A study of characterisation in the novels of George Eliot

183.
are treated vath such irony that her dismissal of the claims of duty
beoomes less signif'icant. Her aot of rebellion in the end amounts to
no more than this monentary defiance of her parents' wishes. Faced vdth
the problem of where to leave their V8st fortune if they disinherit their
only child, they pragmatically decide to accept the marriage after all.
Catherine marries a notable musician who is quite I3:ble to support her,
even without her fortune, and devotes the rest of her life to him and
his musio.
This survey of these three so-oalled rebellious woman oharacters
reveals a clearly repeating pattern. Not one of them seeks a life of
her own. The only woman to do so, Deronda' smother Alcharisi is punished
remorselessly. She gives up her career as a singer because she believes
her voice is going; she has some painful terminal illness--probably
cancer--and is haunted by superstitious guilt for her concealment
of her son's Jewish birth. The others give up any olaims of their own
in order to devote themselves to caring for others, and in tne end
their acts of rebellion can be seen to be negligible.
If this is the fate of the women rebels, what opportunities does
George Eliot offer to her male rebels, Felix Holt and Daniel Deronda?
Falixdeoides to give up his white-collar job ~d reject t_l:te p~th
of upward mobility for which his education has fitted him. This decision
is shown as a commitment to his own class and a passionate desire on his
part to improve the conditions of that class which he feels he oan best
do if he identifies himself with their interests and preoooupations. The
novel oontains a chorie disapproval of his intentions and the strongest
dissentient voioe is that of his querulous and disappointed mother. But
the thing is, of course, that his education and intelligence, his pedagogic
passion, all set him outside the olass he feels he belongs to. He
may dress the same and do the same work but privilege oonsists in more