• PIYALI DAS

By the middle of the nineteenth century, it was felt by the Victorian people that Women should take the lead in regenerating the industrial society and in bringing back the moral purity. A longing was expressed for stable values, by men and women alike. They looked back to the re-establishment of pre-industrial moral standards and for this, women were offered a new role as the standard bearers of morality. Each sex was to have its distinct sphere of influence and be complementary to each other. Woman's superior morality was to match man's superior reasoning. The woman's work was the work of the spirit, her reward was spiritual, not financial. Thus, by the cultivation of such characteristics like self-denial, forbearance, fidelity - women were to teach or rather to show how to live in virtue. They were to do this, not by preaching moral values in public, but by manifesting them in homes, by the magic of their voice, look, word and all the graces of woman's tenderness. George Eliot was respected for her teachings and the novels can be seen to a certain extent - as parables in which the new attitudes to human experience are focused and defined. The novels are case studies of morality where the characters are put under test and the readers taking their lessons from those lives learn to live more generously themselves. So, one of the main purpose of her novels is to examine the process of enlargement in the lives of certain exceptional people. Instead of freedom from the imprisoning conditions of the past, they choose eventually to go back to simple family or social duties. This is done by the central women characters of her novels, who are ultimately installed as the paragon of moral virtue and at the same time to be the upholders of the values specially codified for the Victorian woman. Placed in this background, I am going to analyze the widely acclaimed novel of George Eliot, Adam Bede. The novel has two complementary themes - morality and humanism - portrayed in the character of Dinah Morris. Through her, Eliot works out her belief in the religion of humanity and at the same time placing her belief on this particular woman to be the upholder of morality, which has been discussed already to be the most important characteristic of the Victorian Woman. Eliot is also trying to save as much as she can of the truth in the older religion, through writing from the point of view of the new ideology. Though the breakdown of the old Christian certainties had led to the general religious crisis and produced the symptoms of anxiety and despair, Eliot was able to rise above a merely personal response to the new situation. Through her teaching she was able to connect the old religion with the new, and thus to bring back the lost faith in human beings. This is what is done by Dinah exactly in the novel, of infusing hope in the life of the people all around her.

"Dinah Morris: The Paragon of Moral Virtue, in George Eliot’s Adam Bede", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.9, Issue 8, page no.e193-e195, August-2022, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR2208422.pdf

"Dinah Morris: The Paragon of Moral Virtue, in George Eliot’s Adam Bede", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.9, Issue 8, page no. ppe193-e195, August-2022, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR2208422.pdf