Daniel and Gwendolen connections in Eliot's Daniel Deronda

In an earlier posting, I began to ask what Eliot was after in wedding the two strains of her story. I wasn't entirely sure upon a first reading of the book. In re-reading, one does note similarities between the characters.

-Daniel and Gwendolen are both raised by single parents. Sir Hugo has a wife but she doesn't seem to interact with Daniel on any level, much less a parental one. Gwendolen is raised by her foolish, easily-led mother. Daniel by his father. Neither does much in the way of parenting. Eliot comically notes "the lightness with which the preparation of young lives seems to lie on respectable consciences"(174).

-Daniel and Gwendolen are both striking physical specimens who provoke admiration in the literal sense of the word. In the midst of a description of a youthful Daniel's person and talents upon a crowd, the normally loquacious Eliot simply ends, "Everyone was admiring him"(169) as if she must here stop and simply admire herself.

-Both aspire to be gentlefolk, despite the fact that they weren't born to it. But, Daniel never harbors the outsider's perspective. Born to a gentleman's state, he sees it as natural.

Daniel and Gwendolen contrast.

-Unlike the emotionally frigid Gwendolen, Daniel is of a "ardently affectionate nature" which protects him against growing a "hard, proud antagonism" in reaction to the mystery surrounding his origins (171).

-Gwendolen loves her mother but hardly admires her in any sense. Daniel has a profound filial attachment to Sir Hugo. It's a bit hard to credit seeing as Daniel is a fairly subatantial and serious character while Sir Hugo seems like a shallow, good-time Charlie. He is Daniel's hero and when it seems he's harboring a secret suggesting flaws, he experiences a "revolutionary shock" which Eliot likens to that of a believer first doubting his or her "habitual beliefs" and feeling the world "totter"(172).

-Daniel is educated.

-Daniel is susceptible, or sensitive. His hardships and handicaps have had the effect of making him capable of recognizing the pain and suffering of others. The circumstances of his birth have caused him to be kind in the face of like suffering and injustice.