A study of characterisation in the novels of George Eliot

198.
suoh a description. The first of these relates to the problem of determinism
and the allowanoe of freedom required by the protagonists in a
tragedy. Donald MaoKinnon talks of the "intraotable surd element in the
soheme of things, a destiny whioh shapes the history of an Eleotra, a
Hamlet, a Phldre, whioh is their ineluotable inheritanoe." He oonoludes
that",
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~ven where Raoine's explorations of derangement and bewilderment
are oonoerned it is impossible to avoid seeing in his work Cor in
that of Sophooles or Shakespear~ a paradoxioal affirmation at
onoe of human freedom and of an irresistible element in the soheme
of things that brings even the most steadfast moral fidelity to
nought. No determinist oould write an effeotive tragedy, oould
aohieve the sort of deep exploration of responsibility, justioe,
guilt, that we find for instanoe in Eleotra or in Hamlet. Both
Sophooles and Shakespeare take for granted, even if they do not
explioitly admit the faot, the reality of a "freedom of open
possibilities". 5
MacKinnon's "intraotable surd element in the soheme of things" is undoubtedly
George Eliot's "irresistible power." But the determinist
strain of her thought would have kept her from admitting "the reality of
a 'freedom of open possibilities.'" The tragio oollision between the
individual and the general is a oontinuing element in her novels. At the
same time the moral absolutes whioh govern her thinking preolude the
freedom MacKinnon is talking about. Yfuat freedom she does allow is minimal
and consists more in the adoption of a realistic attitude tov~ds
the world than in any real possibility of aotion, ,although she totally
rejeots the nihilism that regards all effort as useless. The moral worth
and the moral benefit are all in the trying even if the results are insignifioant
or pitifully slow. She herself writes of the piety inherent
in "loving, willing submission, and heroio Promethean effort towards
high possibilities." 6 George Eliot's possibilities are for moral aotion,
not the "freedom of open possibilities" MaoKinnon is referring to.
George Eliot enjoins submission on her charaoters. No George Eliot
novel 60ritains the splendid d:efiance ,;hicn characterise~ in6cii!hi~