Minor Characters

Caleb Garth

Caleb is a sort of farm manager who is consulted by many landlords over the best methods to use on their land. He represents an ideal person, unworldly about money, but devoted to his work, and gradually being recognized for it. His wife, Susan, has worked as a teacher earlier, and is a great supporter in all his ventures, though she has suffered on account of his lack of self-interest. They and their children constitute the only happy and harmonious family unit in the novel.

Camden Farebrother

The poor, tolerant and popular Vicar is a very human representative of the church. With his love of playing whist, collecting biological specimens, and his unspoken love for Mary Garth, the Vicar is the most attractive of the minor characters. With his cheerful acceptance of not being "a model clergyman - only a decent makeshift," he, like Caleb Garth, represents the ordinary person, who compromises with harsh reality but does it sincerely. His is also the most sympathetically depicted of all the shades of religious opinion in the novel.

Sir James Chettam

A prosperous landowner, a prominent member of the gentry. At first in love with Dorothea, he tries to please her by trying out reforms on his land. When rejected he consoles himself by marrying her younger sister Celia. Chettam stands for the more rational section among the gentry who are willing to be modernized. But his conservative social outlook and perhaps his earlier attachment make him oppose Dorothea rigidly in her second marriage.

DorotheaÂ’s younger sister, acts mostly as a foil to her. She is pretty, reserved and domesticated and has a shrewdness which Dorothea totally lacks. But after her marriage, she is depicted with a lightly satirical touch - the narrowing down of her focus to first her baby and her husband, is a sharp contrast to DorotheaÂ’s eager attempts to support god causes and even unpopular ones selflessly.

Mr. Brooke

The uncle who has brought up the two sisterÂ’s Dorothea and Celia, after their parentÂ’s deaths. A comical mixture of the conservative and the progressive, his constant claims to great scholarship act as a kind of comical contrast to the serious study of Casaubon and Lydgate. The ludicrous scenes, which he is frightened off his own, land by a tenant, and later when he tries to address the voters in Middlemarch but fails are masterpieces of comedy.

Mrs. Cadwallader

A member of a noble family, who gives up her heritage to marry a poor person, and never lets anyone forget it. She maintains her eminent position in the district by being aware of the latest gossip, and interfering in the personal affairs of all her friends Thus, she makes herself the representative of "public opinion" in the area.

Harriet Bulstrode

An amusing combination of piety and fashion, she develops into a rounded character in a crisis. When her husband is disgraced and isolated, she suppresses her own despair and faithfully gives him comfort and courage.

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