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Arming Herself In Leaden Stupor: Janet's Repentance And The Role Of Female Alcoholism, Leah Kind

Faculty Publications & Research

George Eliot's fiction contains a wealth of figures who are touched by intoxication: both through their own imbibing, and (sometimes literally) because of others' drinking. As Kathleen McCormack1 has noted, the instances of drink are closely tied to the "manifestoes of realism in the early fiction" and that "...despite George Eliot's reputation for earnestness, responsibility, and even ponderousness, a remarkable number of her characters stagger through the novels with their perceptions blurred and reason distorted by unwise consumption of brandy, wine, beer, ale, patent medicines, and opium" (2, 40). In drawing freely upon this trait and using it frequently within …