Mr. Gilfil's Love-Story (chaps. 14-Epilogue) SCENES of CLERICAL LIFE (June 1857)

Dear Serial Readers,

On the lacking of the "clerical" in this story about Mr. Gilfil, the Shepperton rector who preceded Amos Barton of the first SCENE: maybe Eliot's point is that clerical life, like realism, is ordinary and secular. Notwithstanding the protracted botanical metaphor of Gilfil as a " whimsical misshapen trunk" (due to heartbreak over that "delicate plant" that died "in the struggle to put forth a blossom"--did Caterina die in childbirth?), this story concludes with the suggestion that Gilfil's "love-story" of long ago made him a better clergyman, a more compassionate presence than a doctrinal expert.

I found myself impatient with the story, and I'm not sure it was simply because I knew the ending near the outset (some of you know my agnosticism on readerly suspense). I found the writing at times too maudlin, overgrown with those botanical flourishes. I even had this suspicion: did Eliot write this story entirely, or did Lewes have a larger helping hand?

Yet here are some aspects that intrigued me:

*Caterina's dagger--her desire to murder Anthony, and Maynard's refusal to believe she would actually be capable of this deed--shades of other Eliotic women would-be or otherwise murderers (from Hetty Sorrel to Madame Laure and Gwendolen Harleth) and men who cannot fathom them as such.

*All the chapter divisions--this story has many very short chapters; I'm not sure what this means in terms of the serial parcel, but I found many sub-scenes within this larger scene.

*The verb tense shifts (as Julia noted)--the use of the present tense to generate suspense, excitement, or immediacy-- a way to insert the reader into the story.

*The scene shifts between humble homes and Cheverel Manor (between realism and romance), even between provincial England and Italy.

*There were elements that also reminded me of JANE EYRE (Caterina fleeing Cheverel Manor, and her vulnerability to the seductions of Anthony who cannot marry her) and AURORA LEIGH (the transplant of the Italian child onto English soil)

Next up: our third and final "SCENE"--"Janet's Repentance" (chaps 1-4).

Thanks, Kari, for mentioning the photographs from the 1907 edition. Are there ones that accompany the other stories in SCENES too?

Serially scenic,
Susan

"Mr. Gilfil's Love-Story" (chaps 1-2) SCENES (Mar. 1857)

Dear Serial Readers,

Picking up on Kari's comment about the good clergyman Cleves at the end of "Amos Barton," I find this story also recommends a model of the kind vicar who can make meaningful connections to his parish flock and isn't wedded to doctrinal principles. I see seeds of future Eliotic ministers in Maynard Gilfil--the generous Dr. Kenn in THE MILL ON THE FLOSS, the warm and intuitive Farebrother in MIDDLEMARCH, to name only a few.

While I can hear some of you SRs groaning about the plodding plot, the overwrought descriptions of Cheverel Manor (supposedly modeled on Arbury Hall, where Eliot's father Robert Evans was estate agent when she was a child), I do find interesting the narrative structure in this story. It works backwards from the time of "Amos Barton," as the opening mentions "old Mr. Gilfil died" thirty years earlier. Then we see the later years of Mr. Gilfil as the vicar who doesn't "shine in the more spiritual functions of his office" yet seems a better clergyman for all that then poor Amos B. The first chapter of this story concludes with hints about the love story of the vicar's now "wifeless existence" and the second chapter goes back several decades more to 1788 and young Gilfil's unrequited love for Caterina who is in love with the seductive Captain Wybrow who apparently has no intention of marrying her. I like this backward motion, even from "Amos Barton" to this story, and then again within this story. Eliot's interest in how to write the past surfaces in these early stories. But as for seriality, it's subtle perhaps.

Next time: chaps. 3-6 of "Mr. Gilfil's Love-Story."

Serially yours,
Susan