In his novel Middlemarch, George Eliot's work involves comparing different types of existence and their relevance to each other, where each character faces a struggle to resolve their desires with the realities of life. In the novel, the character Dorothea Brooke and Dr. Lydgate share a similar form of imagination, where both create in their minds the image of the ideal marriage. Such images can be seen as illusions and it is through these illusions that the characters must surrender to reality, as they must make an effort to understand the desires that sparked their imaginations from the start and must attempt to make peace with their existing situations. Eliot, through his narration, attempts to illustrate through these two characters this common inclination of human nature to create what we desire as a tool in the face of a life that is both limiting and disappointing. The vision of the ideal marital partner, for both Dorothea and Lydgate, is a strange coincidence. Strangely, Dorothea seeks an intellectually dominant partner who will guide her toward her higher purpose in life, while Lydgate seeks a submissive woman who will share his struggles and help him achieve his ambitious goals. It appears to the reader that in many ways they seem to be seeking each other - for the commonality between their two ideals is the desire for a partner with whom they can share their higher goals. However, both marry someone very different from this. vision. In the early chapters, Dorothea is described as seeking a union "that would deliver her from her maiden submission to her own ignorance and give her the freedom to submit willingly to a guide who would lead her on the greater path" (27) . . Here, Dorothea's salt...... middle of paper ......ion. As each character begins to "come out of this stupidity" (198) of illusion, they are given the opportunity to show their true moral position through the way they deal with realities - the realities they face after the illusions begin to fade. Dorothea rises morally in the post-imaginative state, showing her ability to accept her duties. Whereas Lydgate is less satisfying, forcing herself into a perpetual compromise in which she maintains part of his illusion while completely sacrificing his goals and himself to the consequences. Thus, this temptation to imagine is inevitable in the world of Middlemarch and – as Eliot informs the reader – in the world at large: "We are all imaginative in one form or another, for images are the brood of desire . » in this unavoidable “community of illusion”” (304).