Book Five of Middlemarch is called "The Dead Hand" and covers chapters 43 through 53. In this section of the novel, the chapters shift focus between Lydgate, Will Ladislaw, Dorothea, Mr. Brooke, and Mr. Fatebrother, among others. Despite the shifts, the chapters are all connected.
For example, chapter 47 follows Will as he attends the same church as Dorothea but tries not to look at her. He notices her distress. Chapter 48 then shifts to Dorothea but stays connected because she explains her distress at seeing Will, as she hoped Will and her husband (his cousin) could possibly make up.
One of the primary connections between the chapters is the death of Casaubon and what it means for Dorothea. There are multiple notable events and revelations in book 5, but the title "The Dead Hand" suggests that Casaubon's death and the reveal of his codicil are the most important.
Dorothea is unhappy in her marriage to Casaubon, but she still worries about him during his illness. She also does as he wishes, in order to please him and not upset him:
“I prefer always reading what you like best to hear,” said Dorothea, who told the simple truth; for what she dreaded was to exert herself in reading or anything else which left him as joyless as ever.
In chapter 48, Casaubon asks Dorothea to swear to follow his wishes following his death. Dorothea protests such a solemn promise, and Casaubon calls this a refusal. Dorothea responds that she is not refusing, but she is not ready to answer. She will have to think on it and will give her reply the next morning. Dorothea sees how this is upsetting Casaubon, and so she decides to answer in the affirmative:
She had been sitting still for a few minutes, but not in any renewal of the former conflict: she simply felt that she was going to say “Yes” to her own doom: she was too weak, too full of dread at the thought of inflicting a keen-edged blow on her husband, to do anything but submit completely.
I think this is very revealing of Dorothea's character. We see her loyalty, even if it means sacrificing her own happiness.
Neither law nor the world’s opinion compelled her to this—only her husband’s nature and her own compassion, only the ideal and not the real yoke of marriage. She saw clearly enough the whole situation, yet she was fettered: she could not smite the stricken soul that entreated hers. If that were weakness, Dorothea was weak.
Before Dorothea can swear to Casaubon, she finds him dead in the garden. This whole encounter is extremely distressing to Dorothea, and in chapter 50 she is eager to leave Freshitt Hall and examine her late husband's work. Her devotion is flipped upside down when her sister Celia reveals the codicil, which states that Dorothea will lose her inheritance should she marry Will.
Everything was changing its aspect: her husband’s conduct, her own duteous feeling towards him, every struggle between them—and yet more, her whole relation to Will Ladislaw. Her world was in a state of convulsive change; the only thing she could say distinctly to herself was, that she must wait and think anew. One change terrified her as if it had been a sin; it was a violent shock of repulsion from her departed husband, who had had hidden thoughts, perhaps perverting everything she said and did. Then again she was conscious of another change which also made her tremulous; it was a sudden strange yearning of heart towards Will Ladislaw. It had never before entered her mind that he could, under any circumstances, be her lover: conceive the effect of the sudden revelation that another had thought of him in that light—that perhaps he himself had been conscious of such a possibility—and this with the hurrying, crowding vision of unfitting conditions, and questions not soon to be solved.
In the above passage, we see Dorothea's internal struggle and her changing feelings. The quotes I provided are all connected because they all focus on Dorothea and her tumultuous feelings toward Casaubon. I like how, although they are written in third person, these quotes give us a glimpse into Dorothea's mind.
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