Itinerant Methodist Preacher - Character and Symbol in Eliots Adam Bede - Research Paper Example

Itinerant Methodist Preacher - Character and Symbol in Eliot’s Adam Bede About the book, Adam Bede, by George Eliot (aka Mary Evans), it is often noted that the character of Dinah was modeled after Mary’s aunt, Elizabeth Evans. Elizabeth was an itinerant Methodist minister, and she was the source of a novel-generating true-life prison tale. It is reasonable that Dinah was also an itinerant Methodist minister. No further analysis of why Dinah was an itinerant Methodist minister would likely be called for, on the surface of things. However, discussion with a friend whose grandfather was a circuit-riding Methodist minister in America has given me some exposure to the alleged romanticism and challenges of that occupation and its historical context. That, combined with the fact that Mary Evans was a respected scholar, and not simply a bored housewife who wrote a story, has led me to suspect that the assignation of Dinah to her particular religious practice was an intentional device in the story, and not merely a by-product of George Eliot’s aunt being a model for the character. This thought has given me an urge to look more deeply into the symbolism of Dinah’s religious occupation. This paper will concern itself with that symbolism, and with the function of that symbolism in the book, Adam Bede. This was George Eliot’s first novel [Wie77], and perhaps she brought her aunt and wandering Methodism into the story as a kind of blessing or good luck charm, a way of bringing God’s grace onto the book. Mary Evans, after all, was raised in a strict Methodist household, which she eventually rejected, based partially on her friendship with two philosopher friends [Wie77]. Yet one cannot absolutely erase one’s early religious socialization, even though Eliot later found ways to graciously integrate it without losing herself. In fact, her first published work was a translation of Das Leben Jesu (The Life of Jesus) by the German religious philosopher D. F. Strauss [Wie77]. Her poetry reflected religious and moral themes. Her last novel was Daniel Derondo, in which the hero discovers and affirms his Jewish heritage[Wie77]. She claimed no particular religious affiliation, but was attracted to religious exploration, personal responsibility and the betterment of humanity[Wie77]. That commitment is at the core of Jewish tradition and also at the core of Methodism . Methodism comes from a Greek term, methodos, which refers to the pursuit of knowledge [Geo56]. In a sense, the whole story is a quest for knowledge: Hetty’s knowledge of herself, what she did and what it meant; Dinah’s knowledge of herself as a woman, not only as a preacher; Adam’s knowledge about who is worthy of his love; and the villagers’ eyes, emphasized strongly, which substitute for the all-seeing, all-knowing eyes of God. Even the fictional setting of Hayslope, in Loamshire and Snowfield, in Stonyshire calls up the Christian symbolic antithetical relationship of the original paradise and the exile from paradise. Hayslope is like the Garden of Eden [Geo56], in which the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was located. It is paradise. The land is fertile. The people understand each other. Everyone has, or can get, what they need. That is where Hetty and Adam live. It is quite opposite from the Snowfield reality, where living is difficult, the earth is less fertile, and the people have to work and suffer. This is reminiscent of the exile into which God condemned Adam and Eve for eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. In Adam Bede, however, it is the itinerant preacher, Dinah, who lives in Snowflake, in exile from family and friends, due to her calling. It is a rebel calling and has exposed her to a consciousness-raising every bit as critical as that associated with Eden’s Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. She is passionate about her religious occupation and the use of it as a tool to comfort and help people to grow. Methodists were, at the time this story was set in, a radical group that was splitting off from the Anglican Church. The Wesley brothers, who established the movement, used itinerant preachers to spread their evangelistic message and call for repentance. These preachers held services in the open spaces, in nature, without the prop of a sanctuary and visual iconography. Dinah was a rebel in another way, as well. She was a woman, and itinerant Methodist preachers were more often (though not exclusively) male [Uni12]. She is exceptionally pretty, so she did not choose to pursue her religious occupation out of an inability to compete in the female arena. There is a certain intrigue with a woman itinerant Methodist minister at that time because women were mostly intended to stay home. Indeed Mrs Poysner, her aunt, wanted her to stay, but she did not. Dinah is Eliot’s most confident female character and Methodism reflected the confidence of rebels. The Methodists did not form a separate denomination in England until after John Wesley's death in 1791. Eliot wrote this book in 1859 but set the story in 1799. This was just eight years after Wesley’s death. It was one year before the split from the Anglican Church, and four years before the heavy restriction on Methodist women, that they are only allowed to teach or preach to women [Uni12]. The historical period, in which the book was written, was a time of great religious change, moving from strict religious piety to more sophisticated (less supernaturally literal) philosophical reasoning [Chr75]. In fact, Adam Bede was published the same year that “Origin of Species” was published. The historical period that provided the setting for the story was a time of great religious change also, as the Methodists were splitting from the Anglican Church, which had previously represented God and morality to the masses. This tension was symbolically introduced in the novel through the character of Dinah. Eliot seems quite comfortable in her writing when she places into sustained dialogue religious conviction and moral agnosticism, sin and redemption, freedom of action and repentance. Adam Bede certainly revealed this dialogue and its tensions. Adam is in love with Hetty. Hetty has her eyes on Arthur. Dinah is committed only to God and serving others. Yet finally, by the end of the novel, Hetty is saved from “the wages of sin” (death) by Arthur’s heroic and messianic intervention, and Dinah is happily married to Adam. What happened in between these two points was Hetty’s premarital relations and illegitimate pregnancy, followed by her act of infanticide, a sin that separated her from the love of the community. Dinah’s redemptive compassion, followed by Hetty’s confession and repentance, brought things to a point where Arthur’s rescue could have redemptive meaning, as opposed to just a piece of luck. From one perspective, the gospel message is revealed, in that Dinah represents the love of God and Arthur is the means by which death can be overcome. This perspective is made more credible by making Dinah Morris an itinerant Methodist preacher. Hetty’s and Dinah’s orphan status, together with Dinah’s itinerancy and Arthur’s militia mobilization, suggests a transpersonal level of experience, an external source of salvation, a strategy of being saved through grace only. There is another resolution, at the end of the book, where Adam and Dinah realize they are in love and marry, and the Methodist men decide Dinah should give up preaching and stay home (Gates 412). This mirrors the compromise between Wesley and the Methodist leadership partners. There were differences of opinion about whether preaching should be done outside the church or inside the church . The eventual split within the leadership of the new Methodism, and later the doctrinal compromise, and the healing of the split friendship among them, was a powerful resolution after a long time of relationship deprivation [Uni12]. Relationship deprivation was a theme throughout the book. Adam loved Hetty, but could not have her because she was interested in the dashing Captain Arthur. Hetty couldn’t have Arthur because he resolved a fight over her, with Adam, by agreeing to let go, and he left. Then when Hetty finally agreed to marry Adam, and it was just before the wedding, Hetty found out she was pregnant. At that point, she went in search of Arthur, but he was unavailable and inaccessible. Relationship deprivation also characterized Hetty and her baby. She gave birth without family and friends for support. The baby depended upon her for milk, love and shelter, but she abandoned the baby in a field. When she changed her mind and went back for the baby, the baby was dead from exposure. The memory of her baby’s cry, a plea for relationship, haunts Hetty. The early Methodists believed in social responsibility, as the current Methodists still do. They were known for going into the prisons and circulating among the less fortunate, to bring compassion, repentance and forgiveness. Dinah also did this. She went into the prison to bring compassion and, out of that compassion, repentance. She heard Hetty’s confession of infanticide, just as Mary Evans’ Aunt Elizabeth had heard the original confession from a girl in prison. Compassionate listening, without egocentric judgment, brought forgiveness, no doubt, in both cases. Dinah was a dedicated source of comfort. She comforted the sick and the widows of the dead. She took personal interest in those who came to hear her. For example, when she went to the jail, insisting she be allowed to see the condemned Hetty, she met a man, from whom she asked assistance. He was a magistrate, and he recognized her as the woman he had earlier seen preaching outdoors. She remembered that he had been on horseback, listening to the preaching. Standing in front of the jail would have intimidated a less courageous woman. Yet the narrator informs us, in Chapter XLV, that: “There was no agitation visible in her, but a deep concentrated calmness, as if, even when she was speaking, her soul was in prayer reposing on an unseen support [Geo091].” This is a Spirit-filled woman. In Protestant Christianity, the Holy Spirit is the personal support and guide within each Christian. Known as a “Comforter,” this Holy Spirit is part of the triune Godhead. It is the post-redemption, post-resurrection personal part of God that is part of the heritage of being a Christian. Making use of a character who modeled this connection to Spirit, supported George Eliot’s argument for spiritual tradition and moral values as part of the socially responsible person, in the absence of \God as threat, God as controller, God as a literal invader into personal decision-making and philosophical inquiry. Furthermore, including a Spirit-filled Methodist preacher woman as a major character in Eliot’s story affirms the most primary relationship a Methodist can have, a personal relationship with God. This counterbalances intellectual sophistication and even moral agnosticism. It is a beacon of hope and inspiration in the pain of relationship deprivation, like that encountered in Adam Bede. It has been pointed out that, at first glance, George Eliot’s Adam Bede would, for most people, present an old-fashioned country tale of simpler times [Chr75]. In fact, Eliot herself referred to it as “a country story” and “full of the breath of cows and the scent of hay (Eliot 387).” In the first browsing, the pages seem to be filled with characters one might expect to find in an opera performance, people who have personal chaos and issues, people who look for solutions to life in a variety of forms, people who are amusing and entertaining to engage with. They wear the costumes and speak the language that involves us in another way of thinking. They at first seem to promise a momentary escape from our own situations, like any novel, only better. However, the book is actually and also an important ideological dialogue. There are two very clear perspectives straddled by George Eliot. Those two perspectives include traditional beliefs and values and connection to Spirit, and the positivistic and agnostic movement that represented the overthrow of those beliefs. George Eliot is both a Sunday School child and a Victorian scholar, a child of God and a child of man. So, on the one hand, George Eliot has written a novel about country folk, love and seduction, friendship and loyalty, tragic lapses in judgment, the strength and weakness of women, the strength and weakness of men, relationship deprivation, and the foolishness that distracts people, etc. On the other hand, George Eliot has written an elaborate philosophical argument about the polarizing issues of her time: about rebellion and socio-cultural revolution, about the Church, its vulnerability and strength, the power of Spirit over mere intellect, the internalization or externalization of salvation, repentance and redemption, sin and grace, compassion and forgiveness. The inclusion of a female itinerant Methodist preacher was a highly effective tool through which George Eliot skillfully produced her intellectual and spiritual craft. Works Cited Wie77: , (Wiesenfarth), Wie77: , (Wiesenfarth), Geo56: , (Creeger), Uni12: , (University of Manchester), Chr75: , (Herbert), Geo091: , (George Eliot), Read More