'Spells That Have Lost Their Virtue': The Mythology and Psychology of Shame in the Early Novels of George Eliot Item Type text; Electronic Dissertation Authors Bell, Mary E. Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 24/09/2021 15:55:07 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/321007 ! ! ! !"#$%%"&'()*(&(+,$&%-".&.($)/&,)/.0$!1&& .($&23.(-%-43&+56&#"3*(-%-43&-7&"(+2$&)5&.($&$+/%3&5-,$%"&-7&4$-/4$&$%)-.! "#! ! $%&#!'(!)*++! ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,! Copyright © Mary E. Bell 2014 -!./00*&1%1/23!45"6/11*7!12!18*!9%:5+1#!2;!18*! ! .'<-=>$'?>!@9!'?ABC4D!! ! C3!<%&1/%+!95+;/++6*31!2;!18*!=*E5/&*6*310! ! 92&!18*!.*F&**!2;! ! .@G>@=!@9!<DCB@4@<DH! 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S*&6/00/23!;2&!*\1*37*7!E521%1/23!;&26!2&!&*S&275:1/23!2;!18/0!6%350:&/S1!/3!Q82+*!2&!/3! S%&1!6%#!"*!F&%31*7!"#!18*!:2S#&/F81!82+7*&(!! ! 4CA?'.T!$%&#!'(!)*++! ! ! )*++! O! ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation could not have been written without the support of William Epstein, Susan Hardy Aiken, and Gerald Monsman, my three mentors who believed in me and encouraged me to pursue my research from the very beginnings of my graduate career at the University of Arizona. To them I owe a very deep debt of gratitude. I also wish to thank a more recent mentor, Jennifer Jenkins, whose counsel and encouragement have proven invaluable. I also want to thank my beloved colleagues Alison Betts, Marlowe Daly-Galeano, and Laura Gronewold (otherwise known as the chicas), for their help, counsel, sympathy, and support: I have finally crossed that bridge, and I could not have done it without you! I also want to thank the staff at the University of Arizona library, for tirelessly providing the books and articles I needed for my research. The assistance of the library research staff at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library was invaluable during the three weeks I spent researching in the George Eliot and George Henry Lewes Collection in March 2010. Finally, I want to thank my friends and family for enduring this very long process; especially Elizabeth and Micki, for their love and encouragement; my husband Craig, for his patience and unwavering faith in me; and my two children, Mikaela and Christopher, who have lived with this dissertation for a significant portion of their lives, and who now humor me by calling me Dr. Mom: I live in amazed gratitude for each and every one of you. ! ! )*++! V! TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract________________________________________________________________ 8 Introduction: George Eliot and Victorian Shame Culture _____________________ 10 A Definition of Shame and ‘Shame Culture’____________________________ 11 ! Shame and Moral Philosophy: The Journey from Soul to Mind____________ 15 Victorian Repression and the Unconscious_____________________________ 17 Shame in Literary Criticism_________________________________________ 18 Mackay’s The Progress of the Intellect_________________________________ 22 Shame and the Doctrine of Election: Feuerbach_________________________ 24 Spinoza as Egyptian Sorcerer: or, George Eliot and Zombies!_____________ 28 Synopsis of Chapter One: The Shaming of Mary Ann Evans______________ 29 ! Synopsis of Chapter Two: Scenes of Clerical Life________________________ 31 Synopsis of Chapter Three: Adam Bede_______________________________ 34 Synopsis of Chapter Four: The Mill on the Floss________________________ 35 Synopsis of Chapter Five: Silas Marner________________________________36 Theoretical Perspectives ____________________________________________ 38 A Note on my Usage of George Eliot’s Many Names_____________________ 39 Chapter One: ‘Least Faulty Where Others Most Blame’ _______________________ 40 The Discourse of Praise and Blame ___________________________________ 44 Desperate for her Father’s Approval: The Linnet’s Life__________________ 56 Escaping the “Giant’s Bed” of Dogma_________________________________ 69 Coventry_________________________________________________________ 79 Rousseau the Giant-Killer___________________________________________ 81 ! J.A. Froude and The Nemesis of Faith_________________________________ 92 ! ! )*++! ]! Chapter Two: The Prophetic Mythos of Shame in Scenes of Clerical Life__________ 98 The Religion of Humanity and the Eternal Evangel_____________________ 104 ! Spinoza’s Tractatus Theologico-Politicus______________________________ 110 The English Mythology of the French Revolution______________________ 113 The Book of Amos, and Scenes of Clerical Life_________________________ 119 “Amos Barton”___________________________________________________ 122 Mr. Gilfil’s “Most Gothic” Love Story________________________________ 130 “Janet’s Repentance”______________________________________________ 146 Chapter Three: Adam Bede and the First Age of the World____________________ 152 Adam Bede and the English Church_________________________________ 154 Table 1.0 The Six Ages of the World___________________________ 155 The Sons of God and the Daughters of Men___________________________ 156 The Marriage Plot of Adam Bede____________________________________ 157 Joshua Rann and the Methodists____________________________________ 160 Adam’s Unspeakable Desire________________________________________ 162 Shame as Arthur’s “Backstairs Influence”____________________________ 174 Hetty’s Shame___________________________________________________ 182 Adam’s Regeneration______________________________________________ 189 Chapter Four: The Mill on the Floss and the Mythology of the Deluge___________ 193 Feuerbach and Primitive Religion___________________________________ 196 The House of Tulliver and the Crossing o’ Breeds______________________ 203 The Corruption Spreads____________________________________________ 212 Cousin Lucy_______________________________________________________ 225 “The Downfall”___________________________________________________ 229 “The Valley of Humiliation” ________________________________________ 235 ! ! )*++! ^! The Red Deeps, Omens, and the Spinozan Subconscious_________________ 240 The Seduction of Maggie Tulliver____________________________________ 250 The Return of the Prodigal__________________________________________ 266 Chapter Five: Silas Marner and the Vindication of God ________________________ 278 Silas Marner: “Another English Story”________________________________ 280 ! ! Table 2.0 George Eliot’s Novels and Bede’s Chronology____________ 283 Lantern Yard: The Symbolism of Silas’s Catalepsy_____________________ 288 The Fourth Age: Silas’s First Fifteen Years in Raveloe___________________ 295 The Fifth Age: Raveloe as Babylon___________________________________ 301 The Sixth Age: The True Worship of God, Restored____________________ 304 Endnotes _______________________________________________________________ 308 Works Cited____________________________________________________________ 386 ! ! )*++! _! ABSTRACT .!/0112'"345'+460'7825'"309:';9:5<0=>' "30'%?53818@?'4AB'C2?D3818@?'8E'!34F0'9A'530'$4:1?'&86012'8E'G08:@0'$1985' Although Victorian England was a strongly shame-based culture, no book-length study explores the nineteenth century understanding of shame or its influence in the oeuvre of a major Victorian novelist. Because George Eliot and her partner George Henry Lewes worked at the crux of every major Victorian discourse, her novels are a key place to begin this exploration. George Eliot’s early novels Scenes of Clerical Life, Adam Bede, The Mill on the Floss, and Silas Marner, resist or rewrite English cultural myths that embody shame as a method of social control, especially myths related to the biblical