A study of characterisation in the novels of George Eliot

129.
which frees her from moral obligations to a man she finds morally repugnant.
We oan see in Romola's suocess, in her uncomplaining, even
eager acceptance of t he role of guardian to Tessa and the two ohildren,
elements that spotlight the relative failure of a previous herpine,
Maggie Tulli ver. Romola t s decision to follow the "perfect Right II 16
does not set her in opp~sition
in any way to the accepted mores or social
standards of her ovm community. She has not to endure a rejection from
an alienating and oppressively narrow community and, besides, she is
financially secure. Maggiets moral triumph in refusing to marry Stephen
brings her into conflict with the local busybodies of st Ogg' 5, none of
whom has a life "vivid and intense enough to have created a wide fellowfeeling
with all that is human." 17 It is ironic that if Maggie had
married Stephen and returned, as it is suggested, after her Continental
wedding trip with a wardrobe of' new bria~l
clothes, she would have been
accepted and lauded. It would have been a romantic story in the neighbourhood
of St Ogg's and there would have been few to mourn the loss of
integri-ty involved in such an aotion.
Romola's non-conformity is less public than Maggie's; it does not
involve any opposition to her own community, from which, anyway, she has
always been somewhat isolated. Her non-conformity represents far more a
state of mind; her freedom is in her thoughts, no"!;; in heraction~,
There
are no signs in her of any eccentric outward behaviour; unlike Maggie
she has learnt the trick of reoonciling lIinward reality and outward
seeming," 18 although her outer world is not described as "oppressively
narrow" as :M:aggie t s is. Thus there is, for her, none of the dissidenoe,
the failure to adapt whioh destroys Maggie. Romola is allowed to challenge
the rules and customs of her ovm community. She reminds Savonarola of
his ovm statement that "there comes a moment when the soul must have no
guide but the voice within it, to tell whether the consecrated thing