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Beyond Ethical Violence to Sympathy for Coexistence: Goerge Eliot’s Middlemarch

This study aims to analyse the vision of sympathy in George Eliot's Middlemarch, reflecting on the singularity of others and common vulnerability in human life discussed in Judith Butler's Precarious life, Giving an Account of Oneself. Middlemarch is set in the fictional provincial village, Middlemarch in England during the early 1830s, the age of English reform. Middlemarch reveals the roots of the precarious lives of Dorothea Brooke and other characters. In other words, it surfaces the process of overcoming ethical violence, which is structured in an imperfect social environment, through sympathy toward others. Further, it focuses on the interdependence and interconnectedness of society and individuals as well as among individuals. Eliot emphasizes sympathy as a medium for emerging from institutionalized ethical violence in society. Eliot resonates with Butler in that the novel explores and urges ways to practice reconciliation and a harmonious life for the coexistence of 'I,' 'you,' and 'us.' For Eliot and Butler, the relationship for a livable life begins with sympathetic imagination that draws attention to the sufferings and losses of others, and common vulnerability of human beings.