A study of characterisation in the novels of George Eliot

that I am a man: in my love for him it is fird clear to me that
he belones to me and I to him, that we two cannot be without each
other, that only community constitutes humanity. But, morally, also,
there is a quAlitative) critical distinction between the!. and ~.
My fellow-man is my objective conscience; he makes my failings a
reproach to me; even when he does not expressly mention them, he
is my personified feeling of shame. The consciousness of the moral
law, of right, of propriety, of truth itself, is indissolubly
united with ~y consciousness .of another than myself. 19
Once we have decoded Feuerbach's rather abstruse style, we find he is
1-
saying some very familiar things. ~ belongs to the tradition of nineteenth
century philosophers and social scientists whom I have already
1
mentioned. IHe stresses the importance of community-based feelings as the
\
.~
cornerstone of morality, as we see in the phrase "only community oonstitutes
humanity." He emphasises the way in which we discove::." the measure
of ourselves in the implicit or explicit judgement of our neighbours.
The parallels between his thought and George Eliot's are immediate and
striking; they quite obviously shared the same preoccupations and we
can readily understand how she was drawn to translate him. The reinforcement
he offered t a her ideas was exclusively a moral one. The. importance
of the other person, the need for fellowship (which, as we have seen, relates
to the biological and ecological emphasis on medium) are essential
aspects of moral growth. In addition, Feuerbach exerted a oonsiderable
influence on the political thought of Marx and Engels who criticised
him severely for this very moralistic bias. Engels claims, for example,
that lithe same Feuerbach who on every page preaches sensuousness, absorption
in the concrete, in actuality, becomes thoroughly abstract as soon
as he be€:,"ins to talk of other than mere sex relations between human
beings. Of these relations only one aspect appeals to him: morality."
20
Marx and Engels thought Feuerbach v~s
mistaken in seeing all relationships
between men as moral relationships; critic:..: of Marx and Engels
object to their exclusive emphasis on economic relationships. Hevertheless,
George Eliot's OvVTI moralistic bias shows her to be closer to the