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.