Adam Bede Revisited: Social Stigma and the Formation of Deviant Identity Cover Image

Adam Bede Revisited: Social Stigma and the Formation of Deviant Identity
Adam Bede Revisited: Social Stigma and the Formation of Deviant Identity

Author(s): Nora Bonner, Elham Shayegh
Subject(s): Studies of Literature, Other Language Literature
Published by: Wydział Filologiczny Uniwersytetu w Białymstoku
Keywords: stigmatization; social identity; gaze; realism/naturalism; ethics in narrative style

Summary/Abstract: In Adam Bede, George Eliot explores the way a society divides its members into categories and how these categories contribute to the formation of an individual’s identity. In the mid-nineteenth century, authors in the naturalist tradi-tion often discussed this dialogical relationship between individual and society, the specific roles for social gaze, the labeling and degrading. Eliot shows an acute of these labels that no one shapes identity without their influence. Ac-cording to Nancy Anne Marck, Adam Bede introduces the theme of “emerging social consciousness” where the charac-ters gain broader awareness of human interdependence through an experience of suffering (447). This is particularly evident when examining Eliot’s characters of “lesser fortune.” Once we have investigated how Eliot portrays these negative social forces throughout the novel, the labeling and the stigmatization, we will return to how Eliot addresses the larger question permeating her novel of education: how one judges another against the backdrop of community values.

  • Issue Year: 2015
  • Issue No: 01 (8)
  • Page Range: 4-10
  • Page Count: 7
  • Language: English