Adam Bede Theme of Society and Class

The people in Adam Bede live in a stratified society with a clear upper, middle, and lower classes.

But the classes in Hayslope celebrate together and, with a few exceptions, work well together. Adam, after all, has the real admiration of his "betters." And until Hettygate hits, Arthur Donnithorne has the love of the local public. Class barriers are very real in Adam Bede, but they don't keep different classes from having meaningful communication. Whether Eliot thinks such barriers are becoming obsolete, or are in place for the long haul, is an entirely different matter.

1. Hetty constantly dreams of entering a higher class, but is there anyone else who seems dissatisfied with their station? Can you find other, subtler instances of social dissatisfaction by reading between the lines?
2. Which characters are perfectly satisfied with their class positions? Do you think Eliot wants us to admire such attitudes? Or do these characters seem like weak, limited people?
3. Who gets more of the narrator's sympathy—upper-class or lower-class characters? Does the narrator judge characters mostly by class, or are there other factors that play a bigger role in the narrator's biases?
4. Does Adam Bede seem critical of class attitudes in the early 1800s? Does Eliot ever seem to endorse a different, more democratic class structure?

Eliot is not an enemy of social mobility, but is preoccupied with the self-absorption and self-delusion that dreams of social advancement can cause. Her depiction of Hetty—whose fundamentally good desires take silly forms—is proof of this attitude.

The happiest characters in Hayslope are both proud of their class positions and capable of interacting meaningfully with the other classes. The Poysers and Adam confront their superiors honestly but preserve their class identities. But Hetty and Arthur are not entirely proud of their social positions—and seem almost inevitably bound for disaster.