MovieChat Forums > Middlemarch (1994) Discussion > Help with ending?

Help with ending?

posted 17 years ago by marzmello
4 replies | jump to latest

I wasn't quite sure what happened with Lydgate and his work at the charitable hospital. The narrator mentioned that his practice eventually became successful but he always considered himself a failure. Did he quit the hospital work to please his wife? I thought with Dorothea financing him, the hospital and his experimental work could continue. Then again, since Dorothea married Will, did she loose her ability to fund him?

Also, purely wishful thinking, but I was fully expecting Will to regain his 'lost' inheritance once the secret about Bulstrode came out. The ending is rather sad for all the main characters.

[–] paudie 17 years ago

The narration at the end says Dr Lydgate had successful practices in London and at a continental spa.

This implies that he gave up working at the hospital a. to please his wife and b. because Dorothea was no longer able to fund the hospital.

I think all the characters had to make choices at the end of the book.

Dorothea had to choose to follow her heart, as indeed did Dr. Lydgate though at the price of having what he might have called a fulfilling career.

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[–] thbryn 15 years ago

Dr.Lydgate did not have a particularly long life (maybe it was the frustrations of living with Rosamond).

[–] greenegg 15 years ago

Lydgate would consider himself a failure because he abandoned the hospital and experiments in the face of public censure for his alleged part in Bulstrode's crimes, as well as his need to make more money to keep his spoiled wife. Treating the wealthy, whose complaints were usually caused by excess, would have seemed a failure to the good doctor.

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[–] 15 years ago

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