Middlemarch ~ George Eliot (1871-2)

George Eliot's Middlemarch (1871-2) is an epic classic and famously reviewed by Virginia Woolf as being "one of the few English novels written for grown-up people". Woolf's praise rings true as Middlemarch depicts the lives of an expansive cast of characters within a small rural town, under the looming 1832 Reform Act. The novel, like the Act, expands public attention to the wider population as key characters including Dorothea Brooke, Mr Casaubon and Mary Garth present the experiences of conflicting genders, social classes and ages. These three characters are a small sample of the intriguing, and conflicting, accounts told in the novel; the work rather depicts the whole town. Each character is well developed and while some leading characters such as Dorothea spend more time with the reader than the likes of Mary Garth, each 'character' feels real, with their own aspirations and anxieties. In the subtitle to the work, Eliot describes the novel as "A Study of Provincial Life", suggesting that we are reading a non-fiction report or witnessing a scientific experiment. Both scenarios are thoroughly believable as the detail for each character breathes a formulated personality. The remarkable achievement of this "Study" is Eliot's attention to, and understanding of, gender conflicts: while the psyche of Rosamond Vincy is intricately realised, her desire to escape provincial life, the oppositional arguments of her husband are given equal justice. Opposed to being degraded to a patriarchal obstacle, Doctor Lydgate is given fair treatment by Eliot, where his dichotomy of wanting to pursue his scientific discoveries for himself and battling society's pressure to appease his wife's desires is explored. While under the pen name of 'George Eliot', readers were impressed by 'his' ability to write female characters, yet Mary Ann Evans also had the skill to write, and understand, the psychology of men, thus appealing to a much wider readership with more equal representation.

Both characters, like the remainder of the wide ensemble, are presented with their ambitions, but also their downfalls, a famous example being Rosamond's desires described as "castles in the air", and for this reason, it is difficult to assign the 'hero's and 'villain's of the story: they are all simply human.

The greatest appeal of the novel is ironically it's largest fault: in granting attention to so many figures, the work is lengthy. Much of the narrative is preoccupied with describing the minuscule, opposed to progressing the story. There are also multiple narrative arcs which intermingle, creating a vast and complex web. This inevitable confusion is amplified by the novel's length, yet in following the written style of analysing the details, the work can be completed through patience. Once concluded, the true reward is the understanding and integration into the town and the feeling that Middlemarch speaks to its readers, with each re-reading a new experience, as the stories of the expansive cast will appeal to all, regardless of age, gender, class etc. and will appeal to a different aspect of life upon each return.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ~ Mark Twain (1884)

Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) was once heralded by Ernest Hemmingway as being the source of “All modern American literature” and “It’s the best book we’ve had”. One of the reasons for its continued praise, specifically within the American canon, is its presentation of the American experience and the nation. Huckleberry Finn tells the story of a young boy running away from his home on a raft down the Mississippi, out of fear of being “sivilized” along with a runaway slave, Jim. The voyage of the protagonists encapsulates a vision shared by the later ‘Beat’ writers to escape from society and regain a sense of national identity which has been consumed by modernity.

The endearing image of the pair on a raft is a true rejection of progression, both in its archaic technology and metaphorically as a battle against the current: society hegemony. The raft also provides a platform for perspective: engaging in philosophical debates and ideas, Huck observes “You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft” in comparison to urban settings. The naïve voice of a child is Twain’s subtle attempt to persuade his readers to the return to the raw, natural environments which provide the background to the American identity. The river itself, the Mississippi, is a characteristically American symbol and by engaging with it, Huck connects with his national identity, indicating a return not only to nature, but to a ‘true’ America.

As the young protagonist travels, readers are granted an insight into the progression of his own identity as he struggles with the dichotomies of risking damnation through the title of ‘Abolitionist’ and dividing himself from his childhood self by marking a distinction from his friend Tom Sawyer, a symbol of adolescent irresponsibility. Twain and Huck later disappoint readers as he falls into Sawyer’s games once he begins to develop his own mature identity, yet clear progression is made throughout the novel. Finn is a bildungsroman hero, and his journey to maturity is made realistic through Twain’s attention to authentic vernacular, a feature which he emphasises in the opening ‘Explanatory’. From a genre perspective, this is Twain’s own linguistic return to the natural American identity, yet this is also a point of controversy: the novel frequently uses the derogatory terms against the African-American slaves which makes the text arguably unsuitable for teaching. The abundance of discrimination makes the novel difficult to read, yet it is often observed that irony arises through its usage as Jim and Huck are in fact close friends. The nature of irony is unstable, thus, so is the novel, and the inability to fully dissect this protagonist remains one of the reasons for its continued intrigue as well as controversy.

With this factor aside, Twain’s novel is an allegorical return to nature which ironically brings conflicting cultures together, to project an image of the American experience and identity to conflict segregated representations within Twain’s context and, interestingly, the modern era.