Middlemarch Ch. 1: The Sisters and Their

Summary

Dorothea Brooke is not yet twenty, living at Tipton Grange with her scattered uncle Mr. Brooke and her younger sister Celia. She is strikingly beautiful but dresses with deliberate plainness; Eliot says religion alone would have dictated it. Her mind is theoretic and hungry for moral greatness: she knows Pascal and Jeremy Taylor by heart and treats fashionable dress as an occupation for Bedlam. Celia has more common-sense and mildly acquiesces in Dorothea's views, yet Eliot insists the younger sister has always worn a yoke and keeps private opinions. Neighbours prefer Celia's innocence; Dorothea seems too unusual, though men find her bewitching on horseback. She imagines suitors must be in love with Celia, not her, and dreams of marriage as tutelage under a great scholar, not flirtation with the amiable Sir James Chettam.

The chapter's hinge is their mother's jewels, six months after Mr. Brooke handed them over. Celia wants to divide and wear them; Dorothea says they should never wear ornaments at all, gives Celia the amethyst necklace and pearl cross, and refuses a cross for herself as a trinket. Then sunlight hits an emerald in a ring-box. Dorothea exclaims at the beauty of the gems, rationalizes them through Revelation, and keeps the emerald ring and bracelet while sending the rest away. When Celia asks if she will wear jewels in company, Dorothea answers haughtily that she cannot tell to what level she may sink. Both sisters end the scene unhappy until Dorothea presses her cheek to Celia's arm in silent reconciliation.

Through the chapter Eliot also sketches Mr. Brooke's vagueness, Dorothea's heiress prospects, and the arrival due at dinner of the Reverend Edward Casaubon, a learned scholar engaged on a great religious history. Dorothea already feels venerating expectation before they meet. Casaubon represents exactly the intellectual, fatherly marriage she craves, and the chapter closes with that anticipation hanging over the jewel scene's exposed contradiction.

In this chapter:Terms Characters Key Quotes Modern Story

Why This Matters

Detecting Noble Hypocrisy

The stricter your public principles, the faster you invent reasons when you want an exception. Dorothea refuses her mother's jewels until sunlight hits the emerald; then she keeps the ring while quoting Revelation to make desire look holy.

Before you explain why this break is actually more ethical, write down the plain want underneath.

This chapter

Inside the Mind: Dorothea Brooke

She gives the jewels away, then keeps the emerald when the light hits it and treats the colour as a fragment of heaven. The principle was real. The exception is the point. A strict self needs a sacred reason the moment it wants something, and Celia is left holding the pause without being told what it means.

Continue this thoughtThe Lamp-Holder Fantasy

Coming Up in Chapter 2

Casaubon has arrived. We've already been told he's coming, and that Dorothea feels venerating expectation about him before they've exchanged a word. Chapter II puts them at the dinner table together. What does the reality of the man do to the idea of him she has already formed?

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Original text

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Chapter 01

The Sisters and Their Differences

Since I can do no good because a woman, Reach constantly at something that is near it. —The Maid’s Tragedy: BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress. Her hand and wrist were so finely formed that she could wear sleeves not less bare of style than those in which the Blessed Virgin appeared to Italian painters; and her profile as well as her stature and bearing seemed to gain the more dignity from her plain garments, which by the side of provincial fashion gave her the impressiveness…

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The Sisters and Their Differences

Summary

Why This Matters