A study of characterisation in the novels of George Eliot

145.
lito do what >'Jas pleasant to herself in a striking manner, II 52 is set
within the ironic framework of her ignorance that she is "held captive
by the ordinary '.virework of social forms II and thus can do "nothing in
particular. II
The passion in her to be independent is grand but the
r~armfor her to achieve that independence are slight. Nothing expresses
this contrast more vividly than the following lines of authorial comment,
that "she rejoioed to feel herself exceptional; but her horizon
was that of the genteel romance where the heroine's soul poured out in
her journal is full of vague power, originality, and general rebellion,
while her life moves stricjly in the sphere of fashion; and if she
wanders into a swamp, the pathos lies partly, so to speak, in her having
on her satin shoes." 54
This gives a portrait on two levels: ~vendolen's
picture of herself
is a portrait full of brilliancy, all foreground with scarcely any middle
distanoe or background to relate her to the rest of the world; but George
Eliot skilfully fills out for us the background so that we can see what
Gwendolen cannot, that this brilliant portrait is really just a detail
from a massively constructed picture. No wonder, then, that when Deronda
tells her something of his plans for going to the East, lithe world seemed
getting larger round poor Gwendolen, and she more solitary and helpless
55
in the midst." She thought she hl3d the canvas to herself', or at least
shared it only with the neoessary admirers, and she had no iruCling, until
then, of the cistance between her mind and Deronda~s.
If' we set the proud, self-contained, self-delighting ~vendolen
of
the first part of the book alongside the somewhat pathetic, self-doubting
woman of the final pages, we can make a fairly firm judgement of George
Eliot's intentions with regard to her. Gwendolen, after proudly rejecting
all claims on herself, and roundly insisting on her ovm claims, has
been chastened and subdued. The injury she has done to 1~s
Glasher and