Christopher Booker is a scholar who wrote that every story falls into one of seven basic plot structures: Overcoming the Monster, Rags to Riches, the Quest, Voyage and Return, Comedy, Tragedy, and Rebirth. Shmoop explores which of these structures fits this story like Cinderella’s slipper.
Plot Type : Comedy
Confusion, Uncertainty, or Frustration
Hayslope isn't exactly in the middle of the Mayan Apocalypse, but Eliot wastes no time at all applying shock after shock to this placid community of farmers and craftsmen. There's Dinah, rattling the rustics with her "pain and trouble," fire-and-brimstone preaching (2.41). There's Thias Bede, who up and dies and sends the whole Bede household into a tizzy. But most importantly, there's the Arthur and Hetty dalliance. Where do we even begin with the "confusion, uncertainty, and frustration" that this one kicks up?
Arthur and Hetty break social boundaries, hide from their fellow Hayslopians, and just about blow poor Adam Bede's feelings to smithereens. Adam fights mightily to end their smooching, and starts courting Hetty again, which: weird.
And then, Hayslope gets hit by an ocean liner full of even more "confusion, uncertainty, and frustration."
Nightmarish Situation
Somewhere during the "dalliance with Arthur" stage, Hetty got pregnant. Whoops. Now, Hetty flees home in fear and shame. She spends chapters stumbling around a version of England that's about as cheery as a Lars Von Trier movie. Life itself is a "hated hopeless labour" (37.2). And somewhere in the middle of this, she abandons and kills her newborn child.
And the nightmare spreads. Adam is ferocious and distraught. Arthur is overcome with guilt and tries to set things right: he succeeds in saving Hetty from being executed for her crime. But all Arthur's horses and all Arthur's men can't put Hayslope back together again. The damage is too deep.
Community Restored
So Arthur decides to politely exit the scene and let the remaining Hayslopers set things right themselves. And that they do! Adam grows back into his old, ambitious self. He even brings Dinah, once a bit of a rabble-rouser, into the fold as his newly wedded wife.
Arthur gets to return (even though he spent, what, seven years abroad?), and Hetty is invited back from exile (even though she dies during the trip home, oops). But Hayslope as a whole has become a wiser, gentler, more hopeful place. And with that, the "confusion, uncertainty, and frustration" wagon packs up its wares and quietly leaves town.