A study of characterisation in the novels of George Eliot

traces of Puritanism, and, as Ian Watt points out, in common with other
writers with a similar bent, she treats life as if it were a "moral
continuum." 93 There is no decision in her novels that is not dealt with
in moral terms. This has certain consequences for the structure at the
novels which I will now consider. Moral actions and deoisions are
placed along a finely oalibrated axis. This creates a hierarchical
arrangement of oharacters acoording to their degree of moral awareness.
In addition, there are certain recurring types at behaviour or response
which constitute moral categories in the novels and become, in the end,
a system of encoded messages to help the reader determine and place
each oharacter accurately on this moral axis.
In an~arlier
chapter I set out George Eliot's belief in the possibility
of moral development. I related this to the beliefs of her contemporaries,
all of whom shared the same anxiety that moral growth
should take place aocording to general laws of human development. I also
discussed the conoept of the moral sense and showed that it ~artook of
the feelings and of the intellect. Sympathy is the affective component
of the moral sense. A rational appreoiation of oneself and one's position
in the world, a recognition of what laws need to be submitted to and
what laws are modifiable, however gradually, are the cognitive components.
Characters can be placed along an axis according as they manifest
more or fewer of these moral qualities. Thus, Dorothea, who score,a
highly and is very morally sensitive, still fails at first in her ability
to accept another person' 5 selfhood .. It is not until she makes the most
difficult moral step, the t'suspension of disbelief in the selfhood of
someone else," ~ that she is able to respond compassionately to her
husband. Similarly, Deronda, whose exquisite moral sensibility is shown
in his treatment of other people, might appear initially to have very
little progress to'make, yet he lacks a committed duty. Once we have