How many pages is adam bede

Brave New World. Crime and Punishment. Little Women. The Picture of Dorian Gray. The Secret Garden. The Power of the Dog. The Count of Monte Cristo. The Death Of Ivan Ilyich. The Lincoln Highway.

The Man Who Died Twice. A Slow Fire Burning. Snow Country. Adam and he have a fight, which Adam wins. Captain Donnithorne lies to Adam that the affair was no more than a little flirtation.

At his response, Adam tells him he must write a letter to Hetty letting her know that the affair is over. Captain Donnithorne does so, and Adam delivers the letter.

Hetty is crushed, but after some time she resolves to marry Adam as a way out of her current life. Adam proposes, and Hetty accepts. By the time Captain Donnithorne leaves, Hetty is pregnant, although neither of them knows it. She resolves to go out to find Captain Donnithorne because she cannot bear to have those who know her find out about her shame. She believes that Captain Donnithorne will help her, even though she feels he can never erase her shame.

Hetty sets out to locate Captain Donnithorne. At the end of an arduous journey, she learns that he has gone to Ireland. She heads in the direction of home, more or less intending to visit Dinah, who she believes will help her without judging her.

Along the way, she gives birth to her child. Distraught, she takes the child into the woods and buries it under a tree. She returns to where she left the baby. A farm laborer and the Stoniton constable discover her, and the constable takes her into custody for the murder of her child. Communication is a part of it, I imagine as the reader has to believe in the naivete of a seventeen year old girl, presumable Eliot suspected her readers would find it impossible to imagine a seventeen year old girl being ignorant of the consequences of dalliance with an older man and how nature leads to unnatural crimes.

This leads to the other feature of the book that I noticed. This is a very religious unreligious book. It is not even a crisis of faith book. If for her there is no God there is still value in some religious practises, in the place of void created by the removal of church and doctrines she puts an intense serious regard for people's spiritual lives, for our emotions, for compassion, for the depths of understanding required to live with each other when the well springs of our feelings may be obscure yea even unto ourselves.

Repent, she cries, for the day of the Lord is not on hand. A stand out moment I thought the secular communion - "Take a bit, and another sup, Adam, for the love of me. See, I must stop and eat a morsel. Now you take some. The sense here is that Christ stopped at Eboli at any rate somewhere far short of England despite the moral seriousness of the Methodists the inner life of the country is governed by convention and not by Christian conviction, if the hearts of people are never in Church there is still some chance of true communion between individuals, but this is hard to achieve.

Eliot shows us people continually not just mis-read each other, but also themselves view spoiler [ particularly when it comes to questions of love hide spoiler ] , her interest in sociology sides seamlessly into her psychology.

She does in places tell rather than show but given her air of benign wisdom view spoiler [ I fear I am at risk her of failing into the Blackadder sketch hide spoiler ] and occasional humour, particularly in the utterances of Mrs Poyser, I find that completely forgiveable. This edition I don't particularly recommend, it has one of those introductions designed for students on literature courses who prefer to complain about how boring their set texts are than to actually read them, the text is pretty well skewered and dissected and examined without suggesting to an idle passing soul that they might actual want or like to read it view spoiler [ a guy I knew had great luck along those lines with Our mutual Friend he could not in two years move himself to read more than the first chapter and on exam day, turning over the question paper, there was a question about the first chapter, he had a talent like a cat for falling on his feet hide spoiler ].

Also I note with thankfulness that I was not born or brought up in the East Midlands, it must be exhausting to have to think in that dialect all the time. Her in story comment on one of her own characters serves to sum up her own style: "It's quite easy t'read - she writes wonderful for a woman" p. View all 12 comments. The novel was recognized as a masterpiece from the start. The novel blew me away with the accuracy of its insights into shock and suffering and their psychological effects.

It was an immensely therapeutic read. It was interesting to revisit this novel at a calmer and more objective moment, with more of a literary-critical eye. I loved it just as much as I did the first time round, though for rather different reasons. There are several similarities. The male protagonist of both is an intelligent, partly self-educated, working-class man—although Felix Holt has chosen the career of a craftsman, rather than having it visited on him by birth—and both are the dutiful sons to two of the more annoying mothers in fiction.

To be fair, Lisbeth Bede has more by way of redeeming tragic dignity than Mrs Holt, but it would still be something of a toss-up as to which you would least want to be trapped in a lift with. More seriously, Adam Bede is as brilliant and socially nuanced and vivid a portrayal of a rural Midland village in as Felix Holt is of an election-fevered rural Midland small town in As ever with Eliot, in addition to the personal plot of the novel—here, unlike in Felix Holt , stark and simple as a Greek tragedy—a larger social and quietly political narrative is at work.

One reason why the village setting works so well is that it can serve as a microcosm of English society generally, in its class and religious distinctions. We are never quite allowed to forget, moreover, that the novel takes place a decade after the most convulsive political event of the century, the French Revolution. This is an intensely class-conscious novel, as much so as Felix Holt , in its way. The cast list of Adam Bede is vast and supremely well marshalled. In addition to Adam and his family, the principal characters in the novel include the dashing, vain young squire, Arthur Donnithorpe; the worldly, and worldly-wise, vicar, Mr Irvine and his queenly, spirited old mother; a comfortably-off farm couple, the Poysers; and their two orphaned nieces, the vain and pretty Hetty Sorrel and the charismatic and godly Dinah Morris.

One great triumph of Adam Bede is its combination of the emotional power and universality of tragedy with the intricate, historically precise, socially embedded realism of the mature Victorian novel. I could continue ad infinitum.

View all 15 comments. Oct 29, Beccie rated it it was amazing. I believe this may be the most beautiful book I have ever read. I felt both uplifted and emotionally drained when I finished. The tragedy and the great beauty of George Eliot's writing! I didn't read this edition, mine was much older, but the introduction of my edition quoted Charles Dickens as saying that reading Adam Bede was an epoch in his life, and Alexandre Dumas called it the masterpiece of the century.

I'm happy to agree with them. Most people say that Middlemarch is George Eliot's maste I believe this may be the most beautiful book I have ever read. Most people say that Middlemarch is George Eliot's masterpiece. That was tragic and beautiful as well, but I was so much more drawn into the characters of Adam Bede. I loved them all even Hetty because even though they may have made bad choices, we were allowed to see things from their perspective and gain an understanding of why they did what they did.

I love that about George Eliot. Dickens' characters sometimes seem almost like caricatures because they are either so good or so evil. I appreciate the humanity of Eliot. In fact, I understood Arthur Donnithorne all too well. He so wants to be a good person and have people think well of him, and yet he is weak when it really matters. This is a silly analogy, but I decided to make chocolate chip cookies one day while reading Adam Bede.

I knew I really shouldn't because I would eat too many and not be able to stop, but when it came to the point I made them anyway and ate too many. I realized how like Arthur that was! He knew he shouldn't be doing what he was doing, and he talked himself out of it many times, but when it came to the point he still did it.

It's interesting that although George Eliot personally seemed to have issues with the religion of her day, she can talk about religion so beautifully in her books. I realize I have used the word "beautiful" way too many times, but oh if you read it, you will understand. The year the story takes place is , but the year it was published was I believe There was a lot of religious fervor going on at that time.

People were searching and wanting to do what was right, and were dissatisfied with the nation's religion, even though there were many good and wonderful members of the clergy. Who could not love Mr. And yet Dinah believed in so much more. I had ancestors in England around that time period who I believe felt the same way, and that's why they were so open to hear of the restoration of the gospel from the Mormon missionaries who were sent there.

Poyser was an absolute gem! I loved that she was able to tell off the Squire and hold her own with the woman-hating Mr. Massey I wanted to tell him off, too - I wish we could have heard why he hated women so much.

I was grateful that George Eliot put in an epilogue so we could see what happened to the characters who were missing at the end of the book. This is an amazing book - everyone should read it. View all 4 comments. If I'd read this as a young teenager, my sympathies would've been with a minor character, the younger brother Seth.

As it is, I still have some of those residual feelings toward him, helped by my agreeing with his comment on the last page, which is opposed to the more traditional view of his brother, the eponymous hero. The latter has left me with a vaguely irritated feeling, though nothing he said beforehand bothered me. With this statement of his, though, Eliot is following history; and her biggest strength in this, her first full-length novel, is that of social historian. Dec 23, Skylar Burris rated it really liked it Shelves: classics.

Adam Bede is a story about love, self-deception, religious feeling, innocence, and experience. It would not be an unfit introduction to Eliot, though Middlemarch is by far her superior novel. I am awed by Eliot's psychological insight into human personality.

Her characters are some of the most vivid in all of literary history, and her ability to penetrate to the very heart of human motivation is unrivaled. She presents her story with wit and subtle sarcasm. Take, for instance, this tongue-in-ch Adam Bede is a story about love, self-deception, religious feeling, innocence, and experience.

Take, for instance, this tongue-in-cheek comment: "Of course, I know that, as a rule, sensible men fall in love with the most sensible women of their acquaintance, see through all the pretty deceits of coquettish beauty, never imagine themselves loved when they are not loved, cease loving on all proper occasions, and marry the woman most fitted for them in every respect.

But even to this rule an exception will occur now and then in the lapse of centuries, and my friend Adam was one.

But the story is quite interesting as well, and you will come to care about and sympathize with the characters. It is not a fast paced book, and it will require an investment of time and intellect.

But it is well worth reading. Nov 04, Christine rated it it was amazing Shelves: minority-and-women-writers , literature-english. It might be because Bede was the first Eliot book I read. I doubt this, however, because the first Austen book I read was Pride and Prejudice , but my favorite Austen book is Persuasion. I first read Bede after watching the first part of a Masterpiece Theatre remember when Cooke hosted it? I only saw the first part and it ended with the fight between Adam and Arthur, where Adam knocks Arthur done and thinks he has killed the squire to be.

I had to know what happened next so I went out and brought the book. Since then I have read Bede far more than I have read Middlemarch , though I have never tracked down and brought the Masterpiece version of the story.

There is a beauty and simplicity about Bede and yet it is a complex and deep story. It almost seems like a paradox, but it is not. I find myself wondering how this book was received in general when it was first published.

It is the use of this plot in Bede that make the book a masterpiece. She makes very good use of the word dread. He is not a saint, he is not perfection; he is good people, perhaps a finer version of Othello. One feels for him, and he does have faults. His blind love of Hetty, and his quickness of temper.

Dinah, too, as a few faults, and this stops her from being a total unlikable Mary Sue. The reader knows what is best for these two characters long before they do.

In many ways, however, the kennel of the story concerns Hetty and Arthur, and far more of Hetty. I hesitate to say like. Hetty does something stupid, but she plays a high price. Even before the modern era, with our debates or discussions about single mothers and how or whether to make fathers responsible, Eliot touches on it. Constrained by the time she lived in, Eliot cannot give it the graphic blow by blow that would be used today. This restraint, however, makes the story are the more tragic and touching.

Even in the darkness of the tale, Eliot arranges to show the reader a degree of pity. Hetty might feel alone due to the shame, her family might cast her off, but she is not truly alone.

At least not wholly. There are helpful strangers and Dinah. Of course, the reader still knows that Hetty is not in a good place, that society has by and large cast her off and has made no true provision for her. Eliot does not fall into the trap that other authors, such as Hardy, have. We know that the relationship between Arthur and Hetty is consensual. Further, Arthur is treated far more gently than Alec in Tess. Some features of WorldCat will not be available.

Create lists, bibliographies and reviews: or. Search WorldCat Find items in libraries near you. Advanced Search Find a Library. Your list has reached the maximum number of items. Please create a new list with a new name; move some items to a new or existing list; or delete some items.

Your request to send this item has been completed. APA 6th ed. Note: Citations are based on reference standards. However, formatting rules can vary widely between applications and fields of interest or study. The specific requirements or preferences of your reviewing publisher, classroom teacher, institution or organization should be applied. The E-mail Address es field is required. Please enter recipient e-mail address es. The E-mail Address es you entered is are not in a valid format.

Please re-enter recipient e-mail address es. You may send this item to up to five recipients. The name field is required.