George Eliot 2. Genre and Justice

The second lecture in the series on George Eliot considers how narrative justice operates in relation to the genres of comedy and tragedy, particularly in 'Adam Bede' and 'Daniel Deronda'. The lecture identifies the disproportionate amount of suffering experienced by the women in Eliot's fiction in comparison to the men; an issue which has long been a bone of contention for feminist critics. Dr Catherine Brown discusses Eliot's belief that one's happiness and contentment should always be qualified by the knowledge that, at any given moment, others are experiencing misery.