Sorrel, Hester, called Hetty

Martin Poyser's niece, the village beauty of Hayslope; a shallow, selfish girl of seventeen years, whose dream of becoming the young squire's lady ends in tragedy for herself and others. "There is one order of beauty which seems made to turn the heads not only of men, but of all intelligent mammals, even of women. It is a beauty like that of kittens, or very small downy ducks making gentle rippling noises with their soft bills, or babies just beginning to toddle and to engage in conscious mischief--a beauty with which you can never be angry, but that you feel ready to crush for inability to comprehend the state of mind into which it throws you. Hetty Sorrel's was that sort of beauty." "It is of little use for me to tell you that Hetty's cheek was like a rose--petal, that dimples played about her pouting lips, that her large dark eyes hid a soft roguishness under their long lashes, and that her curly hair, though all pushed back under her round cap while she was at work, stole back in dark delicate rings on her forehead, and about her white shelllike ears; it is of little use for me to say how lovely was the contour of her pink-and-white neckerchief, tucked into her low plum-coloured stuff boddice, or how the linen butter-making apron, with its bib, seemed a thing to be imitated in silk by duchesses, since it fell in such charming lines, or how her brown stockings and thick-soled buckled shoes lost all that clumsiness which they must certainly have had when empty of her foot and ankle; of little use, unless you have seen a woman who affected you as Hetty affected her beholders, for otherwise, though you might conjure up the image of a lovely woman, she would not in the least resemble that distracting kittenlike maiden ... Hetty's was a spring-tide beauty; it was the beauty of young frisking things, round-limbed, gambolling, circumventing you by a false air of innocence." Although she has been brought up by Mr. Poyser as if she had been his own daughter, she is incapable of feeling any gratitude and affection for him or his family. Her beauty attracts village suitors, including honest Adam Bede, whom her uncle favours, but she believes that her beauty destines her for a higher station. When she attracts the attention of the young squire, Arthur Donnithome, she sees a rosy future for herself, ignorantly thinking that his passion, to which she has secretly yielded, must end in marriage. When Arthur Donnithome breaks off his affair with her she is humiliated and sick at heart, but, later, seeing nothing better in the future, promises to marry Adam who is in ignorance of what her real relations with Arthur have been. As the time for their marriage approaches, Hetty realizes that the truth must soon come to light, and, under pretence of visiting Dinah Morris at Snowfield, journeys to Windsor to find Arthur Donnithome and then not finding him, journeys back in despair, lacking the courage to kill herself, but determined to keep her disgrace from her family. On her way back her baby is born. She leaves it in a wood to die, and is arrested for child-murder, tried and sentenced to death. Through her trial and sentence she maintains a hard, obstinate silence, which breaks down only when Dinah Morris goes to her in prison and spends the last night in her cell, pleading with her to confess. Dinah accompanies her to the place of execution, and at the last minute Hetty's sentence is commuted to transportation, from which she never returns. While Hetty herself is not a portrait, her tragedy, and, indeed, the germ of the plot of Adam Bede, were taken from a dramatic experience in the life of George Eliot's aunt, Elizabeth Evans ("Dinah Morris"). An ignorant girl, Mary Voce, had been tried at the Nottingham Assizes for child-murder, and had been sentenced to death. She had refused obstinately to confess her crime, and Mrs. Evans visited her in her cell, prayed over her all night, induced her to confess, and then rode with her to the place of execution and stayed with her until she was hanged. (See Cross, George Eliot's Life, vol. 2, pp. 65-6.)

<em>Adam Bede</em>

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