It is necessary to investigate the form and structure of the narrative within Middlemarch in order to explore the issue of complete closure and the lack of “openness”.
The subject and not the object of the story produce the form of Middlemarch. This suggests that Eliot would not agree with impersonal narration on philosophical grounds because it did not acknowledge the role of the subject in the creation of the structure. Narration, whether it is omniscient or impersonal implies form as any narrative gives material its shape and structure. Even when the narrative seems neutral in Middlemarch, it is easy to detect the constructive influence Eliot has over the subject. For example, the opening chapter of Middlemarch:
Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress. Her hand and wrist were so finely formed that she could wear sleeves not less bare of style than those in which the Blessed Virgin appeared to Italian painters.
This is not an objective description, but the narrator’s interpretation of Miss Brooke. Someone else perceiving Miss Brooke would not necessarily see her in such terms. The narrator goes on to suggest that there is an element of role-playing in her plainness of dress and thus there is an implied separation between Miss Brooke as a ‘cluster of signs’, a phrase used later in chapter 15 and how the narrator interprets these. The narrator is seen as an interpreter of signs with a particular viewpoint:
“I at least have so much to do in unravelling certain human lots, and seeing how they were woven and interwoven, that all the light I can command must be concentrated on this particular web, and not dispersed over that tempting range of relevancies called the universe” Chapter 15
The light imagery here links with the opening paragraph of Chapter 27 in which the ego is compared to a candle light imposing form on the scratches on a glass. The scratches are events and the candle is the egoism of a person. This also applies to the structuring of the events that make up the novel as much as to the characters ego. The reader is reminded that the narrator has plans in writing this novel: “whatever has been or is to be narrated by me about low people, may be ennobled by being considered a parable” Chapter 35
It is unlikely that Eliot would have been happy with the term omniscient narrator because of her rejection of metaphysical ideas. The advantage of this approach to narration is that it does not suggest that the narrator has godlike powers. If the narrator is a historical novelist writing about real people and events then the knowledge of the characters’ minds is due interpretation rather than penetration of their thoughts and actions. The role of narrator enables Eliot to emphasise issues important to her that she wishes to highlight to the reader. The issue of closure is thus down to her as narrator and although the characters’ lives are structurally “closed” with the finale at the end of the novel, Eliot does leave some aspects regarding the characteristics of the protagonists slightly ambiguous.
There are two requirements of the novelistic form: either an ending is left unravelled and thus the reader in suspense, or the reader is left under no illusion as to the futures and outcome of the characters, their relationships, place in society etc. The first introduces the narratives’ volatility, with the second gathering up and answering all issues pertaining to the narrative.
Middlemarch presents not merely a variety of different results and conclusions, but also what are different methods of determinations. The novel can be read on three levels with the critics having one viewpoint according to their values, the protagonists according to their principles and perceptions; and the narrator collaborates with their invented reader to tell it according to yet another. This then leaves the story of the novel open to several different interpretations which although enables the novel to be read with a completed version of events, it can leave the reader still asking questions of characters moral outlook and future feelings. There are different ways of perceiving and defining the story and despite this, the narrative in Middlemarch conspires to identify what is in terms of the main actions, the one story and conclusion. Although each story is narratively identical, they are ethically distinct. The pluralism of the perspectives opens up the ability of the reader to realise or understand different endings despite the structural closure. The scenes at the end of the novel, the passage beginning “Look up Nicholas”, Dorothea at the window, Dorothea and Rosamond and Dorothea and Will, stage different moral views. It is not a coincidence that these passages come at the end of narrative. The narrative’s ongoing construction depends on withholding all information to deny a complete meaning. Has there been a full reconciliation between Harriet and Nicholas? He fears Harriet will withdraw her forgiveness, Bulstrode never confesses and because of this the act of forgiveness cannot be retracted; on flows the vicious circle. The story is structurally complete, but there is still a suspense that remains due to the fact that blindness has led to suppression. The final episode proves the worth of Harriet’s character as Eliot ensures she finds integrity through “direct fellow feeling”.
Likewise the narrative in Middlemarch underlines Dorothea’s journey and spirit. The “detected illusion” of Will’s “lip-born words” closes all outcomes, but that of the narrative. It is the loss of hope that leads to Dorothea’s life becoming unfulfilled and unresolved. When she locks herself in her “vacant room”, emphasising her solitude, she presses “her hands hard on top of her head”. This seems to be her way of outing the psychological angst that Will has caused. With these over pronounced gestures include lying on the floor and it seems that Eliot is contrasting the peace that is required to continue and the view from the window is decisive in its confirmation that the meaningfulness in her life is reconciled. Her situation is one in which work and womanhood have become difficult. Both her income and faith have enabled her to embark on a quest not determined by monetary necessity, or social obligations. With these issues at the foreground of the narrative, it would seem difficult for Dorethea to manage her basic principles and yet handle the petty issue of Rosamond’s temptations. It is these underlying issues that lead to the different ideas regarding the characters, which in turn could lead to the reader feeling that there is not complete closure.
Some critics use the term "closure" as a derogatory term to imply the reduction of a work's meanings to a single and complete sense that excludes the claims of other interpretations. This feeling seems to be echoed by Eliot in that although she conforms structurally to the nineteenth century novel with the closure of the narrative, this is only reached by different interpretations of the novel’s outcomes. It more or less seems that only by misreading or skimming the surface of the novel, that the characters’ lives come to a conclusion. These ambiguities result in the conclusion being less irrefutable and indeed, open for debate.
Thus, it can be concluded that Sally Shuttleworth’s quotation is concurrent with story and characters of the novel at face value and structurally, while morally and ethically it may seem indistinct and discontinuous.