James Phelan’s Three Judgments in George Eliot’s Middlemarch

Abstract

George Eliot, well-known as one of greatest realists in the 19th century, weaves multiple narratives in her representative work Middlemarch, presenting vividly the realistic picture of society between 1829 and 1832. The narrative clue of love affair between Dorothea, Casaubon and Will Ladislaw permeates the whole story, which attracts the attention of numerous scholars with fruitful, inspirational studies. However, few numbers of scholars delve into the controversial issue of Casaubon’s “will” in the story to analyze the moral values and thoughts expressed by the implied author. Thus, the paper attempts to analyze the issue of “will” by borrowing the concept of three judgments proposed by James Phelan to figure out how the implied author expresses her interpretative, ethical and aesthetical judgements by means of her distinct narrative.