Portrait of Will's Grandmother
The portrait of Will's grandmother comes up again and again. Dorothea associates it with Will, because it looks like him, but it could also be seen as a symbol for unhappiness in marriage. It seems...
The Haunting of Raffles
The portrait of Will's grandmother isn't the only symbol of history coming back to haunt the present. Bulstrode's dodgy history comes back to haunt him in the form of Raffles. Raffles is the only o...
Horseback Riding
So many characters discuss horseback riding that it just has to be important. Dorothea gives it up at the beginning of the novel, even though she enjoys it, because she wants to concentrate on more...
Lending, Spending, and Debt
There's an awful lot of debt, both literal and figurative, in Middlemarch: Fred Vincy gets himself into trouble by persuading Caleb Garth to co-sign a loan that he isn't able to repay, Lydgate fall...