A study of characterisation in the novels of George Eliot

2 (\A
VI.
equally implacable but this-worldly pO·l:.I' C.S
pu.."'lishing • the
S::'Bat evils of disobedience to natural . S:G.;i as of :'~'; a submission
to 'the great and fundamental truths of Nature and
the lm'ts of her
'Jperation. t
Science reduced the salvatLm of' the 80U.1:0 the survival of
the species, but its grim emphasis on • .;on;';.ijqueJ:::;es:
:.3,.s almost iw.entical
to that of the old religion. tI 18
There has been a· shift from one mine,r key to anO":ler but no change
19
of mode. The belief in "universal oausaJ.ityl!
;;:. frame-
work for the ~lovels
can be seen to originate in
Eliot's mel ancholy,
anxiety-ridden natu.':"e. It is this very a'fla:re::.;;::..,
lithe pressure
of hard non-mOI"al outward conditions"
that
ion for the struggling, suffering individual ..
This '1'
yearning hope that "the effort of growing moral fore
lighten that preSSl:lre a little. The intellectual
the emotional resonance associated lIdth this
vision in the novels. Felicia Bonaparte
22
Barbara Smalley in a comparison between George P; uses
the term "binocular vision." 23 George Eliot' 3 pers .. ;~.tive continuously
from the general to the individual~ f en the tiirresist-
24 2~
ible power" . of the one, the tlnothing:;16sS'" '"" other- and the
painful collisions that ensue.
I will nOVl look at the structural c
focus and thE' stringent technical requi:'eroent S U3
is to keep the essential balance between the
It is a question of controlling aesthetic
;''J.cn a shifting
George Eliot
points of 'new.
have already seen
her progressive control of balance from
Middlemarch, ;Nhere Lydgate 1 s dismissal of the tow1'1
its inhabitants
as a "petty medium" 26 contains in the one
the reality of his situation and his o~n a~Lse asses of