SOURCE: Sheets, Robin. “Felix Holt: Language, the Bible, and the Problematic of Meaning.” Nineteenth-Century Literature 37, no. 2 (September 1982): 146-69.

In the following essay, Sheets explores issues of miscommunication and misunderstanding in Felix Holt.

Mr. Wace, a successful brewer and minor character in Felix Holt, assumes that the ownership of land gives him the right to spread confusion and misunderstanding. When he decides not to sell a piece of property, he declares, “It's mine into the bowels of the earth and up to the sky. I can build the Tower of Babel on it if I like.”¹ In fact, there is no need to build the Tower of Babel at Treby Magna: people already have trouble understanding one another's speech. In a society characterized by lies and secrets, George Eliot suggests that a fluent tongue is somewhat sinister. The narrator understands “why the saints should prefer candles to words” (p...