A study of characterisation in the novels of George Eliot

173.
people in her past. She sees her moral dilemmas--f'irstly with Philip
and later with Stephen--in terms of f'aithfulness to an ideal, and that
ideal is def'ined by her past. It is the past that confers a sense of
wholeness. The danger that this wholeness may be f'ragmented (and her
sense of' her mvn identity, therefore~ threatened) explains 1~ggie's behaviour
towards both these young men. It is this that makes intelligible
the following lines about her "past self'." Maggie is finding the strength
to reject Stephen a second time, a much harder decision now that she has
herself tasted the bitterness of almost total rejection and also has to
close her heart to Stephen's cry of distres~.
She has almost written the
all-important word: "t Come: ' II
But close upon that decisive act, her mind recoiled; and the sense
of contradiction with her past ~ in her moments of' strength
and clearness, came upon her like a pang of conscious degradation ••••
She sat quite still,. f'ar on into the night: with lU) impulse to
change her attitude, without active f'orce even f'or the mental act
of' prayer: only waiting for the light that would surely come
again. It came with the memories that no passion could long quench:
~ lon~ past ~ ~ :t9. her, and with it the fountains of 1
self-renouncing pity ani af'fection, of faithfulness and resolve. 9
(my italics)
An attachment to the past per ~ would seem totally derisory in this
instance; her father is dead, her brother has brutally and ignominiously
thrown her out, and the whole of' St Ogg's is united to slander her. But
a past self which not only provides .,a sense of continuityand:Lidentity,
but also protects against any rupturing of th3t continuity and identity,
presents Maggie's decision to us in a different light. This is not a
moral decision insulated from her ovm personal needs; nor does it have
to be seen as a "neurotic strategy, II
20
as Bernard Faris, f'or example,
has recently described it. George Eliot herself would have maintained
that psychological and moral health are indistinguishable.
Accordingly, Gwendolen's lack of' "rootedness" is a sign of her psycholbgical
and moral precariousness; Maggiets recognition of the close
bonds that tie her to her past reveals her psychological and moral