Adam Bede
In many American’s eyes, leisure is very important. People mix the relaxation
and worry-free times of earlier generations. The speaker longs for the “Old Leisure” and
the older ways of living (Eliot). The author’s techniques used in the passage from
George Eliot’s Adam Bede display the upsetting aspects of the techniques and
technologies of the present. In Adam Bede, the tones of eagerness and idleness rush
through the sluggish leisure of life.
The author’s detail reflects the speaker’s attitude on the changes that society and
the activities of daily living have undergone. The ways of people today consist of eager
idleness and a remorseful contempt for having to move on to the obligations of these
present days. “Sunny afternoons” once allowed people to be both socially accepted and
lazy (Eliot). “Undiseased by hypothesis”, people with “easy, jolly [consciences]” were
able to “[sleep] the sleep of the irresponsible” in the years past (Eliot). Now these same
people are being made upset by their worries. The ways of people, although more
responsible now, are in a sense, giving up the quality of their everyday living.
The third person limited point of view portrays the loss of valued innocence and
relaxation of this now race of life. The author’s point of view carries readers from the
way the world is rushing and considering it leisure, and goes on to explain the “Old
Leisure” of “scenting the apricots” in the morning (Eliot). The author makes it clear that
the world is “being made squeamish by doubts and qualms” and that people look down
on those who do not look at life as if it is a task (Eliot). Old leisure has been forgotten,
new leisure has begun.
In the Adam Bede passage, the use of diction shows the narrator’s discontentment
of modern day living. “Even idleness is eager now” and “life was not a task” back in
those days (Eliot). “Old leisure was quite a different personage,” although people now
must double check sources, ensure that everything is working out all right, the old leisure
people “only read one newspaper” (Eliot). Leisure is an important issue in society that
many people do not tend to see. People now stress themselves over silly, unimportant
issues that really, in the grand scheme of the world, mean nothing.
The Adam Bede passage overall portrayed an extensive issue that has crept like a
thief in the night and has been taking over people’s worries and lives. Let the Old Leisure
live on through today, do not let the nervous tension of the here-and-now be controlling.
The emphasis of leisure has departed from today, and in some respects, will never be the
same.