Most good stories start with a fundamental list of ingredients: the initial situation, conflict, complication, climax, suspense, denouement, and conclusion. Great writers sometimes shake up the recipe and add some spice.
Exposition (Initial Situation)
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 Hayslope. The official icebreakers wrap up with Bartle Massey somewhere in Chapter 21, and even then we still haven't met the old guy who runs the town. Could the real Squire Donnithorne please stand up? To keep us hooked, Eliot trots out Adam, Arthur, and their dilemmas fairly early. Which brings us to...
Rising Action (Conflict, Complication)
By Chapter 3, we've got characters singing "Hetty and Adam sittin' in a tree!"—ahem, talking cordially but properly about Adam's affection for Hetty.
But it's somewhere in Chapter 7, when Arthur glimpses Hetty, that the "conflict, complication" sparks really start to fly. From here, Eliot takes our three favorite love triangulators through plenty of ups and downs. We see Arthur court Hetty, Adam court Hetty, Adam fight Arthur, Adam fight...err...court Hetty.
All these ups and downs must be giving Hetty motion sickness, because eventually she gives up and decides to pity-marry Adam.
Climax (Crisis, Turning Point)
Did you think the Arthur versus Adam fistfight was our climax? Ha. Hahaha. Little did you know, the other, real climax has been brewing in the background: Arthur went and impregnated Hetty. (We just handed you several dozen "climax" jokes on a silver platter there.)
Eliot's real (literary, you sickos) climax involves Hetty's distressed flight from Hayslope, her desperate act of child murder, and her trial. The tension spikes around Chapter 36 and just keeps rising.
And we may as well tell you that Hetty is found guilty and sentenced to death. It's the end of her life, her story, her everything. Until Arthur shows up with a pardon. Now Hetty is simply sentenced to exile. Hooray?
Falling Action
Would you look at that. After screwing everything up, Arthur rides in and saves the day. Then rides off again into… self-imposed exile from Hayslope.
Now that he's rid of the man who 1) took his gal and 2) sent him into a semi-murderous rage, Adam can focus on bigger and better things. Like kicking the whole carpentry gig up a notch. And like Dinah Morris. In the final stages of Adam Bede, Adam's affection for Dinah (and, Dinah's affection for Adam) really takes off.
But will Dinah overcome her religious scruples? Will Adam get over Hetty? Will any of this send Seth—who lurved Dinah—into his own semi-murderous rage?
Resolution (Denoument)
Home at last! After all his troubles, Adam gets Dinah's undying love, his brother's undying companionship, and a chance to raise his own family. Arthur gets to come back. But don't think everything's okay: Adam has lost Hetty, Arthur is a changed man, and we still feel a bit motion-sick. But Eliot's characters have figured out a way to live peaceably and productively. Adam forgives Arthur. Life goes on.