saving herself. Fifth, she thinks of Dinah and rejects the idea, because if she tells Dinah other people will come to know at last.
The sentence that lifts it. By the time she leaves the farm in Book Fifth there is not one person alive who knows her condition, and Eliot has built that isolation deliberately, one refusal at a time, so that the reader can see the trial coming before the characters can.
Quick revision
Book First: the workshop, Dinah's preaching, Thias Bede's death, the Hall Farm and the dairy, Hetty's world, the two bed-chambers, the meetings in the wood, and Arthur's failed confession to Mr Irwine.
Book Second: the chapter in which the story pauses, church, Adam at work, the night school.
Book Third: Arthur's coming of age, the feast, the health-drinking, the games and the dance.
Book Fourth: Adam sees them in the Chase and knocks Arthur down; the letter is written and delivered; Mrs Poyser has her say out; Hetty becomes engaged to Adam; the hidden dread.
Test yourself
1. What happens in chapter XXVII, and why is it the pivot? Adam sees Arthur and Hetty together in the Chase, confronts him and knocks him down, and then makes him write a letter breaking off the affair. It ends the friendship, and it sets Hetty on the road she takes in Book Fifth.
2. Why does Hetty accept Adam? Not out of love. She is pregnant and abandoned, and marriage to Adam is the only way she can imagine of avoiding disgrace.
3. What is the significance of chapter XVI? Arthur almost confesses to Mr Irwine and cannot. The novel's tragedy turns on silences, and this is the first and most avoidable of them.
4. Why does Eliot spend a whole book on the birthday feast? To show the community whole and happy immediately before it is broken, so that the reader measures what Hetty and Arthur destroy.
Adam Bede: the Story, Books First to Fourth
5. What is the contrast in "The Two Bed-Chambers"? Hetty secretly dressing up and admiring herself before a mirror, and Dinah at prayer in the next room. The chapter sets the novel's two women against each other in one image, and it is the shortest route to a character comparison in an answer.
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.