Adam’s
education and Growth to Maturity though a process of suffering
Introduction: Critic after critic
has expressed that Adam is too good to be sure. It is said he is a perfect
human being, GEORGE ELIOT’s ideal, fully matured and enlightened from the
beginning. But the truth is otherwise. A moment’s reflection shows that he is
proud, hard and self-righteous with little sympathy for ordinary sinners like
most common people. As a matter of fact, the novel traces that process by which
he gradually sheds his faults – of his education, enlightenment and
maturity though a process of suffering and love and becomes a complete man
towards the end. The process of his education occupies the center of
the novel.
Hard, Proud and Self-righteous:
There can be no denying the fact that Adam is hard and self-righteous. In the
first chapter we are told, “The idle tramps always felt sure they could geta
copper from Seth; they scarcely ever spoke to Adam” This is a flaw, if not
serious one, in Adam’s innocence, his confidence that he is righteous and soft
for every one. He doesn’t knowingly wrong any one, but he doesn’t hesitate to
hurt. He is convinced of the clarity of his vision and his understanding, “I’ve
seen pretty clear, ever since I could cast up a sum.” The process of his education and
self-realization starts from the encounter between Arthur and Hetty (give
details). George Creeger says, “Adam may be intelligent, diligent, loyal and
trustworthy, but he is not yet a matured man. This is so because head
overweighs the heart. He is stern, stiff and harsh, intolerant, huffy and
humorless. He gradually learns the ropes of life.” The reason is that Adam is
not fully involved emotionally with either his father or Arthur. Therefore, he
can neither participate in their plight nor understand it. What is necessary
for Adam is that he should get his heart-strings bound round the weak and
erring, but their inward suffering. Precisely, such an emotional involvement
exists for Adam in his relationship with Hetty. The relationship is not a
rational one; rather it is a passion which overmasters him. Adam’s
heart-strings are bound fast to Hetty.
His suffering: As a result of his
emotional involvement, Adam suffers and learns to share the suffering of
others. He suffers when he thinks that Hetty has run away to Arthur to avoid
the approaching marriage and he suffers still more when he learns that Hetty
has been arrested for her child-murder. He suffers from deep spiritual anguish,
but his response is different from that of Hetty where she sank into passivity
and inaction and he behaved the otherwise and lusts for revenge. Hetty’s
hardness is due to selfishness, so she has no will, but Adam’s hardness is due
to pride she he remains active.
Regeneration through Agents:
At this crisis in his life
there is yet the possibility for regeneration through a human agent exercising the
power of love. Adam’s suffering is indeed a precondition for his regeneration.
The agent is a double one. Mr. Irwine and Bartle Massey are both fully matured
men. They do what they can to help Adam in his misery. Sensing in him a
potential for violence and a desire to take revenge on Arthur, they seek to
divert him. Irwine uses the power of reason, arguing that to injure Arthur will
not help Hetty and that passionate violence will lead only to another crime.
Adam agrees, but it is not full acceptance. The full acceptance is brought
about by Bartle Massey. The scene takes place in Stoniton and Adam comes here
to comprehend the necessity for compassion and forgiveness in life and thereby
achieves what GEORGE ELIOT calls an awakening to “full consciousness” and
participates in a kind of symbolic supper. Before relating the latest news of
Hetty’s trial Bartle says, “I must see to your having a bit of the loaf. I must
have a bit and a sup myself. Drink a drop with me, my lad.” At first,
Adam’s feelings are bitter for his own sufferings and his is first in
his revenge, but as Bartle speaks, his hardness melts and he gradually declares
that he will go to the court and stand by Hetty. Adam also took a morsel and
drank some wine sent by Mr. Irwine and stood upright again looked more like the
Adam Bede of the former days.
Education through Suppers:
GEORGE ELIOT was an intellectual and philosophical novelist and is much
influenced by the views of Feuerbach whose The Essence of Christianity she
translated into English. Feuerbach points out the religious significance
of water, wine and bread. For him these agents are sacred. Water is sacred for
it reminds us the common factor between the rich and the poor. So water is
symbolic of our oneness with nature. This is the symbolic significance of
baptism. Wine and bread are material though provided by nature; demonstrate
man’s superiority over the low creatures. Hence, the sacrament of
baptism in which only water is used is for the children, the immature and the
Lord’s Supper in which wine is drunk and bread is taken is for the mature and
the grown-up, symbolic of his manhood, of his distinction from the animals.
Hunger and thirst destroy man’s humanity, taking of bread and wine restores to
him his humanity. This truth is symbolically demonstrated in the novel through
suppers which restore to Adam his humanity, his mental and moral powers
conducing to his social, personal and moral education. In the first
supper, Adam finishes the coffin which his father has failed to complete. He
refuses to eat the food that his mother offers to him, but allows his hungry
dog to devour his. Soon he calls for light and a draught of water and admits
that he is getting very thirsty. Adam works on, unaware that the intoxicated
father to whom he feels to superior has died a watery death. The symbol of
water like the parallel between man and dog is designed to remind Adam of his
origin from Nature, “an origin which we have in common with plants and animals.”
Adam’s ignorance of the second rule manifests itself at the supper which takes
place during the young Squire’s birthday feast. Adam sits upstairs at the
Squire’s table, no longer drinking water, but the rich Loamshire ale. He
accepts a toast in which Arthur Donnithorne, the seducer of Adam’s bride,
wishes him to have “sons as faithful and clever as himself.” The irony is
obvious. Proud of his new capacity as keeper of the woods, Adam must still
learn that his full humanity can only be celebrated though his distinction from
nature. Arthur and Hetty, the natural creatures he surprises in the woods he
keeps, force upon him that suffering which alone can elevate man above the
lower creatures. The last and the most significant supper in this symbolic
sequence marks the attainment of maturity on Adam’s part.
Regeneration & Maturity of
Adam through love: Adam’s decision to stand by Hetty, an expression of his old
love for her and his new willingness to involve his life with the suffering of
others, has two consequences. It leads to his being able to forgive
Arthur and it makes him capable of a new sort of love. He realizes that truth
that “Love doesn’t exist without sympathy and sympathy does not exist without
suffering in common”. For many the love which subsequently grows between Dinah
and Adam (as well as their marriage) seems an anti-climax. While granting
that GEORGE ELIOT has some difficulty in focusing that conclusion. Henry James,
“I cannot agree that it is an artistic weakness. Without is one is left with
two of the principal figures – Adam and Dinah still incomplete human beings.
They have suffered in common. They have in common the painful memories of
Hetty; such common suffering gives rise to mutual sympathy. Love follows such
sympathy and it is in the fitness of things that they should come together and
get married.” This love leads to the fulfillment of his personality,
and the process of his growth and maturity is completed. There is now a full
integration of head and heart.
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