"CHARACTER OF HETTY SORREL"

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The name “George Eliot” was the pseudonym of Mary Ann Evans. Eliot was born in 1819 at the estate of her father’s employer in Chilvers Coton, Warwickshire, England. Because of her father’s important role as the manager, Eliot was given permission to spend time in the estate’s library, where she expanded her knowledge by reading. As a young girl she was educated at the local school and then at boarding school. Eliot was deeply religious throughout her childhood and adolescence because of her pious family background and the influence of the evangelical Maria Lewes, one of her instructors at boarding school. When Eliot was seventeen, her mother died and Eliot came home to care for her father. In 1841, Eliot and her father moved to Coventry. While living in Coventry, Eliot met Charles and Caroline Bray, who led her to question her faith by introducing her to new religious and political ideas.
Eliot’s personal life likely influenced Adam Bede in several ways. First, the portrayal of Methodists as a positive social force possibly stems from Eliot’s own rejection of some organized religions. While Methodism is an organized religion, Eliot was particularly drawn to the religion’s belief that salvation is possible for all people through personal effort. Second, the character of Dinah, who is strong and powerful beyond normal social conventions, is perhaps inspired by Eliot’s own willingness to step outside normal social convention in her common-law marriage to Lewes and her novel writing. Finally, the sardonic tone that the narrator takes toward social convention and the “lady reader” suggests a rejection of tradition. Such a rejection fits with Eliot’s life, in which she was criticized for moving in with her lover and rejecting traditional religion because its tenets could not be derived by reason.
Eliot drew the plot of Adam Bede from the death of Mary Voce, who was executed in 1802 for killing her child. Eliot’s Methodist aunt told her about Voce, whom her aunt visited and converted in jail. According to Eliot’s account of the writing of the novel, the character of Dinah Morris is based very loosely on Eliot’s aunt, and Adam Bede himself is based very loosely on Eliot’s father as a young man. Eliot’s detailed and insightful psychological portrayals of her characters, as well as her exploration of the complex ways these characters confront moral dilemmas, decisively broke from the plot-driven domestic melodrama that had previously served as the standard for the Victorian novel. Adam Bede is widely considered to be one of the best examples of realism in English literature. Realism concerns itself with recording life exactly as it is, not with inventing plots or characters to fit with a preconceived notion of how the world ought to be. Realist literature dominated in England for about fifty years beginning around 1840. The American expatriate author Henry James, another realist writer, considered Eliot to be one of the most profound influences in his writing. Realists usually focus more on characters than on plot, and Adam Bedetypifies this throughout. Methodism also plays an important role in Adam Bede