Middlemarch

Middlemarch

by

George Eliot

Dorothea Brooke Character Analysis

Although in some ways Middlemarch does not center around a single character, Dorothea is the closest the novel gets to a protagonist. Uniquely strong-willed, passionate, and rebellious, Dorothea is a deeply religious woman “enamored of intensity and greatness.” She is also committed to social reform and channels her energies into designing cottages for the tenant farmers on her uncle Mr. Brooke’s estate and, later, planning a “colony” for workers. Ultimately these plans do not transpire, in part due to Dorothea’s naivety, and in part due to the significant restrictions placed on women in the society in which she lives. Dorothea is painfully aware of the ways that she doesn’t conform to the ideal of femininity, and she tries to reconcile her grand ambitions with her desire to better meet this ideal through her marriage at 18 to the 45-year-old Rev. Edward Casaubon. Dorothea’s bitter disappointment in the marriage and in Casaubon as a husband leave her feeling tormented and confused, though her fiery spirit is never fully crushed. When she is 21 Casaubon dies, leaving all his property to her with the stipulation that it will be taken away if she marries his cousin Will Ladislaw, of whom Casaubon was intensely jealous. Dorothea and Will are far more suited to each other due to their shared earnest, passionate, and convention-flouting personalities. However, it takes them a while to admit that they are in love with one another, partly due to the dilemma caused by Casaubon’s will. Although Dorothea eventually ends up happily married to Will and the mother of his children, the narrator comments that it is a shame that for all her ambition, Dorothea was not able to lead a “greater” life and leave a more impactful legacy.

Dorothea Brooke Quotes in Middlemarch

The Middlemarch quotes below are all either spoken by Dorothea Brooke or refer to Dorothea Brooke. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Women and Gender Theme Icon
).
Book 1, Chapter 4 Quotes

“It is very hard: it is your favourite fad to draw plans.”

“Fad to draw plans! Do you think I only care about my fellow creatures’ houses in that childish way? I may well make mistakes. How can one ever do anything nobly Christian, living among people with such petty thoughts?”

Related Characters: Dorothea Brooke (speaker), Celia Brooke (speaker)
Related Symbols: Cottages
Page Number: 37
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 4, Chapter 42 Quotes

Thus his intellectual ambition which seemed to others to have absorbed and dried him, was really no security against wounds, least of all against those which came from Dorothea. And he had begun now to frame possibilities for the future which were somehow more embittering to him than anything his mind had dwelt on before.

Related Characters: Dorothea Brooke, Rev. Edward Casaubon
Related Symbols: The Key to All Mythologies
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 418
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 5, Chapter 48 Quotes

And here Dorothea's pity turned from her own future to her husband's past - nay, to his present hard struggle with a lot which had grown out of that past the lonely labour, the ambition breathing hardly under the pressure of self-distrust; the goal receding, and the heavier limbs; and now at last the sword visibly trembling above him! And had she not wished to marry him that she might help him in his life's labour? - But she had thought the work was to be something greater, which she could serve in devoutly for its own sake. Was it right, even to soothe his grief - would it be possible, even if she promised - to work as in a treadmill fruitlessly?

Related Characters: Dorothea Brooke, Rev. Edward Casaubon
Related Symbols: The Key to All Mythologies
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 479
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 6, Chapter 54 Quotes

“I never felt it a misfortune to have nothing till now,” he said. “But poverty may be as bad as leprosy, if it divides us from what we most care for.”

Related Characters: Will Ladislaw (speaker), Dorothea Brooke
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 544
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 8, Chapter 72 Quotes

“And, of course men know best about everything, except what women know better.”

Dorothea laughed and forgot her tears.

“Well, I mean about babies and those things,” explained Celia. “I should not give up to James when I knew he was wrong, as you used to do to Mr Casaubon.”

Related Characters: Dorothea Brooke (speaker), Celia Brooke (speaker), Sir James Chettam, Rev. Edward Casaubon
Page Number: 736
Explanation and Analysis:
Finale Quotes

Many who knew her, thought it a pity that so substantive and rare a creature should have been absorbed into the life of another, and be only known in a certain circle as a wife and mother. But no one stated exactly what else that was in her power she ought rather to have done - not even Sir James Chettam, who went no further than the negative prescription that she ought not to have married Will Ladislaw.

Related Characters: Dorothea Brooke, Sir James Chettam, Will Ladislaw
Page Number: 836
Explanation and Analysis:
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Dorothea Brooke Quotes in Middlemarch

The Middlemarch quotes below are all either spoken by Dorothea Brooke or refer to Dorothea Brooke. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Women and Gender Theme Icon
).
Book 1, Chapter 4 Quotes

“It is very hard: it is your favourite fad to draw plans.”

“Fad to draw plans! Do you think I only care about my fellow creatures’ houses in that childish way? I may well make mistakes. How can one ever do anything nobly Christian, living among people with such petty thoughts?”

Related Characters: Dorothea Brooke (speaker), Celia Brooke (speaker)
Related Symbols: Cottages
Page Number: 37
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 4, Chapter 42 Quotes

Thus his intellectual ambition which seemed to others to have absorbed and dried him, was really no security against wounds, least of all against those which came from Dorothea. And he had begun now to frame possibilities for the future which were somehow more embittering to him than anything his mind had dwelt on before.

Related Characters: Dorothea Brooke, Rev. Edward Casaubon
Related Symbols: The Key to All Mythologies
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 418
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 5, Chapter 48 Quotes

And here Dorothea's pity turned from her own future to her husband's past - nay, to his present hard struggle with a lot which had grown out of that past the lonely labour, the ambition breathing hardly under the pressure of self-distrust; the goal receding, and the heavier limbs; and now at last the sword visibly trembling above him! And had she not wished to marry him that she might help him in his life's labour? - But she had thought the work was to be something greater, which she could serve in devoutly for its own sake. Was it right, even to soothe his grief - would it be possible, even if she promised - to work as in a treadmill fruitlessly?

Related Characters: Dorothea Brooke, Rev. Edward Casaubon
Related Symbols: The Key to All Mythologies
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 479
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 6, Chapter 54 Quotes

“I never felt it a misfortune to have nothing till now,” he said. “But poverty may be as bad as leprosy, if it divides us from what we most care for.”

Related Characters: Will Ladislaw (speaker), Dorothea Brooke
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 544
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 8, Chapter 72 Quotes

“And, of course men know best about everything, except what women know better.”

Dorothea laughed and forgot her tears.

“Well, I mean about babies and those things,” explained Celia. “I should not give up to James when I knew he was wrong, as you used to do to Mr Casaubon.”

Related Characters: Dorothea Brooke (speaker), Celia Brooke (speaker), Sir James Chettam, Rev. Edward Casaubon
Page Number: 736
Explanation and Analysis:
Finale Quotes

Many who knew her, thought it a pity that so substantive and rare a creature should have been absorbed into the life of another, and be only known in a certain circle as a wife and mother. But no one stated exactly what else that was in her power she ought rather to have done - not even Sir James Chettam, who went no further than the negative prescription that she ought not to have married Will Ladislaw.

Related Characters: Dorothea Brooke, Sir James Chettam, Will Ladislaw
Page Number: 836
Explanation and Analysis: