A study of characterisation in the novels of George Eliot

226.
remonstrate further nor does she change the direction of her daily
walk.
The whole relationship with Stephen is characterised quite specifically
by "drifting, If 47 which suggests that Maggie is envelopp4:in.a··
sensuous haze and is not in her more usual state of . olear' rEUU'.Ion"j:'biUty.
She walks in the garden with him, she walks through the Conservatar,y and
then runs away mortified that he has kissed her arm. The quick comment
is very revealing; "that momentary happiness had been smitten with a
blight--a leprosy: Stephen thought more lightly of ~ than he did of
Lucy. If 48 There is no doubt that the wilful assertive Maggie of the
~ll~book has not been complete~ assimilated to the new quietistic
llaggie. Fihal~ she drifts down the river with Stephen. This is an unconscious
surrendering of her will in comparison with the earlier deliberate
submissiveness. But the final decision to walk out of the inn,
leave Stephen, and return to St Oggt s, although it seems like an assertive
action, is yet another example of 'Maggie's habit of self-l'enunciation.
To have decided to stay with Stephen would have meant discarding this
habitual response. It is only when he pleads his desperate unhappiness
that she !Jlomentar11y wavers. In terms of her life history and her previous
pattern of choices it would have been harder for her to stay with
Stephen than it is for her to leave him because this habit of se1£'-
renUnciation is now so firmly entrenched. Although outwardly she struggles
against the temptation of Stephen's marriage proposal, her walking out
of the inn is really her taking the . line of least resistance. Because
we commend the choice, we are asked to admire the moral courage of the
chooser. Maggie is meant to seem free and untrammelle4,,~&;pe~J.Y
in this crucial final decision whioh reveals her moral superiority.
Close analysis, however, reveals that she is as trapped in her habit of
self-renunciation as Tito Melema in his habit of fear. Her decision to