A study of characterisation in the novels of George Eliot

195.
for effective aotion is distorted by his egoism; he persistently thinks
of himself as a free agent, able to oontrol and manipulate oiroumstanoes
to his own ends. But, far from aohieving a greater measure of freedom,
he is effectively binding himself tighter and tighter. The steel waistcoat
he wears oonoealed under his jaoket to guard himself against unexpeoted
attaok is but the external manifestation of thestraitjaoket of
fear he oarries within him; the "undying habit of fear" 12 as George
Eliot describes it.
George Eliot handles this opposition between reality and the distorted
view of reality produoed by the solipsistio, egoistio assumptions of
her oharaoters with increasing skill. She explains in l4iddlemarch that
the distorted view is caused by the "speck of self" 13 and we can see
such a speck of self operating in Lydgatets attempt to reassess the part
he played in voting for Tyke.
He vms really uncertain whether Tyke were not the more suitable
candidate, and yet his consciousness told him that if he had been
qutte tree "trom ind:irectbias be. should have voted for. Mr
Farebrother. The affair of the chaplainoy remained a sore point
in his memory as a case in which this ~ medium of Middlemarch
had been too strong for him •••• So the Re~-Walter Tyke became
chaplain to the Infirmary, and Lydgate continued to work with
&:: Bulstrode. 14 (II\Y italiCS) .
The clause I have underlined shows the self-interest which, .in fact, motivates
Lydgate's choioe, for all its apparent impulsiveness. The word
"petty" shows his actual attitude towards Middlemarch, and reveals unarguably
one aspect of Lydgate's "spots of commonness," 15 his arrogance.
In the discussion of Lydgate in the chapter on determinism, I
indicated how far this arrogance contributed to his moral deoline by preventing
him from making a realistic assessment either of himself or of
the environmental pressures on him.
These various examples show George Eliot's metaphorio use of the
''hard non-moral outward conditions." 16 They provide a frame and a
point of reference for her novels. Soientific allusions, laws, sequences