Adam Bede gives us every religious viewpoint in the book: from the super-spiritual (Dinah) to the down-to-earth (Adam) to "Church is boring and I want to go home!" (Hetty). Eliot works very hard to really get inside each of these viewpoints… but she also creates a narrative that is huge, harrowing, and almost Biblical in scope.
Superstitions are verified, innocence is lost, communities drift apart and pull back together. So why not frame the monumental events of Adam Bede with the one monumental language all its characters know—the language of religion? That's just what Eliot's narrator does. Check the "Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory" section if you don't believe us.
Questions About Religion
- Whose religious views does Eliot's narrator appear to endorse? Mr. Irwine's? Dinah's? Adam's?
- Adam Bede features characters with religious beliefs that are very far apart, but are there any principles that all these characters agree on? Does Dinah ever see eye-to-eye with Mr. Irwine? Does Adam ever praise Mr. Ryde?
- Adam Bede is, in many ways, a novel about a particular historical moment. Can a non-expert appreciate and understand all the religious references in Adam Bede? And now that you've read it, do you feel like an expert on the religious situation in 1799 Britain?
- Do religious beliefs ever lead Eliot's characters astray? Do the more religious characters in Adam Bede have any habits or inclinations that seem totally misguided?
Chew on This
Adam Bede repeatedly shows how characters with different religious opinions can find common ground.
Eliot has relatively little interest in the history of Methodism. Instead, she uses Seth's and Dinah's Methodism to explore psychological themes such as alienation, identity, and self-sacrifice.