A study of characterisation in the novels of George Eliot

248.
tracting us while the real events are enacted elsewhere.
What this means in terms of the novels is that, as Quentin Anderson
says, no George Eliot character is "enfranchised ll in the way that don
Quixote or Julian Sorel is. "The very fineness and clarity of George
Eliot' s vision, extending to the edge of her canvas, II he claims, "quite
preclude her granting to her characters the favour of existence. II 103
Fineness and olarity still exercise oontrol, no matter how admirable they
may be in their own right. This is a different problem in a novel to
that of point of view and the post-Jamesian rejection of the involved
author. George Eliot is an omniscient author modifying and guiding the
response of her readers, sometimes directly by means of explicit appeals
to them and sometimes less directly by a sort of emotional blackmail.
~or
example, when she has shown us Tom Tulliverts intransigence towards
Maggie, she steps in to prevent our adopting too "severe" a j~dgement
of his character. 'Tom, like every one of us," she informs us, "was
imprisoned within the limits of his own nature •••• If you are ~clined
to be severe on his severity, remember that the responsibility of tolerance
lies with those who have the wider vision." 1 ali- This leaves us
little alternative; to persist in severity is to declare ourselves of
lesser vision and so George Eliot directs our judgements by exhortation
and subtle suasion.
Such control has been described as the tlauthoritarian monism ~;.~
of the fully omniscient mode of narration" andhasbee!l"oontrested;J.
with the"multifarious relativism" 1 05 of twentieth century modes. It
is inevitably hard for the novel, "the distinct art form of liberalism,"
106
with its "acknowledgement of the plenitude, diversity and individuality
of human beings" 107 to absorb such "authoritarian monism. tI We may be
prepared to accept the authorial directives towards our increased moral
awareness when they issue from a mind of the quality of George Eliot's.