A study of characterisation in the novels of George Eliot

236.
ainly they become yet another of the unmodifiable laws of existence
against which it is not j !lst futile but even impious to struggle. But
it is the conjunction in George Eliot of hereditary conditions and
duty, the creation of a "hereditary/entailed Nemesis," 77 an awe-ful
\
figure of Fate, that constitutes such a ckedk on a character's freedom
_,_~"."~o/
of choice. Duty, as we have seen, is a moral absolute. Characters such
as don Silva who insist on their own rights to choose are foredoomed.
He exclaims, "I have a right to choose Il\Y good or ill. tl 78 This provides
a thematic contrast to Zarca's impassioned outburst to his
daughter, that 'lbeing of the blood you are--Il\Y blood--/Iou have no right
to choose. tI 79 Fedalma has a pledge to redeem; as she says, ItI'll pay
the debt." 80 Don Silva ends as a guUt-ridden pilgrim; Fedalma, although
she believes her cause is hopeless now that her father is dead, retains
a faithfulness and loyalty to the facts of her gypsy birth. She suffers
as a result of her commitment; consequently her loss of fre~dom is
more apparent. Deronda embraces his commitment eagerly; we ar~
expected
to rejoice with him. Don Silva takes the facts of his heritage for granted
and imagines he can lightly dismiss them but he is wracked with remorse
and horror when he realises that the gypsies have killed many of
his compatriots. He realises too late that he is bound as stringently
by the fact that he is born a Spanish Catholic as Fed.alma is in her acknowledgement
of her Zinc ali blood. The other two have both experienced
unexplained yearnings: Fedalma longs for space and freedom (the symbolic
uncaging of the little birds provides an analogy here) 81 and Deronda
reaches out for his "social captainship, it 82 for an opportunity of se1£dedication.
They learn of their ancestry and both feel that some vital
missing clue to their personalities and motivation is now supplied.
We need now to decide whether Deronda actually chooses or whether it
would be truer to say that he has been chosen, that events have been