A study of characterisation in the novels of George Eliot

230.
don Silva and accepts her gypsy allegiance; Deronda gives up the idle
life of' an unproductive member of' the upper middle class to set out on
a ref'orming and hazardous mission to the East to f'oster Jewish nationali
sm. In both cases, however, the ancestral heritage is oonstantly f'oreshadowed
and anticipated and both of' them recognise a certain inevitability
in the revelation of their birth. Feda.lma, f'or example, describes
her reaction at her first glimpse of' her then unknown f'ather in the
following words.
It f'ound me there­
Seemed to have travelled f'ar to f'ind me there
And grasp me-- claim this f'estal life of mine
As heritage of sorrow, ohill ~ blood
With the cold iron of' some unknown bonds. 57
Evolutionary psychology, with its emphasis on a racial memory is not
enough on its own to account for the behaviour of' these two displaced
persons. It is the acceptance of an im~lied
obligation in the terms of
their ancestry which is so binding and offers such a concussive check
to their freedom. Fedalma. in the language of contracts, talks of redeeming
a Itpledge u and paying "debts."
o mother lif'e,
That seemed to nourish me so tenderly,
Even in the womb you vowed me to the fire,
Hung on ~ soul the burden of men's hopes,
And pledged me to redeem! -I tIl pay the debt. 58
As her "Notes on !!:!. Spanish Gypsy and Trage~ in general" reveal,
George Eliot has melded a notion of' inevitability, what she calls an
"hereditary, entailed Nemesis, II 59 on to the evolutionary psychological
notion of ancestral memory. We are now encumbered with a racial past
which is as binding as our -"personal past.-Nemesis here is surely not
representative of "retributive justice" (OED, "Nemesis," 2) as there
is no judgement involved f'or either Deronda or Fedalma. It is closer
to bur idea of Fate or the Greek MOira, something inescapable that
drastically determines the course of' our lives. Fedalma actually ex-