A study of characterisation in the novels of George Eliot

123.
Moral Growth in the Individual: Romola.
There are three phases to Romola t s moral growth. The first shows
her willing subjection to her f'atherls benevolent tyranny; the second
traces her acceptance oLSavonarolals vision of' Florence; and in the
third she assumes responsibility f'or her own decisions.
Her early life is sketched in very briefly. We know of her mother's
death and her virtual isolation from the outsic-:'e world. Vie hear of' her
brother's rejection of his f'ather's classicism and his adoption of the
despised Christian faith. The phrase "self'-repressing coiourless young
life" 1 adequately sums up this period vlhen Romola patiently and lcvingly
tends her f'ather in a vain attempt to compensate f'or Dinots def'ection,
making no claims f'or herself'. (There is a certain similarity between
Romola's situation at this time and Maggie Tulliver:in The Millon the
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Floss after her f'ather's bankruptcy, when all the passion and enthusiasm
of her nature are worn dovm by the dreariness of her circumstances, by
her mother1s grief at the loss of her household objects, and her father's
obsessive desire for revenge.) Romola, however, unlike Maggie, does receive
an answering tenderness to her ministrations; her father may self'-
ishly use her but he is proud of her, and very affectipnate towards her.
This she. finds reward enough.
It is inevitable that given hex inexperience of' the world and its
ways, Romola should be overwhelmed b;ir Tito's beauty anil gentleness. In
a manner ,,{hich pref'igures Dorothea t s seeing in :Mr Casaubon a ref'laction
of her Ol'ffi mind, Romola f'alls blindly and trustingly in love with THo.
If Tito had been what she believed him to be, she would merely have
transferred the love and duty she felt for her rather to him. Her. gradual
recognition of' his duplicity converts her love into acmo:t'alcrepug-