Summary:

Chapter 46

Mr Brooke and Will Ladislaw discuss politics, opening on the topic of Reform. Brooke does not want to take a specific stance on it, and Ladislaw points out that it is necessary he does. Ladislaw’s happy to work for the ‘Pioneer’ newspaper, and though Brooke was ‘occasionally irritating’, Will was overall pretty content with living in Middlemarch. It is noted that Will has no social rank, which makes other Middlemarchers distrust him (we know that in Middlemarch, class is everything). The conservative, rival newspaper to the ‘Pioneer’, the ‘Trumpet’, takes advantage of Middlemarch’s wariness of Will and their values of stability and tradition to criticise Will, hinting at him being a dangerous revolutionary. Anyways, Ladislaw manages to build fairly good relations with the Farebrothers and Lydgates. Whilst at Lydgate’s house, he and Ladislaw are having a political discussion which becomes heated, and with Will leaving, Rosamond asks why Lydgate was so irritable that evening. Lydgate doesn’t tell her that it’s because he got a new furniture bill because she’s pregnant and he doesn’t want to upset her.

Will’s unsettled by the debate with Lydgate, now afraid that he is making a fool of himself as a newspaper editor. Despite wanting to stay close to Dorothea, he actually doesn’t want to become Dorothea’s husband after Casaubon dies. He decides to go to church on Sunday. When Dorothea enters she doesn’t acknowledge him and it’s pretty awkward. When church is over, he watches Dorothea and Casaubon leave.

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References!

Lord John Russell, was a British Whig who served as Prime Minister from 1846 to 1852 and 1865 to 1866.

The hustings are a meeting at which candidates in an election address potential voters.

A ‘pocket-borough’ is ‘an English constituency controlled before parliamentary reform by a single person or family’.

An ‘energumen’ is a person believed to be possessed by the devil or a spirit.

‘Galligaskins’ - very loose trousers.

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So sorry if I missed any, guys. Feel free to comment below if you’d like to add more references. I found Chapter 46 quite dense and it was quite a lot to digest.