Final words

Eliot chooses to reiterate a 'moral' of the novel within the concluding paragraphs on Dorothea. Fittingly, the intermittent idea carried throughout the book, that one person, or the act of one person, can have terrific, wide-spreading results, is identified with most impact in the life of Dorothea. Firstly, her life was "the mixed result of young and noble impulse struggling amidst the conditions of an imperfect social state, in which great feelings will often take the aspect of error, and great faith the aspect of illusion. For there is no creature whose inward being is so strong that it is not greatly determined by what lies outside it" (Eliot 514). The people of Middlemarch could have protested her first marriage to Casaubon at many points. She was young, too young to be married to someone twice her age, too young to know what she would want forever. Mr. Brooke, Celia, James, James's family, could have protested or voiced concerns, made an impact, but no one did. (Similarly, Rosamund's father could have told her about Lydgate's financial troubles before the marriage but chose not to). Eliot voices to the reader "We insignificant people with our daily words and acts are preparing the lives of many Dorotheas" (Eliot 515). Between all the historical and cultural changes and revolutions that occur in Middlemarch, or between the time period the novel is set to when Eliot actually wrote it (railroads, the telegraph, the political reform movement...), was the idea of one, the accomplishment of a few, that impacted many. Eliot continues, "Her full nature, like that river of which Cyrus broke the strength" (Eliot 515). Although imperfect, it was the idealism and disillusionment of Dorothea that was broken by society. A society who would not interfere with who she should marry, but enforced one they deemed she couldn't. It was this that compelled Dorothea out of Middlemarch to London (and what compelled Rosamund to consistently dream for it). Dorothea left a lasting impression in Middlemarch however, not just the occasional rumors of what had been there (similar to the lasting rumors with the exiled Will's mother), but in loaning money to Lydgate or not marrying James (thus enabling his marriage to her sister) or talking to her father about improving the cottages on his estate... Eliot's final words aptly concludes that "... the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs" (Eliot 515).