A Structuralist Analysis of Women’s Position in George Eliot’s "Middlemarch"

Abstract

Structuralism that began to be active in the 1950’s is the approach to define the relationship between the part and the whole. This study aims to analyse George Eliot’s "Middlemarch" (1872) in terms of the structuralist approach. This novel is analysed synchronically. In the surface structure of the novel, there is a plot based on the relationships between Dorothea Brooke, Edward Casaubon, Rosamond Vincy and Tertius Lydgate. In terms of syntagmatic relation, while Dorothea marries Casaubon, Rosamond marries Lydgate. Both Dorothea and Rosamond marry their spouses to actualize only their dream goals. In terms of paradigmatic relation, there is also homology of relationships between the two couples because there is an unhappy marriage between Dorothea and Casaubon as well as an unhappy marriage between Rosamond and Lydgate. In terms of syntagmatic relation, Dorothea’s husband dies; Rosamond’s husband dies; Dorothea makes a second marriage; Rosamond makes a second marriage. The novel ends but its melody continues because Dorothea and Rosamond are given no role other than being a wife and mother in the male-dominant society. Education, debt and unhappiness in the surface structure of the novel are closed signs. These signs become explicit signs in the deep structure of the novel in the following sense: While the signifier is education, the signified is enlightenment and self-knowledge; while the signifier is debt, the signified is failure and poverty; while the signifier is unhappiness, the signified is illusion and empathy. As for the deep structure of the novel, its harmony operates on binary opposition between Dorothea and Rosamond as follows: ignorance/knowledge, poverty/wealth, imaginary/reality, selfish/unselfish, love/money. The deep meaning obtained from the deep structure is as follows: There is no innate difference between men and women in terms of mental capacity, but there are prejudices imposed by the male-dominated society on women. This is because the patriarchal society does not allow women to have the same educational opportunities as men. Women who are not allowed an adequate education are left with no choice but to marry and have only the role of a wife and mother in society.