A study of characterisation in the novels of George Eliot

mente George Eliot may write of "hopeful activity •• • new conceptions
and new deeds" 85 but as I have pointed out earlier, the new activity
does not allow room for any "marginality. II 86 The potential of her
charaoters is not freely realised in their establishing of their own
identity, their achieving of autonOll\Vi instead, by means of either/or
situations, the characters are brought to the point of denying their
individuality in patient resignation to the service of others. Within
the frame of reference of the novels, the loss of freedom or of originality
is not manifest. Because we tend to accept George Eliot's premises,
we find ourselves approving and oondoning the various decisions, with
only a vestigial uneasiness. If, however, we place the intellectual
and moral constructs of George Eliot's world across the world of the
novels, we see that she has to prune and distort in order to contain her
charaoters and their development within her moral scheme. Accordingly,
Janet Dempster has to rest contented in her autumnal afternoon; lrIaggie·
Tulliver has no alternative after her moral struggle but a gl,orious
death; Romola does not even deliberate the pros and cons of looking after
Tessa and the children, not just financially but in shared and torpid
domesticity; Dorothea Brooke chooses between widowed stagnation at
Lowick and marriage to Will Ladislaw; and Deronda eagerly embraces the
cause of Jewish nationalism.
Dorothea seeks the "perfect Right, II 87 Mr Lyon t s "higher rule"; 88
Deronda hopes for the "very best of human possibilities. It 89 They have
all set up for themselves a goal of service that transcends their own
pettyegoi-sm and dissolves the distorting "speck of self. II 90 We need
to decide, however, whether such a selfless goal does not itself become
as distorting a speck, as constraining a limitation as the speck
of egoism. Basil Willey, paraphrasing Locke, states that "if a man
comes under the habitual sway of duty, or religion, so that he is con-