A study of characterisation in the novels of George Eliot

lIabandoned the historical universalism vlhich would have given all human
beings the same phylogenetic experience and racial memory; instead, he
traced those particular events of Jewish religious experience which, to
his mind, gave the Jews a distinct national character and a distinct
racial memory. It 45
Deronda t s "inborn half of memory," 46 t'he J ewishness he is not conscious
of, makes him respond very sensitively and sympathetically to
lkirah's 1evnshness. Her appreciation of his delicacy makes her forget
that he is not of her race. I/,You know, t" he has to remind her, ,It I was
not brought up as a Jew.' II 47 She blushes, looks disappointed and confesses
that she always forgets this fact. Thus, in a later conversation
with her brother which, significantly, occurs while Deronda is in Genoa
awaiting his mother and news of his parentage, Mirah asks: IItEzra, how
is it? •• I am continually going to speak to lIfr Deronda as if he were a
Jew~ttl
Ezra replies: IItI suppose it is because he treats us as if he
w~'e
our brother. But he loves not to have the difference of birth
dwelt upon. 48
t It
All these hints and undercurrents are revealed as premonitions once
Deronda has had his interview Vlith Alcharisi and learnt that he comes
from a line of politically active Jews, "a line of Spanish Jews that
has borne many students and men of practical power." 49 And the final
statement comes in a format which shows unmistakably the line of evol-
r-~"-.C~""'~'""~
X
utionary psychological thought implicit throughout this treatment of
Deronda t S Jewishness. Deronda explains to Mordecai tr..at
'It is you who have given shape to what, I believe, was an inherited
yearning--thet'effect of brooding, passionate thoughts
in many ancestors--thoughts that seem to have been intensely
present in my grandfather. Suppose the stolen offspring of some
mountain tribe brought up in a oity of the plain, or one vuth
an inherited genius for painting, and born blind--the ancestral
life would lie within them as a dim longing for unknown objects
and sensations, and the spell-bound habit of their inherited
frames would be like a cunningly-va'ought musical instrument,