The Egoist: Analysis of Setting
"The Egoist: Analysis of Setting" delves into the significance of Patterne Hall, the estate owned by Sir Willoughby Patterne, who epitomizes the novel's title character, the "egoist." The setting plays a crucial role, as nearly all scenes unfold within the grounds of the hall, presenting it as both a luxurious retreat and a confining space for its inhabitants. Patterne Hall is depicted as a personal paradise for Willoughby, where he showcases wealth and wisdom to impress his guests, yet it also becomes a prison for Clara Middleton, his second fiancée. Initially enchanted by the estate's grandeur, Clara eventually feels trapped in an engagement that her family views as a social advancement due to Willoughby’s status.
Additional locations within the estate, such as the railway station and laboratory, further illustrate Clara's struggles for autonomy and Willoughby’s self-isolation. The railway station symbolizes Clara's desperate attempts to escape her situation, while the laboratory serves as Willoughby’s retreat from social interactions, highlighting his self-absorption. The dining hall emerges as a central hub for social interaction, where Willoughby’s dominating presence reinforces his character traits. Overall, the setting of "The Egoist" serves not only as a backdrop but as a critical lens through which the themes of entrapment and egoism are explored.
The Egoist: Analysis of Setting
First published: 1879
Type of work: Novel
Type of plot: Psychological realism
Time of work: Nineteenth century
Places Discussed
Patterne Hall
Patterne Hall. Home of Sir Willoughby Patterne, the “egoist” of the title. Using a technique more common to drama than to the Victorian novel, George Meredith sets virtually every scene of the novel somewhere on the grounds of Patterne Hall. Sir Willoughby’s country estate is not merely his home; he considers it a kind of earthly paradise where he and others wise enough to follow his lead can escape the vexations of the modern world. After leaving the hall for a three-year tour of the Continent when he was jilted, Willoughby has returned to settle down, bringing friends and acquaintances to Patterne Hall to impress them with his wealth and wisdom.
Described at various places in the novel as both a fortress and an aerie, Patterne Hall serves as Willoughby’s Garden of Eden, in which he can pursue idiosyncratic pleasures. The grounds of the estate are spacious and variegated, consisting of woods, farm lands, and several cottages in which tenants and other dependents live. Sir Willoughby’s second fiancé, Clara Middleton, is at first taken with the magnificence of the hall but eventually finds it is a prison in which she is likely to become trapped if she marries Willoughby. Much of the novel is taken up with her struggle to be released from her engagement and leave Patterne Hall. Clara finds it difficult to escape, however; her friends and family believe her engagement to Willoughby is a coup for her, since her father has wealth but only minor social status. The notion that the hall is a kind of heaven on earth is reinforced when Willoughby punishes his cousin and ward, Crossjay Patterne, in a manner he finds most appropriate and harsh: he banishes him from the estate. Meredith makes the hall a symbol of its owner: As other figures feel trapped at Patterne Hall, Willoughby is likewise a man trapped in his own self-absorption.
Railway station
Railway station. Railway stop to which Clara rushes in her attempt to free herself from Sir Willoughby. Frustrated in her attempts to get him to call off their engagement, Clara plans to escape to London to visit a friend. Willoughby’s close friend Colonel De Craye finds her at the train station and persuades her to return to Patterne Hall; their conversation makes it clear that Clara feels trapped in her relationship with Willoughby.
Laboratory
Laboratory. Room in Patterne Halle that Willoughby uses as a retreat whenever he wishes to escape social pressures at Patterne Hall. He affects to be a man of science, but the laboratory seems more a refuge where he can tinker with experiments. His claim that women are incapable of understanding science is a convenient ruse to keep the many women who visit the hall from following him into this inner sanctum.
Dining hall
Dining hall. Center of much of the social activity at Patterne Hall. Meredith uses occasions such as luncheons and dinners not only to further the plot but also to bring together various characters for discussions of politics, social relationships, religion, science, and matters pertaining to culture and civilization. In the dining hall, Sir Willoughby is able to dominate conversations and thereby display his exceptional self-centeredness.
Bibliography
Handwerk, Gary J. “Linguistic Blindness and Ironic Vision in The Egoist.” Nineteenth Century Literature 39, no. 2 (September, 1984): 163-185. Handwerk discusses the irony of the relationship between self-knowledge and language.
Hill, Charles J. “Theme and Image in The Egoist.” University of Kansas City Review 20, no. 4 (Summer, 1954): 281-285. Reprinted in The Egoist, edited by Robert M. Adams, pp. 518-524. New York: W. W. Norton, 1979. Hill reads the novel as a document in Meredith’s campaign to encourage men to support women’s emancipation.
Mayo, Robert D. “The Egoist and the Willow Pattern.” English Literary History 9 (1942): 71-78. Reprinted in The Egoist, edited by Robert M. Adams, pp. 453-460. New York: W. W. Norton, 1979. This significant article explains how Sir Willoughby Patterne is identified with the unrealistic conventionalism of the willow design as it is so charmingly described by Charles Lamb in his essay “Old China.”
Sundell, Michael C. “The Functions of Flitch in The Egoist.” Nineteenth-Century Fiction 24, no. 2 (September, 1969): 227-235. Reprinted in The Egoist, edited by Robert M. Adams, pp. 524-531. New York: W. W. Norton, 1979. Sundell discusses how Adam Flitch, the coachman at Patterne Hall who was dismissed as a result of Willoughby’s brutal egoism, symbolizes the perennial servitor.
Williams, Carolyn. “Natural Selection and Narrative Form in The Egoist.” Victorian Studies 27, no. 1 (Autumn, 1983): 53-79. An enlightening study of the impact of Darwinism on the novel.