In his novel Middlemarch, George Eliot's task is to compare different types of existence and their relevance to each other, where each character faces a struggle to resolve their desires with the reality of life. In the novel, both Dorothea Brooke's character and Dr. Lydgate's character share a similar form of imagination, where they both create an image of the ideal marriage in their minds. Such images can be seen as illusions, and it is through these illusions that characters must surrender to reality, as they must strive to understand the desires that sparked their imaginations in the first place and must attempt to make peace with existing situations. Eliot, through his narrative, attempts to exemplify through these two characters this common inclination of human nature to create what we desire as a tool when facing a life that is both limiting and disappointing. The vision of the ideal marital partner, for both Dorothea and Lydgate, strangely happened. Oddly enough, Dorothea seeks an intellectually dominant partner to guide her towards her higher purpose in life, while Lydgate seeks a submissive woman who will share his struggles and assist him in achieving his ambitious goals. It seems to the reader that in many ways it seems that they were looking for each other, for what unites their ideals is the desire for a partner with whom they can share their highest goals, yet they both marry someone very different from this. vision. In the opening chapters, Dorothea is described as seeking a union "that would free her from her childish subjection to her own ignorance, and give her the freedom of willing submission to a guide who would lead her along the greater path" (27). . Here, Dorothea's selection... in the center of the sheet... ion. As each character begins to “emerge from that stupidity” (198) of the illusion, they are given the opportunity to show their true moral position through how they deal with the realities – the realities they deal with after the illusions begin to vanish. Dorothea rises morally in the post-imaginative state, demonstrating her ability to accept her duties. While Lydgate is less satisfying, forcing herself into a perpetual compromise in which she maintains part of her illusion while completely sacrificing her goals and herself 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 inevitable “community of illusion”.” (304).