A study of characterisation in the novels of George Eliot

213.
~ redeeming human weaknesses. Felix's tendency to adopt the rQle of
the "angry pedagogue" 29 still has George Eliot's approval; Deronda's
vacillating over a career and his habit of acquiring lame dogs are presented
as desirable character traits. These characters are winners and
even if we do not necessarily feel that their rewards are enviable-­
marrying Adam, caring for Tessa and the children, social work in a slum,
and crusading to the Middle East-we are enjoined to feel the utmost
respect for these characters. However, for all their moral failings, Mr
Casaubon and Gwendolen Harleth, for example, are more memorable than this
gallery of pious characters I have been describing. We feel more sympathy
for their tortured humanity than we do for those characters where
George Eliot's sympathetic voice dominates.
These are some of the triumphs and some of the failures of George
Eliot's characterisation. Where she finds a satisfact ory structural
correlative for her two-fold vision, she succeeds admirably; where her
perspective is insufficiently varied or her control of aesthetic distance
is disturbed by an excess of sympathy, she is considerably less
successful.
Let us now examine other implications of her intellectual and moral
standpoint.