A study of characterisation in the novels of George Eliot

133.
All the novels deal with moral growth in some form or other. As
Barbara Hardy deolares, "',tlhe pattern remains, the people ohange."
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And
a close study of the different novels reveals that there are certain
encoded motifs which enable us easily to recognise the moral status of
the hero or heroine. One of these is a character's relationship vdth
his own past, his memory of his childhood and the place where he grew
up, his t'rootedness. tI Another concerns the capacity for empathy, the
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recognition that another person has lIan equivalent centre of self. tI
Closely allied to this is the ability to see the world clearly and objectively
without the obtruding tlspeck of self." 3 In addition there is
the concept of duty, which George Eliot in Janet's Repentance claims as
an indicator of moral awareness which can be "to the moral life what
the addition of a great central ganglion is to animal. It 4 If', as
George Eliot has earnestly declared, God is "inconceivable" and
Immortality is "unbelievable," 5 then what is there to fill the void, to
ensure that we are saved from "the slavery of unregulated passion or.·
inpulce"? 6 And from that memorable evening conversation with F. W. H.
l.f..Iers in a Cambridge garden comes the confident reply, "Duty, It a duty
which is "perel!lptory and absolute. II 7 Not for George Eliot the sophistical
question, 'tvlhy should I do my duty?" The problem here is quite
other; it takes the form of deciding wherein my duty lies? which, among
conflicting duties vall demand my allegiance, my obedience? how, in
situations of difficult ch9ice do I decide nnd what criteria do I bring
to such decisions?
If we examine the concept of duty, we find that it has had an interesting
growth; etymologically the word comes from Latin through French,