Ignoring Silly Idle Talk: Gossip’s Moral and Narrative Implications and George Eliot’s Ethics of Sympathy in The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton

Abstract

George Eliot’s ethics of sympathy and its various contradictions and complexities have been explored by many scholars. While many scholars have reckoned with the way that Eliot uses gossip in the construction of her narratives, the way that gossip is a basis for knowledge, one of the essential elements of Eliot’s ethics of sympathy, has been less thoroughly investigated. What counts as truth, knowledge, and which kinds of knowledge are valuable is a topic that can be seen at play in Eliot’s novella The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton. This particular novella helps to highlight the dangers of ignoring gossip and avoiding it altogether, and highlight its inevitability and therefore its value in self-preservation and in understanding others.