Middlemarch Essay

Compare the presentation of the destructive side of love in Othello, Wuthering Heights and Middlemarch
The cathartic nature of love can induce all forms of emotion from intense pleasure and exultation to the deepest desolation and emptiness; leaving a person a shell of their former self. In all three texts, the selfish or malignant machinations of characters’, along with a challenging social environment collude to engender the deterioration and destruction of love. Shakespeare’s Jacobean tragedy Othello, birthed in the artistic melting pot of the European Renaissance, a period when poets such as Donne, and playwrights such as Webster and Marlowe were transforming literature in the English language. The play follows the tribulations of the eponymous tragic hero, who is almost the embodiment, of loves cathartic nature, as his love decays, a result of his fatally flawed character and the challenging social climate. In the Victorian Gothic novel, Wuthering Heights, Bronte portrays similarly flawed characters struggling against the hefty burden of social convention. Likewise, in the meticulous realist Victorian work Middlemarch it is the flawed traits of individuals which lead them to take foolish and naïve decisions jeopardising their romantic partnerships for mere social or intellectual gain.
Venice, the backdrop where the drama commences in Othello is peopled with an abundant variety of nationalities; this open cosmopolitan environment enables liberty opinion to triumph in defiance of social order and tradition. Being a woman in this period means Desdemona’s opinion carries next to no bearing, yet it is a reflection of the liberty of the environment, that Desdemona feels able to audaciously declare’ that I did love the Moor to live with him, my downright violence and scorn of fortunes may trumpet to the world’, that she has abandoned the refinery and luxury available to her through a socially acceptable marriage for the adventure of a passionate love. The protagonist Othello is similarly at ease in this environment despite the pervading views associating blackness with barbarity and heathenism an Indication the impact location has over character. However, Othello is not as accustomed to the culture and corruption of Venetian society having spent most of his life in the broil of battle, making him vulnerable to individuals raised in and experienced with such corruption, however in Venice this does not prove a problem. Shakespeare shows this to be the case through his rich poetic idiom; Othello’s mesmeric tones grant him a commanding position both as a character in general and in his role as military commander. Here, his speech abounds in vivid metaphors of ‘moving accidents by flood and field, of hair breadth scapes i’th’ imminent deadly breach. The poetic sibilance in, ‘she swore in faith ‘twas strange, ‘twas passing strange, ‘twas pitiful, ‘twas wondrous pitiful’ brims with eloquence and mellifluent nobility, at this point containing numerous caesura, reinforcing the effect. However when the setting moves to Cyprus, all Othello’s vulnerabilities are able to be exposed and exploited due to his isolation. The moorland, ‘completely removed from the stir of society’ which constitutes the backdrop for the passionate events of Wuthering Heights, is similarly isolated, in the novel the nearest settlement; Gimmerton, seems like a place of some distance. Indeed, in both Othello and Wuthering Heights the isolation leaves the characters with nothing to distract them from their relationships with those in their immediate proximity, which become all the more intense and destructive.
The provincial town of Middlemarch differs greatly from both Venice, and the isolated moorland of Wuthering Heights. In this insular community, there is staunch resistance to the imminent connection to the railways, which threaten to overhaul the social structures and rules of the community which have likely existed for centuries. It is declared that ‘a projected line was to run through Lowick parish where the cattle had hitherto grazed in a peace unbroken by astonishment’, the lives of the Middlemarch citizens are thus associated with the simple existence of cattle. In the town everybody is aware of the rest of the towns business. The news of Lydgate, a distinguished London doctors’ arrival in the community was spread rapidly by the garrulous neighbours, paying little homage to the truth. Critic Barbara Hardy’s observation that ‘one passion is seen to occur in the world of everyone else’s passion,’ reflects this. However, in reality the passions are quite private, it is merely the intrusive narration style which cause one to take this view, the narration style holds up an interesting spectacle of the nature of the community and reflects the interwoven lives of the characters; it becomes apparent that what happens to a person becomes the point of discussion for the whole community. Slanderous accusations such as those instigated by Mrs Dollop who ‘became more and more convinced by her own asseveration, that Doctor Lydgate meant to let people die in the hospital. ‘ . Evidencing how anyone can be believed in this backwater of a community. Naturally engender a great furore in the community, reducing Lydgate’s, confidence in himself, compromising the faith of his wife, and being a major and insidious adversary to love.

The motives underlying the formation of a romantic relationship tend to play a major role on whether or not the love will be destructive. Desdemona and Othello’s love seems to be built on no ulterior expectations aside from a deep undying adoration of one another. Desdemona’s love of Othello blossoms because of his heroic past endeavours, Othello sums up: she loved me for the dangers I had passed, a succinct and sincere evocation romantic love can induce, and it could also indicate how Othello relies on the pity of Desdemona Shakespeare use of the stichomythic. On the contrary this could reveal that Desdemona does not properly understand Othello’s personality, but was merely infatuated by these tales of romanticised adventures, ‘o my fair warrior’, ‘my dear Othello’ indicates their harmony as a couple. In performance, Desdemona’s speech would come immediately after Othello’s, the iambic pentameter helps to maintain a constant rhythm and so the two lines of speech would be seen as one. Othello and Desdemona’s relationship shows a marked contrast from the Elizabethan norm, which dichotomises love and marriage. In addition the harmony of their love could perhaps be seen to give weight to the notion that loves could not possibly have become destructive from within the relationship. However Othello’s tendency to allow his jealous disposition to get the better of his reason causes him to make his resolutions absolute and irrevocable, he explains himself with ‘even so my bloody thoughts, with violent pace, shall ne’er look back, ne’er ebb to humble love ‘. The adjectives violent and bloody portend the rapidity of his oncoming deterioration.
Likewise Cathy and Heathcliff are a similarly harmonious match, Cathy describes Heathcliff as more myself then I am. Nellies summary exemplifies the importance of Heathcliff to Cathy, she comments that the greatest punishment we could invent was to keep her separate from him. The forced separation from Heathcliff, brought about through her selfish desire for self improvement through marriage to refined debonair Edgar brings great pain to her. Cathy fondly reminisces of a time when she was ‘half savage and hard, and free and laughing at injuries not maddening under them’. It could be suggested that a union with a man of such elegance betrays her true nature, with this betrayal ultimately engendering the destruction of her relationship. Her time with Heathcliff was blissful and carefree, a time when all worries seemed not to matter. In breaking ties with Heathcliff Cathy destroys the harmony of this period of her life. Heathcliff and Catherine are from then onwards condemned to their harmony and unity remaining exclusively on a spiritual level. They are excluded from the tangible and more accepted form of love offered by matrimony and physical relations due to Heathcliff’s inferior social class.
In contrast the expectations underpinning the precipitous marriage between Dorothea and Casaubon are at a great divergence. Casaubon is to her a glorified ideal of piety, worldliness and intellect. He fulfils her desire to live ‘continually in the light of a mind that she could reverence’. Casaubon is placed on a pedestal by Dorothea, he is described by her as an opportunity to lead ‘a grand life’, she expects Casaubon to be perfection and divinity incarnate and is not taking into account the fallibilities and imperfections that he and every other human has. The flaw in her character which leads to the destruction of her love is her inability to disentangle ideals from reality. She does not acknowledge that Casaubon’s one and only commitment is his Key to all mythologies, scorned by Ladislaw as’ learned theory exploring the tossed ruins of the world’. When it is too late Dorothea comes to a realisation that ‘it appeared that she was to live more and more in a virtual tomb’, Casaubon readily associates himself with all that is dead or ruined, foreshadowing his imminent death, and the destruction of the one who worshipped him. His marriage and relationship with Dorothea would be ‘a little moon that would cause him hardly a calculable perturbation’. This metaphor gives the impression that Casaubon represents a vast, ancient and intransigent presence such as the ocean, at an unimaginably large distance from Dorothea, it is thus clear that their relationship is anything but harmonious; the physical expressions of affection come only from Dorothea. Eliot’s employment of an intrusive omniscient narrative style exacerbates the reader’s impression of the schism present in the characters marriage and makes the imminent destruction all the more apparent.
There is similar contention of motives for romantic love in the other main thread of the Middlemarch narrative, threatening to jeopardise and destroy the relationship. Rosamund is described as having’ a melodic charm’; this indicates her incompatibility with the sacrifice and commitment demanded by the serious institution of marriage. Eliot was regarded as unusual at the time in her depiction of marriage as a negative thing, at a time when canonical writers like Austen were heralding its virtues. Her demise and major flaw as an individual is her inflated sense of self-worth. It is stated that ‘she never thought of money except as something necessary which other people would always provide’. This exemplifies her selfishness, and her inability to see love as a two sided thing. Her interactions with men are merely for the superficial thrill of exerting the power of her charm and sexuality over them, rather than because of any real interest in a committed relationship. It becomes apparent before their relationship even begins that the contradictory ambition will prove a point for contention. as a new arrival to the community Lydgate brings with him the exciting bustle of London, she loves him because ‘he is always listened to’, as a result her love could be viewed as self-love more than sacrificial romantic love, indeed, she is in love with the potential to gain social standing and be the centre of attention. Other prominent men in the community fall beneath the consideration of a women’ rather used to being fallen in love with’. This innate flaw of hers exacerbated by her privileged aristocratic upbringing is the cause of her view of love as something flippant and almost monotonous. Whereas Lydgate has motivations which could be viewed as the direct antithesis of this, his position as an’ aspiring young doctor ‘indicates that his nature and ambition is to be a benefactor for others, he is motivated by the opportunity to improve life for others rather than for himself and it is this ambition which he sacrifices many hours of his life in pursuit of. Rosamunds complete lack of awareness of what he has sacrificed for her love only to receive nothing in return, reduces him to a state of disillusionment, propelling his mental state and confidence, and as a result his occupation into decline. Like Heathcliff, love has left him only what he was.
Although Heathcliff does not experience the same damaging kind of unrequited love which befalls Lydgate, his love for Cathy is nonetheless unfulfilling and as a result of the destroyed romance which he comes to represent he is led to pursue success and fulfilment in other ways, the vindictiveness omnipresent in his nature drives him to avenge his tormentors and reap success this way. Indeed, vengeance becomes such a high priority for Heathcliff, that when he catches Hindley’s wantonly discarded son Hareton his visage takes the form of that of ‘a miser who has parted with a lucky lottery ticket for five shillings and finds next day he has lost in the bargain five thousand pounds could not show a blanker countenance’. Such a callous disregard for the fragility of life reflects Heathcliff’s now disarrayed mental state, a damning testament of the abhorrent Impact of destructive love.
There is also evidence in Wuthering heights that it is the fatal flaws of the characters themselves which result in their love and passion assuming a destructive nature. This can be observed in the character of Heathcliff is typical of the Byronic hero character type. Critic Mark Schorer’s description of him as a ‘fierce pitiless, wolfish’ man could be seen to show that the only way the typical Byronic traits in his personality can be overcome is through his infatuation with Cathy a women that in his opinion is so immeasurably superior and the hope that the feeling is reciprocal. His flaw could thus be seen to be this ruthlessness and wildness of character this is greatly exacerbated by the rigid dichotomised social structure of Victorian England, which leads to him being marginalised. If he cannot be with Cathy then the flaws in his personality overwhelm his reason and destroy him. Despite this he is acutely aware of the futility of his hopes to marry Cathy, and has a burning envy of Edgar, whom he sees as her inevitable suitor and wishes he ‘had a chance of being as rich as he will be’. Jealousy also plays a large role in the destructive nature of love in Othello, with him being similarly susceptible is similarly reliant on maintaining devoted love for Desdemona to retain a sound objective mind, ‘but I do love thee, and when I love thee not, chaos is come again’. This epitomizes the vulnerability present in Othello’s character, despite his formidable oratorical ability and composure of speech, it can be seen that years of military service have not given him the interpersonal skills of the other characters.
In addition t could be argued that one of the major pre-requisites for love becoming destructive arises not from within the relationship itself but from the interference of other characters. It is true that Othello’s simple, trusting nature makes him particularly susceptible to manipulation. However Shakespeare’s presentation of Iago could be seen to suggest that his influence has a greater bearing on the hero’s tragedy. Soliloquy is used to enable the audience to marvel at the fastidiousness, malice and conniving omnipresent in Iago’s schemes in the play and reinforces the contrived and crafted nature of his scheme to put the moor into a jealousy so strong that judgement cannot cure thus presenting Iago as an all the most pernicious ally. He is aware that in order for his scheme to succeed he has to make something out of that which has no evidence or weight behind it, because ‘Trifles light as air are to the jealous confirmations of holy writ’, it is interesting that he describes his actions as ‘light as air’ as they are indeed completely non-existent and contrived. Critics have regarded his malicious activities as stemming from a jealous, vindictiveness directed at Cassio, a man whom Othello recently promoted over Iago, he soliloquises that he wants to ‘ensnare as great a fly as Cassio’, a man who ‘has never set a squadron in field’ in wrongdoing. However there is much evidence to suggest that this is not the case that Iago simply revels in his intellectual superiority and penchant for manipulating the fates of other characters to his whim. He transforms Othello by exploiting his flaw, transforming him from a man of reason to a man who declares that ‘now by heaven, my blood by safer guides begins to rule’, in abandoning his reason to heaven, Othello is left with no control over his destiny, Iagos position as an individual not to be trusted is enhanced by his ability to alter his speech from rhyming verse to blank prose, indicating that he is of a sneaky, duplicitous nature, and implicating him further in the destruction of Othello.
In some ways Edgar could be as having a similarly adverse impact on the love of Cathy and Heathcliff. The temptation of enhanced wealth and social status through a marriage to Edgar is too irresistible for Cathy. He could be viewed as an impediment to the harmony of Cathy and Heathcliff’s love. Cathy, like Dorothea, is fatally idealistic, naively believing that ‘if I marry Linton, I can aid Heathcliff to rise and place him out of my brother’s power’. Of course this is not the case.
Death can be the result of destructive love as in Othello or can be the cause of further destruction as in Wuthering Heights .Lockwood encounters Cathy’s wayward melancholy spirit ‘I’m come home, I’d lost my way on the moor’ giving the reader an impression of the mystery and significance of the moors and foreshadowing their role in Cathy’s life before her character is revealed later. This is also an indication that Cathy died unfulfilled. As well as this it serves a purpose in permeating the novel with a desolate and macabre aura. Death plays a similarly prominent yet contrasting role in Othello. After his death the remaining onlookers appear phlegmatic towards the harrowing scenes enacted in the mercurial cavern of the bedroom. Life resumes as prior, death can be seen perhaps not as the destruction of their love, but the revival of celestial love for an eternity after mortal love becomes irreversibly warped and subsequently hellish and damned. Othello’s murder of Desdemona exerts an insidious impact on his sense of self; he is now only that which was Othello, his identity and being could be interpreted as being so intertwined with that of his wife that after her death it abandoned the realms of his corporeal presence for the untrammelled sanctuary of heaven ‘I will kill thee and love thee after’, only in heaven can his exquisite love be restored. Indeed the location of death on the marriage bed and the presence of matrimonial sheets compares with the consummation ritual, which on their wedding night was subject to raucous disturbance via the actions of Iago.
It is apparent that similar factors lead to love assuming a destructive nature in all three novels despite the difference of the contexts in which they were written.It is the fatal flaws of characters including their idealism, refusal to conform and in the case of Othello, his foolish trustful nature and tendency to fall prey to the lethal grips of jealousy and providing a source for their motivations, in collusion with the staunch efforts and interferences of other characters to impede love in addition to often challenging and obstructive environments which make up the primary constituents of the destructive power of love.
Bibliography
Bronte, E. (1978). Wuthering Heights. London: J.M. Dent and Sons Ltd.~First Published 1847
Eliot, G. (1994). Middlemarch. Ware: Wordsworth Editions Limited.~ First Published 1874
Shakespeare, W. (2006). Othello. Oxford: Oxford University Press.~ First published 1622

Word Count 3249

Bibliography: Bronte, E. (1978). Wuthering Heights. London: J.M. Dent and Sons Ltd.~First Published 1847 Eliot, G. (1994). Middlemarch. Ware: Wordsworth Editions Limited.~ First Published 1874 Shakespeare, W. (2006). Othello. Oxford: Oxford University Press.~ First published 1622 Word Count 3249