Abstract:
As the embodiment of the religiously unsettled Victorian Era in which she lived,
George Eliot sought to discover a system of belief that would allow her to reaffirm and
maintain her feelings of faith and morality. She believed that the subjective nature of
traditional Christianity needed to be replaced with a more objective belief system, one
centered on humanity--the Religion of Humanity.
The purpose of this thesis is to examine the means in which Eliot discovers and
establishes this new sense of religious order in Middlemarch by reforming and
incorporating traditional religious images and rituals. Specifically, by drawing upon the
practice of the laying on of hands found in all of the predominant Church rituals--the
sacraments, Eliot demonstrates the major turning points in the life and faith of her main
character, Dorothea Brooke. With the employment of this religiously suggestive gesture,
the ability to successfully combine the traditional religious rituals and sense of order with a
secular belief system is actualized.
Thus, by examining how Eliot relies on the laying on of hands to signify key
moments in human existence, in much the same manner that Christianity does with the
sacraments such as confirmation and ordination, we can attain a clearer understanding and
appreciation of George Eliot's religious reformation in Middlemarch.
