A study of characterisation in the novels of George Eliot

same opposition is developed more fully in the case of the eponymous
hero of her last novel, Daniel Deronda. But in this novel, and in the
long poem, ~ Spanish Gypsl' George Eliot's assimilation of the tenets
of evolutionary psychology introduces a new slant.
In ~ Spanish Gypsy, Fedalma is apprised on the eve of her marriage
to don Silva, the Spanish nobleman, that she is a gypsy princess \uth
obligations to her hereditary people, the Zincali, which make it impossible
for her to marry him.eDon Silva, desperate at her decision,
follows her and renounces his own national loyalties in order to stay
with her; a ruinous course as it turns out, causing the death of
Fedalmats father and the probable failure of the gypsy hopes of reestablishing
themselves in .Africa.) Fedalmat'h father, Zarca, in his
passionate attempt to persuade her to accept the burden he is laying
on her, addresses her in words that closely resemble Maggie's justification
to Stephen of why she must reject him. He declares:
for the sanctity of oaths
Lies not in lightning that avenges them,
But in the injury wrought by broken bonds 36
And in the garnered good of human trust.
The comparison with Maggie's situation in ~ !!h11. ££ !:..h! Floss would
seem to suggest that this is just a further development of the same
problem, that of finaing a duty which is consonant with the past. But
there is an additional element. It appears that in Fedalma's past, in
her earliest childhood before shewas separated from her gypsy people,
an oath of allegiance was sworn on her behalf, and this is now presented
as a binding force. She recognises this fully when she bursts
forth:
o mother life,
That seemed to nourish me so tenderly,
Even in the womb you vowed me to the fire,
1
Hung on my soul the burden of men s hopes,
And pledged me to redeem!--Itll pay the debt. 37