A Study Of Adam Bede In The Perspective Of Ethical Literary Criticism

George Eliot (1816-1880) is considered as one of the most brilliant andoutstanding female novelists in the British Victorian age. She has special insights inmany fields like religion, moral, philosophy, art and she is especially good atpenetrating into the spiritual world of human beings. Her novels are famous for vividcharacter portrayal, sincere moral sentiment, profound philosophical thoughts andhumanistic religious spirits, which have a significant impact to the contemporary andafter age. In1859, her first full-length novel Adam Bede, which sets in a mid-Englandcountryside town of the early19thcentury, was published anonymously and aroused ahuge response in the Victorian literary circle.Although many literary critics have analyzed Adam Bede from different points ofview, such as theme, feminist criticism, psychological analysis, social studies, moralstudies, religious studies and so on, but there has been no one especially adoptingEthical Literary Criticism to study Adam Bede so far. Therefore, in this thesis,interpreting this novel from the angle of Ethical Literary Criticism will provide theresearch of Adam Bede with a new perspective.This thesis is composed of five chapters. The first chapter is mainly about theintroduction of George Eliot and her fiction Adam Bede, literature reviews, EthicalLiterary Criticism and the significance of the study. The second chapter focuses onreligious ethics from the contrast between two different types of priests in this novel,and the reason of their differences. Emphasizing religious concern and love, Eliotbreaks the bonds of old religious morality; in the meanwhile, she puts forward a newmodel of her ideal religious morality, namely, Human-Oriented Religion. The thirdchapter analyzes family ethics from three harmonious families in this novel: Poyser’sfamily, Adam’s family and Irwine’s family. Eliot highly advocates some family virtuessuch as equivalence, responsibility, tolerance and sacrifice in family relationship. Thefourth chapter discusses Eliot’s ethical concerns about the society in this novel,mainly from the following two aspects: the social position of women under theVictorian patriarchal society and individual’s responsibility toward the society. Eliot hopes that men and women are equal in the society and highly stresses the fulfillmentof individual’s society duty. The last chapter is the conclusion part and points out thatfrom the new angle of Ethical Literary Criticism, this thesis interprets George Eliot’sethical concerns in religious ethics, family ethics and social ethics in Adam Bede.Through this research, we can have a better understanding of Eliot’s ethical thoughtsand humanistic care, meanwhile, the exploration of her ethical thoughts and herhumanistic ideas will be beneficial to the reconstruction of humanistic spirits andmodern harmonious society.