A study of characterisation in the novels of George Eliot

189.
Objeotive:Subjeotive.
One might as well hope to dissect one's own bod;y and be merry in
doing it, as take molecular physics (in which you must banish
from your field of view what is specifically human) to be your
dominant guide, your determiner of motives, in what is solely
human. That every study has its bearing on every other is true;
but pain and relief, love and sorrow, have their peculiar history
which make an experience and knowledge over and above the
swing of atoms. 1
This statement occurs in a letter George Eliot wrote to Mrs Ponsonby in
1874 and provides a very succint account of the opposition she saw be-
tween two different ways of viewing the world. I have called this chapter
"objective:subjective" but I could equally have said public:private,
scientific:poetic, or general:individual. As D. H. Lawrence said, there
are "two ways of knowing for man ••• kno-wing in terms of apartness, which
is mental, rational, scientific, and knowing in terms of togetherness,
whioh is religious and poetio. It 2 The tension generated by such an opposition,
which oan lead to "a tormenting inner oonflict ••• between the
two systems of value" 3 is very much a feature of the complexity of
George Eliot' s moral and intelleotual schema. Her desire to reconcile
the possibility of Uwilling to will strongly" 4 with a view of the
world which accepts "universal oausalitylt 5 --man ~'in
subjection to the
external world, though •• • also to a certain extent controllIi ri!l1t" 6 -
represents one such tension. Another lies in her seeking for her characters
an opportunity to preserve a measure of individuality at the
same time as they are asked to see themselves as an "insignifioant part
of a divinely-guided whole." 7 Such paradoxes or unresolved or unreaolvable
opposites do not vitiate the novels; we do not feel seriously
tempted to accuse George Eliot of hypocrisy or double-think. Rather,
they generate a fruitful tension and by leading ;eorge Eliot frequently