A study of characterisation in the novels of George Eliot

26.
"spots of commonness. It 76 So that ·although "about his ordinary bearing
there was a certain fling, a fearless expectation of success, a confidence
in his ovm powers and integrity much fortified by contempt for petty
obstacles or seductions of which he had had no experience,1t 77 he came in
the end to be counted among those who are "shapen after the average and
fit to be packed by the gross. II 78
At this point, we confront a difficuUy that W. J. Harvey expressly
warns us about, a difficulty of not confusing the "artistic inevitability
of 8. novel "lith determinism as a philosophy_ /I
79 UIn so far as a novel
is successfully created," he maintains, "it will seem to have an inevitable
tightness and finality; given these characters and this situation
the outcome will have a logic and justness we cannot but accept. But this
is a by-product of artistic success; it has nothing to do with naturalism
as a literary kind nor with determinism as a world view." 80
How then do Vie decide that a character such as Lydgate is not constrained,
not compelled by forces outside his potential control but has
some freedom to choose, is permitted some measure of autonomy? Within
the narrow loophole of freedom, which, I have indicated, is all that
George Eliot allows, there is not an indefinite range of possibilities,
not an open-ended future. We do not find in her novels the random, the
arbitrary, the totally unexpected, nor do we find a character making
dramatic and drastic changes in his behaviour and attitudes.
However, if Lydgate were not free to choose, if he were constrained
or compelled, there would be no suggestion that he was responsible, accountable
for his actions; we vlould have the impression that he was travel-
. ling along a rigidly defined path and that at no point was there the remotest
possibility of divergence. We would have no sense of crisis, of
suspense; there would be no accompanying "penumbra of unrealized possibilities,"
81 no suggestion of what might have happened "if only ••• "