Beautiful Metty Sorell is led by her vanity to succumb to the temptations of the local squire. Those involved in her ensuing tragedy are sensitive, honest Adam Bede, implicated by his simple idolatry and his fruitless struggles to redeem her, an Dinah, her devout and constant Cousin, who comforts her when all appears to be lost.
George Eliot adds a poignant, bitter edge to the age-old tale of a woman's destruction through a selfish man's passions, her own weakness and the condemnation of society itself.