Middlemarch · Chapter
Chapter XX explained
Dorothea, now in Rome with Mr.
What happens
Dorothea, now in Rome with Mr. Casaubon, experiences profound disillusionment and loneliness six weeks after her marriage. Surrounded by the overwhelming history and art of Rome, she feels isolated and misunderstood, weeping bitterly when alone. Her idealized vision of marriage and her husband crumbles as she realizes Mr. Casaubon's emotional coldness and absorption in his scholarly work. She struggles with self-blame and confusion, recognizing the gap between her youthful expectations and the reality of her wifely life.
Themes in this chapter
Marriage and Illusion
Dorothea's disillusionment with marriage is central; she contrasts her maiden dreams with the cold reality of Mr. Casaubon's emotional distance and the 'new real future' that replaces the imaginary.
Ambition and Frustration
Dorothea's yearning for knowledge and meaningful duty is frustrated by Mr. Casaubon's pedantic, uncommunicative scholarship and her own inability to connect with him.
Gender Roles and Women's Agency
Dorothea's emotional turmoil and self-accusation reflect the limited agency of women; she feels trapped in a wifely role that demands devotion despite her inner suffering.
Characters to notice
- Dorothea Brooke
Sobbing bitterly in her boudoir in Rome, feeling desolate and spiritually impoverished, struggling with the reality of her marriage and the overwhelming impressions of Rome.
- Edward Casaubon
Remains emotionally distant and absorbed in his studies at the Vatican; makes a stilted, formal speech to Dorothea about Rome and marriage, revealing his lack of empathy.
- Tantripp
Dorothea's maid, who accompanies her on drives in Rome when Mr. Casaubon is occupied.
Key passages
“A child forsaken, waking suddenly, Whose gaze afeard on all things round doth rove, And seeth only that it cannot see The meeting eyes of love.”
A child who wakes up alone and frightened, looking around but only realizing that the loving eyes it seeks are not there.
The epigraph sets the tone for Dorothea's isolation and longing for emotional connection in her marriage.
“She had married the man of her choice, and with the advantage over most girls that she had contemplated her marriage chiefly as the beginning of new duties.”
Unlike most girls, Dorothea saw marriage not as a romantic escape but as the start of a life of service and responsibility.
Highlights Dorothea's idealistic and dutiful approach to marriage, which now clashes with her emotional reality.
“The fact is unalterable, that a fellow-mortal with whose nature you are acquainted solely through the brief entrances and exits of a few imaginative weeks called courtship, may, when seen in the continuity of married companionship, be disclosed as something better or worse than what you have preconceived, but will certainly not appear altogether the same.”
It is an unchangeable truth that a person you only know through the short, romantic period of courtship will reveal a different self when you live with them day after day in marriage.
The narrator reflects on the universal disillusionment that can follow marriage, as idealized perceptions give way to reality.
“Poor Mr. Casaubon himself was lost among small closets and winding stairs, and in an agitated dimness about the Cabeiri, or in an exposure of other mythologists’ ill-considered parallels, easily lost sight of any purpose which had prompted him to these labors.”
Mr. Casaubon was so absorbed in obscure scholarly details and criticizing other scholars that he forgot the original purpose of his work.
Illustrates Mr. Casaubon's pedantic and unproductive scholarship, which alienates Dorothea.