A study of characterisation in the novels of George Eliot

234.
member the derivation of the word ttdue. II It comes originally from the
French devoir and is thus linked etymologically with the word. t'duty. It
Although the following chapter shows us Derond.a examining Mordecai' s
claim with some scepticism, he is an easy subject for enthusiasm which
affords a marked contrast to his previous disaffected state. The mails
have been pre-set beforehand. The previous quotation is just another
example of the anticipatory comments that lead us and Derond.a to a
passive acceptance not just of his parentage--after all he can no more
alter that than he can change the time of his birth--but of the nationalistic
implications of his birth. Even as he goes to Genoa to meet his
mother he is emotionally prepared for accepting some responsibility or
other and secretly hoping that it will take the form of the "very best
of human possibilities ••• the blending of a complete personal love in
one current with a larger duty. It 71 He hopes to learn that he is a Jew.
We are told that after his meeting with his mother. ''he came back with
something like a discovered charter warranting the inherited.right that
his ambition had begun to yearn for: he came back with what WaS better
than freedom--with a duteous bond which his experience had been prepar-
72 t
ing him to accept gladly. ttDuty, and in Derond.a s case, the embracing
of a cause, provide a moral safeguard and protection against the "slavery
of unregulated passion or impulse." 73 Derond.a's commitment to the cause
of Jewish nationalism, a commitment which arises from the Itduty" conferred
on him by the facts of his ancestry, is better than a goalless
. freedom which is equated vdth slavery.
He returns toMirahandMordecai, excited and voluble, and pours out
his recognition that his being a Jew has been operating below the level
of his consciousness all the time. He now feels at home in the world.
He talks of
an inherited yearning--the effect of brooding, passionate thoughts