The Nineteenth-century British critics of Realism, written by Elaine Freedgood, brings to light the differences of Realism and Romanticism. By understanding this reading, and the notion of Realism, we can better grasp, Adam Bede by George Eliot. Fiction is inexorably linked to embellishment and fairytale endings while, “realism is responsible for representing social and individual experience as it really occurs in the world outside the novel” (326, Freedgood). This idea can be seen in Adam Bede as the author dedicates an entire chapter of her book explaining the realness of the character, Mr. Irwine. George Eliot believes that Realism is a much harder form of writing as she states, “falsehood is so easy, truth is so difficult” (2, Eliot). Even though writing in this way may prove more challenging a task, the fact that the ideals are down to earth make the message of the story much stronger. It is one thing to read a Romanticism story and derive a message out. It is a whole other understanding of Realism that enables the ability to empathize with real world situations that many of us encounter on a day to day basis. I believe it is important to move our youth away from the fictitious lies that Disney presents, as it skews our ideas of beauty and happiness. There are many figures in our lives worth looking up to as Eliot says, “I believe there have been plenty of young heroes, of middle stature and feeble beards, who have felt quite sure that they could never love anything more insignificant than a Diana, and yet have found themselves in middle life happily settled with a wife who waddles” (2, Eliot). Eliot is demonstrating that ordinary people with simple lives are often happy. We do not need to go beyond or own encounters to write a powerful and moving story.

Realism does have limitations when it comes to telling a story. These constraints mainly reside in the aesthetics. When a story is told with grandeur features, sure it is entertaining, but it is not real. The mundane, in Freedgood’s mind, is where a story truly prospers as she says, “the novelist must be true to her own experience of the world: a lack of such fidelity is a fictional sin of vast proportions” (326, Freedgood). Though not explicitly said, Freedgood is hinting at the notion that in order to convey important messages, the story has to be something you can sympathize with. In doing so, the reader has the ability of coping with the protagonist in every journey that he or she undergoes. Simplicity is beauty as Eliot suggests, “the world is not just what we like; do not touch it up with a tasteful pencil, and make believe it is not quite such a mixed entangled affair” (1, Eliot). Embroidering stories with frequent occurrences of lucky happenstance takes away from the importance of a story. The tale soon becomes foreign and unrelatable. While Realism takes away from the aesthetics of a story, it also adds the most important element, sympathy.