Adam Bede – George Eliot
Adam is a young carpenter, who loves Hetty Sorrell, a pretty dairymaid, but finally marries Dinah Morris, a factory girl who becomes a Methodist preacher. Lisbeth Bede and Seth Bede are Adam’s mother and brother. Hetty Sorrell, who is vain and frivolous, is ruined by Arthur Donnithorne, a weak, good-natured young man, whose chief remorse lies in his chagrin at being found out. Another principal character is Mrs. Poyser, a hard-working woman living with her husband on one of Squire Donnithorne’s farms. She makes many shrewd observations that have become proverbial. ‘Adam Bede’ is likely to remain George Eliot’s most popular work. It is a story of which any English author, however great his name, could not fail to have been proud. Everything about it is at once simple and great, and the plot is unfolded with singular simplicity, purity and power.
Adam Bede
Adam Bede.
ISBN: 9783849673802.
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The characters in Adam Bede (from Wikipedia):
The Bede family:Adam Bede is described as a tall, stalwart, moral, and unusually competent carpenter. He is 26 years old at the beginning of the novel, and bears an “expression of large-hearted intelligence.”
Seth Bede is Adam’s younger brother, and is also a carpenter, but he is not particularly competent, and “…his glance, instead of being keen, is confiding and benign.”
Lisbeth Bede is Adam’s and Seth’s mother. She is “an anxious, spare, yet vigorous old woman, clean as a snowdrop.”
Thias (Matthias) Bede is Adam’s and Seth’s father. He has become an alcoholic, and drowns in Chapter IV while returning from a tavern.
Gyp is Adam’s dog, who follows his every move, and looks “..up in his master’s face with patient expectation.”
The Poyser family:Martin Poyser and his wife Rachel rent Hall Farm from Squire Donnithorne and have turned it into a very successful enterprise.
Marty and Tommy Poyser are their sons.
Totty Poyser is their somewhat spoiled and frequently petulant toddler.
“Old Martin” Poyser is Mr. Poyser’s elderly father, who lives in retirement with his son’s family.
Hetty Sorrel is Mr. Poyser’s orphaned niece, who lives and works at the Poyser farm. Her beauty, as described by George Eliot, is the sort “which seems made to turn the heads not only of men, but of all intelligent mammals, even of women.”
Dinah Morris is another orphaned niece of the Poysers. She is also beautiful – “It was one of those faces that make one think of white flowers with light touches of colour on their pure petals” – but has chosen to become an itinerant Methodist preacher, and dresses very plainly.
The Irwine family:Adolphus Irwine is the Rector of Broxton. He is patient and tolerant, and his expression is a “mixture of bonhomie and distinction”. He lives with his mother and sisters.
Mrs. Irwine, his mother, is “…clearly one of those children of royalty who have never doubted their right divine and never met with any one so absurd as to question it.”
Pastor Irwine’s youngest sister, Miss Anne, is an invalid. His gentleness is illustrated by a passage in which he takes the time to remove his boots before going upstairs to visit her, lest she be disturbed by noise. She and the pastor’s other sister Kate are unmarried.
The Donnithorne family:Squire Donnithorne owns an estate.
Arthur Donnithorne, his grandson, stands to inherit the estate; he is twenty years old at the opening of the novel. He is a handsome and charming sportsman.
Miss Lydia Donnithorne, the old squire’s daughter, is Arthur’s unmarried aunt.
Other charactersBartle Massey is the local schoolteacher, a misogynist bachelor who has taught Adam Bede.
Mr. Craig is the gardener at the Donnithorne estate.
Jonathan Burge is Adam’s employer at a carpentry workshop. Some expect his daughter Mary to make a match with Adam Bede.
Villagers in the area include Ben Cranage, Chad Cranage, his daughter Chad’s Bess, and Joshua Rann.
(The text of the last section was taken from a Wikipedia entry and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.)
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