George Eliot’s influential novel set in the provincial town of Middlemarch is, has at its center the beautiful and inquisitive Dorothea Brooke and the ambitious young doctor Tertius Lydgate, who both have to abandon their idealist views when faced with the reality of daily life. Marriage, social standing and the the pursuit of these are the main themes of Middlemarch, but unlike many novels of the time, marriage is not considered the ultimate source of happiness.