Yang Huang on George Eliot’s Middlemarch: Owning up

(Guest post by Yang Huang)

George Eliot’s Middlemarch changed the way I think about reckoning in fiction. A sprawling novel about provincial life in 19th century England, Middlemarch is endowed with an urgent plot and slow-burning character development. Eliot is not protective of her characters; she takes them to the cliff and makes them jump. Dorothea is a high-minded young woman who marries a shriveled old scholar. Mr. Casaubon suffers almost as much as Dorothea in their incompatible marriage; the spirited young wife, with all her good intentions, perhaps drives him to an early grave.

Eliot pushes her characters relentlessly and doesn’t let anyone off the hook. Even as she makes them suffer, she doesn’t go all out to punish them. The most striking example is with Mr. Bulstrode, the hypocrite in town. After his downfall, Bulstrode could lose everything and die a bitter man. Instead, the “imperfectly taught” Harriet, who has her own vanities, takes off all her ornaments, puts on a plain bonnet cap and black gown, and goes to her disgraced husband.

It was eight o’clock in the evening before the door opened and his wife entered. He dared not look up at her. He sat with his eyes bent down, and as she went towards him she thought he looked smaller—he seemed so withered and shrunken. A movement of new compassion and old tenderness went through her like a great wave, and putting one hand on his which rested on the arm of the chair, and the other on his shoulder, she said, solemnly but kindly— 

“Look up, Nicholas.” 

He raised his eyes with a little start and looked at her half amazed for a moment: her pale face, her changed, mourning dress, the trembling about her mouth, all said, “I know;” and her hands and eyes rested gently on him. He burst out crying and they cried together, she sitting at his side. They could not yet speak to each other of the shame which she was bearing with him, or of the acts which had brought it down on them. His confession was silent, and her promise of faithfulness was silent. Open-minded as she was, she nevertheless shrank from the words which would have expressed their mutual consciousness, as she would have shrunk from flakes of fire. She could not say, “How much is only slander and false suspicion?” and he did not say, “I am innocent.”

There isn’t a confession between them. Harriet cries with him during the most difficult time of their lives together. It is an extraordinarily moving scene and also true to life. In the real world, a person may choose to stand by their disgraced spouse in their time of need; they have the capacity to forgive and move beyond it. There is a chance for people to make amends, no matter how small. With Harriet’s support, Bulstrode owns up to his shame and invites Fred Vincy to live at his estate, so the young man has a chance to become a prosperous farmer and marry his childhood sweetheart.

A lesser writer could have missed this opportunity by punishing Bulstrode, even stabbing at him gratuitously. Eliot doesn’t make fun of her characters but pities them, feels for them, laughs and cries with them. So the human flaws that Eliot takes so much trouble exposing, be they jealousy, indecision, unsteadiness, or even deception, are fictional opportunities that can make people grow. Middlemarch feels like a story faithfully lived, and we eavesdrop on these remarkable people who live amongst us today.

Middlemarch shows me how to look into people, think and feel with them, rather than make my decisions for them. I realize the rebellious son, Feng, in my novel My Good Son is in some way like Fred Vincy. A temperamental young man, Feng appears to be selfish and irresponsible. I learned from Eliot not to judge him but to let him be. If Feng relents and acts properly, I lose the story, and worse, this doesn’t ring true to the character. People don’t change for the convenience of the story, although they can morph into another version of themselves.

In this scene, Feng begs his father to help his pregnant ex-girlfriend:  

“Dad, I want to ask you for a favor. If Little Ye ever comes to you for help, any sort of help, please give it to her.” Feng blew his nose into the kerchief. “Will you do that for me?” 

Mr. Cai nodded. There was no joy in becoming a grandparent like this, but he would have been more worried if Feng hadn’t asked for his help.

“Promise me you won’t turn her away as I did.” Feng’s eyes were brimming over with tears. “I’m begging you, because you’re a kinder man than I.”

 ***

Mr. Cai knew he and his wife would have to pick up the pieces after Feng had caused Little Ye great harm and sorrow. If Mr. Cai had failed his son, how could he have done any better, even in hindsight? Parenting was such a trap. Did Little Ye know about the risks that she was undertaking? Who would ever want to become a parent, if he knew every trouble ahead? 

Mr. Cai glimpsed a lamb kneeling on the hay to suckle, before the sheep pen flashed out of sight. Outside the train windows, monotonous rice fields stretched toward the horizon like a hand-knitted green blanket.

Like Eliot, I didn’t go all out to punish Feng and force moral responsibilities to create a happy ending. Feng is the fictional opportunity that makes people grow. As his parents and jilted lover take on the responsibilities, Feng has to live with the consequences for the rest of his life, well beyond the scope of the book, as I plan to write a sequel for his saga. When a person owns up to their decision, they have the potential to evolve beyond where punishment can befall them.

Yang Huang grew up in China and has lived in the United States since 1990. Her novel My Good Son won the University of New Orleans Publishing Lab Prize. The San Francisco Chronicle wrote that My Good Son is about "parental love...and the radical act of writing about ordinary life," and in their review The New York Times noted Huang's ability to realistically render "the generational push-pull of family life in post-Tiananmen China." Her linked story collection, My Old Faithful, won the Juniper Prize, and her debut novel, Living Treasures, won the Nautilus Book Award silver medal. Her essays, stories, and screenplay have appeared in Poets & Writers, Literary Hub, The Millions, Taste, The Margins, Asian Pacific American Journal, Stories for Film, and elsewhere. She works for the University of California, Berkeley, and lives in the Bay Area with her family.

Find out more at www.yanghuang.com.