Middlemarch · Chapter
XVIII explained
Lydgate grapples with the decision of whom to support for the hospital chaplaincy, torn between his personal liking for Mr.
What happens
Lydgate grapples with the decision of whom to support for the hospital chaplaincy, torn between his personal liking for Mr. Farebrother and the practical advantages of siding with Mr. Bulstrode's preferred candidate, Tyke. He reflects on Farebrother's character and his own discomfort with the Vicar's gambling for money, while feeling the pressure of social and professional considerations.
Themes in this chapter
Ambition and Frustration
Lydgate's professional ambitions clash with the petty politics and moral compromises of Middlemarch society.
Money and Economic Pressure
Farebrother's need for the chaplaincy's forty pounds and his gambling for money highlight the economic constraints shaping character and decisions.
Selfishness and Moral Compromise
Lydgate's internal debate reveals the tension between self-interest and integrity in his vote for the chaplaincy.
Characters to notice
- Tertius Lydgate
Struggles with the chaplaincy vote, weighing his admiration for Farebrother against his own ambitions and Bulstrode's expectations.
- Camden Farebrother
Lydgate's friend and the Vicar of St. Botolph's, whose gambling for money and non-clerical pursuits create a moral dilemma for Lydgate.
- Nicholas Bulstrode
The banker and hospital patron, whose support for Tyke and expectation of loyalty pressure Lydgate's decision.
- Mr. Tyke
The curate candidate for the chaplaincy, supported by Bulstrode, though disliked by many for suspected cant.
Key passages
“Very few men could have been as filial and chivalrous as he was to the mother, aunt, and sister, whose dependence on him had in many ways shaped his life rather uneasily for himself; few men who feel the pressure of small needs are so nobly resolute not to dress up their inevitably self-interested desires in a pretext of better motives.”
Farebrother is exceptionally devoted to his female relatives, and unlike most people, he does not disguise his own self-interest with noble excuses.
Highlights Farebrother's integrity despite his financial struggles.
“For the first time Lydgate was feeling the hampering threadlike pressure of small social conditions, and their frustrating complexity.”
Lydgate experiences for the first time the suffocating influence of petty social obligations and their irritating complications.
Marks Lydgate's growing awareness of the constraints of provincial life.