A study of characterisation in the novels of George Eliot

have loosed, their guiding hold." 70 To characters who are consciously
seekine for "that supremely hallovred mati va which men call duty, II 71
this awareness of the loss of guidance brings .'lith it a aread.
"'.Then we examine Maggie t s anguished self-examination as she is faced
vrith a choice that 'Nill set her against the current of her life up to
that point and make her betray all that she holds as sacred, one thing
emerges very clearly; that there is in her .an underlying fear. Remarks
like "wayward choice" and "losing the clue of her life" 72 recur. ','Ie
find the same element of fear in WordsVlorth I s "Ode to Duty" when he sets
duty up against his awareness of "unchartered freedom" and "the weight
of chance-desires," 73 and similarly it appears in a letter from George
Eliot to the Brays after the dev.th of her fD.ther when she expressed her
concern about her isolation from any moral guidance without his restraining
influence. "What shall I be without my father?" she writes. lilt
will seem as if part of my moral nature were gone. I had a horrid vision
of myself last night becoming earthly senoual and devilish f0r want of
that purifying, restraining influence." 74 We can understand hovf easy
it is for Freudian analysts to turn from an examination of Maggie t s
fear of independence (as in Bernard Paris' recent re-evaluation of The
~ ~ ~ Floss in Horneyan and Maslovian terms) 75 as a classic case
of neurotic self-distrust and dependency causing, crippling anxiety and
paralysis, to a study of the symptoms in George Eliot herself. And she
is not an isolated case. Paul Tillich says pertinently that "if the
spiritual contents [if lif~
have lOst their po';',er the self-affirmation
of the moral personality is a way in ,':hich meanine; can be rediscovered.
The simple call to duty can save from emptiness." 76 (my italics) This
fear of tltLl'lChartered freedom" 77 ,';ould a'\;Jear to be a fundamental character
trait of those living under the shadow of the French revolution,
who had lost their religious faith but who had retained their bel:tef in