Literary Devices in Adam Bede
Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory
Setting
Micro-SettingHayslope is a peaceful, fairly predictable place, where farmers and craftsmen live in peace with their social "superiors." Here, the only person who's likely to break into song and dan...
Narrator Point of View
There are omniscient narrators, and then, there are omniscient narrators. And the narrator of Adam Bede is the second—as omniscient as omniscient gets. Seriously people, this narrator drops refer...
Genre
Time for a word problem: if a book published in 1859 describes events that take place between 1799 and 1807, does that make it historical fiction? The possible answers are 1) Ten pencils and seven...
Tone
Eliot's narrator runs as hot and cold as a mid-2000s Katy Perry song. On the one hand, our narrator has no trouble calling characters stupid, greedy, fat, delusional, you name it. You'll usually ge...
Writing Style
If you've read Adam Bede, you've probably had to spend a fair amount of time trudging through sentences like:Desire is chastened into submission, and we are contented with our day when we have been...
What's Up With the Title?
Easy-peasy time. The protagonist of David Copperfield is David Copperfield; the protagonist of Jane Eyre is Jane Eyre, and the protagonist of Adam Bede is (you guessed it) Adam Bede. Title characte...
What's Up With the Epigraph?
So that ye may haveClear images before your gladdened eyesOf nature's unambitious underwoodAnd flowers that prosper in the shade. And whenI speak of such among the flock as swervedOr fell, those on...
What's Up With the Ending?
Adam was silent a little while, and then said, "It was very cutting when we first saw one another. He'd never heard about poor Hetty till Mr. Irwine met him in London, for the letters missed him on...
Tough-o-Meter
Make no mistake: Adam Bede is not a book for the faint of heart, memory, or vocabulary. Confusing dialects? Convoluted, metaphor-rich digressions? Minor characters who, inexplicably, get described...
Plot Analysis
Adam Bede spends most his life living in a Peasant's Paradise. And for twenty-odd chapters, you get to live in it with him. George Eliot spends her sweet time introducing us to the folks in Hayslop...
Booker's Seven Basic Plots Analysis
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 t...
Trivia
Lena Dunham is a George Eliot fan. And she doesn't approve of the George Eliot Wikipedia page. (Source.)What do socialists and Lena Dunham have in common? They both dig on George Eliot; that's what...
Steaminess Rating
If steaminess referred to either crazy English dialect or tangents about Methodism, well hoo boy. We'd slap this novel with a XXX rating and shove it into a shady-looking black plastic bag.But that...
Allusions
Letters of Saint Paul (3.4)Book of Genesis (4.71)Book of Psalms (5.33)Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth, Lyrical Ballads (5.59)Sophocles and Theocritus (5.64)Gospel Tale of Martha and...