This thesis has studied the woven of George Eliot's Middlemarch in order to demonstrate the author's concern with and understanding of the dangers inherent in lives lived in provincial surroundings with severely limited options for exercise of capabilities and fulfillment of goals. Eliot's questioning of the nineteenth century's attitudes towards women's roles has been examined by studying the imagery used to characterize the women in the novel, by analyzing the folk "wisdom" which the inhabitants of Middlemarch use to define women, by interpreting Eliot's presentation of Dorothea Brooke's attempts to escape her provincial setting, by discussing the novel's criticism of the traditional role of wife and mother.In addition, this paper has surveyed important critical studies of Middlemarch., noting various scholarly interpretations of the novel, especially of the parts played by the women characters.