Shannon Costello

It’s better not to try to explain my favorite scenes in Middlemarch and A Tale of Two Cities.  It’s not that I can’t describe them so much as that the intense satisfaction that comes from reading them is a result of pages and pages worth of build-up.  

Both scenes involve two women whose ideas are completely opposed to one another.  The women in Dickens’ novel don’t even speak the same language.  George Eliot previously describes her characters’ conflicting personalities and inhibitions in such detail that her climactic scene between Rosamond and Dorthea is, at least for me, the most powerful scene in the book.  I think the power of these scenes lies in the preparation.  

Pride and Prejudice is my favorite example of a well-prepared book.  Essential tiny details are inserted so slyly that one never knows they are necessary- but the book is believable because of those very details.  I’m thinking of Lydia running away:  the regiment comes to town, Lydia meets a young woman, the woman marries Colonel Forsythe, Mrs. Forsythe invites Lydia to go with her when the regiment leaves, and the stage is set for her to run off with Wickham.  The climactic clash in that book is, of course, the dialogue between Elizabeth and Lady Catherine.