Deronda seems a bit asymmetrical. On the one hand, there is the sad story of Gwendolen Harleth, a classic reprise of the forceful young woman who attempts to defy convention and impose her own will on the choice of her mate. Then, there is the story of Daniel Deronda as he searches for his self, his duty and finds it in his mystical connection to the Zionist Mordecai. There seems a great gap in character between the often times impulsive, thoughtless, egotistical Gwendolen and the almost saintly Daniel. What is the program? What is Eliot after in wedding such odd character and story strands?
It is hard to look to the otherworldly Daniel as example. Moreover, the manner in which his life's dilemma is resolved doesn't seem realistic or convincing. He chances upon his savior Mordecai by such a melange of chance and resolute action and it is difficult to imagine encountering parallel circumstances. It is important to remember that he begins to find Mordecai by attending to the immediate need of his sister when he encounters her on the verge of drowning herself in the lake. And, he is only in the position to do so because he is out in the world, engaged in an effort to free himself from his own mind and self-preoccupations. All this is in keeping with some of Eliot's central beliefs:
Eliot seems at pains to explain, redeem her interest in Gwendolen. The character of Daniel is an easy sell. He's a classic paragon of virtue, a literary figure that is presented as an example. Gwendolen is more of a cautionary tale for the most part, but yet from the beginning, Eliot is limning character and qualities that will ultimately save her, at least according to the value-frame of the narrator, in some small measure. And, I find her the more compelling example. She is a more engaging character and a more human one. It is easy to identify with her and the identification cements a stronger interest in her and how she'll achieve a worthy life. There is a heroic aspect to Gwendolen. She's a girl who has a grandiose self-conception. It is bound up in achieving and expressing itself upon a narrow stage: the social whirl of mid-nineteenth century England. This doesn't necessarily speak to the poverty of Gwendolen's vision. It is hard to imagine her conceiving of or finding another handy stage upon which she might act and rule as she wishes to do. She brings a strong, imperious nature to these narrow, trivial confines. Despite that, the strength of her character is obvious and fascinating. Gwendolen is a queen, a king, a leader, born outside the ranks of the powerful. Her refusal to compromise this vision of herself seems heroic to me.
Early on in the book, when Gwendolen is considering Grandcourt as a future husband, Eliot alludes to the asymmetry of the two stories and their central characters. She writes:
"Could there be a slenderer, more insignificant thread in human history than this consciousness of a girl, busy with her small inferences of the way in which she could make her life pleasant?-in a time, too, when ideas were with fresh vigour making armies of themselves, and the universal kinship was declaring itself fiercely: when women on the other side of the world would not mourn for the husbands and sons who died bravely in a common cause, and men stinted of bread on our side of the world heard of that willing loss and were patient: a time when the sould of man was waking to pulses which had for centuries been beating in him unfelt, until their full sum made a new life of teror or of joy.
What in the midst of that mighty drama are girls and their blind visions? They are the Yea of Nay of that good for which men are enduring and fighting. In these delicate vessels is borne onward through the ages the treasure of human affetions."(124)
While this may be true in fact, Eliot's assertion here hardly seems borne out by the story which is about to follow. Gwendolen doesn't seem to have a yea or nay upon any good. No man seeks the vote of her affections, nor redirects his course to win them. And, I don't think Daniel looks to even Mirah for confirmation or direction when he launches upon his own good, the vision that Mordecai provides him. Eliot's little apostrophe above, charming as it is, seems oddly out-of-place here. At least after this reader's first reading, the question still remains: what is Eliot after in the wedding of Gwendolen and Daniel's tales?
I will add to this as I encounter answers in re-reading.
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