A study of characterisation in the novels of George Eliot

103.
Lewes gives three stages of moral development. The "response" of the
ll
"less enGowedspecim.ens of Oti:!' ra.ce" to the· m6raX'd'emahdsofsocietyn is
"little more than the conflict of opposing appetites, the check imposed
by egoistic dread on egoistic desire. 1I
22 Then there are those who have
progressed to the point where fear of' punishment is replaced by love of
approbation,lIwhichrenders social rule or custom and the respect of
fellow-men an habitually felt restraint and guidance .. " 23 Lastly he
describes those rare people in any generation who are capable of "protest
and resistance ••• the renunciation of immediate sympathy for the sake of
a foreseen general good ••• moral defiance of material force, and every
form of martyrdom." 24 It is easy to see how closely this resembles the
schematic programme of Romol~.
Tito is a representative of Lewes' first
stage. Romola painfully emerges from the second. stage to grapple with
the problem of righteous resistance. In the interests of community we11-
being, external constraints and rules are necessary in order to define
limits of behaviour, not only for children, but also for morally immature
adults. Those who obey the rules out of a fear of consequences are
morally inferior to those who have internalised the rules in such a
way that, as Lewes describes it, the fear of "the outside "Ihip has become
the inward sympathetic pang. 1t 25
Jea.n Piaget, outlining the child's emergence ·into a state of IImoral
autonomy, II describes a similar shift from a rule-dominated state to a
state characterised by sympathy or, in his words, "ea-operation" e.nd
"equalitarian justice." 26 The desoription of Gwendolen Harleth as a
"spoiled child" 27 in that section of ~el Deronda whore she is
sho1>'m to be very morally immature shows George Eliot t s awareness of'
the similarities that exist between the egoiatic, narcissistic child
and the egoistic, solipsistic adult.
One last a.spect of Lewes' account of the moral senae deserves a