Determined Dodo: Determinism in George Eliot’s Middlemarch Anonymous College

As art mirrors life, so too does George Eliot’s Middlemarch attempt to replicate a realistic world, particularly in the interactions and relationships between all the characters in the novel. Whether the relationship between the characters and the events/social structure around them is by chance or fate, however, is an often-disputed aspect of the book. While the characters in her story often present realistic depictions of the causal nature of reality, particularly in the characters’ interactions and relationships (such as Dorothea only meeting Will as a result of marrying Casaubon, Bulstrode’s past catching up to him, and Rosamond’s reckless spending as a result of her upbringing), does the novel itself allow for the idea of free will to also exist? While the characters may experience the illusion of free will in Middlemarch, Eliot founds her literary universe on the principle of determinism, using it as an ever-present structure that shapes and guides the entirety of the story (and especially the characters within it). That being said, the form of determinism Eliot presents is not what one would commonly think of as being determinism She presents determinism as a loose structure, rather than a rigid, defined path, and it is...