If you're reading this, chances are you've (at one time or another) wondered why your family won't just get off your back. About homework, or chores, or curfews, or any of the irritating details of everyday family life.
If you have to deal with annoyances like these, then you must have a pretty good picture of family life in Adam Bede. Yes, Eliot does bring her Bedes, Poysers, and Donnithornes to the brink of catastrophe. But she is superb at giving littler conflicts the weight they deserve—and at showing how family bonds trump all sorts of conflicts, big and small.
Questions About Family
- Do we ever get a picture of a totally happy or totally unhappy family in Adam Bede? What are some problems faced by relatively happy families (such as the Poysers)? What are some of the good moments enjoyed by relatively unhappy families (such as the Bedes early on)?
- What is the most important bond in Adam Bede—family, class, or community? Do family bonds ever weaken or compromise class or community bonds?
- Which characters in Adam Bede seem unsuited to family life? Do qualities that aren't necessarily bad, such as individualism and self-confidence, ever cause Eliot's characters to distrust family values?
- How permanent do the families in Adam Bede appear to be? Does it look like the Bedes, the Donnithornes, or the Poysers are going to be around for generations to come? Or are these families probably in decline?
Chew on This
Throughout her novel, George Eliot reminds us of the precariousness of family happiness. Home life is based on a sense of security. Yet, as the fates of the Poysers and the Bedes show, these presumptions of permanence can be rapidly and unexpectedly overturned.
Family bonds are the foundation of the secure Hayslope society depicted in Adam Bede. In fact, Eliot's characters often apply good household practices to the community at large, which often seems like a "family" of massive proportions.