Show how concepts of nationhood might be applied to textual analysis

        Eliot immersed herself in Jewish culture, history, life, literature and thought in order to present accurately the Jewish nation, not to glorify or mystify it, although sometimes the reader feels envy for the spirituality of Judaism, its communal ethos, its ethical universalism, its sense of divine presence and historical process. Resolution is achieved as Daniel gains access to this world, as his birthright is revealed. Through Daniel Eliot finds ‘a genuine moral and religious community that thrives on inner diversity and debate, that has a distinctive mission to humanity’.  Critically analysing the text becomes embroiled in the status of the reader – the Jewish having a much different perspective, Eliot contemporary vaguely anti-Semitic society, the current reader in a post-holocaust climate. ‘The author who wishes to preserve and impose a meaning must also be the reader.’ 

Daniel is introduced to ‘the Philosophers’, where Jewish men debate the constant issue of belonging to a definitive culture; whether to maintain the distinctive ethnic and religious identity, or to assimilate into the dominant cultures. This debate is still as prevalent today, and addresses modes of textual analysis. Texts can be separated from the racial origins of their authors, and even from their readers, and so by the acceptance of this separate culture as part of their own understanding, breadth is added to the existing society. Eliot did not wish to encourage integration or even muting of the cultures; through her novel she desired to ‘rouse the imagination of men and women to a vision of human claims in those races of their fellow-men who most differ from them in customs and beliefs’. 

Eliot shows us the importance of the maintenance of the Jewish lines through the character of Mirah, who insists on the necessity of maintaining her Jewish heritage: ‘I will always be a Jewess…I will always cling to my people’ (p.362). Eliot is warning against the conversion of Jews to Christianity or assimilate them to Christian culture: despite the deep spiritual linkage between the two religions, they represent distinctive, equal and enduring ways to redemption.  Eliot’s presentation of Daniel as the perfect English gentleman suggests that although Jewish by blood, his culture and the environmental factors that he was raised are equally valuable. Beer proposes that the Jewish and the English are not to be thought of ‘dualistic terms’; what Eliot is exploring in the novel are the similarities of the cultures, the common sources.

Race, nationhood, ethnicity and culture present certain problems in their definition, especially when relating to the Jewish nation. Judaism is a nationality, but yet also a religion, but no other faith has such status. Their loss of a homeland brings into question the idea of race and nationhood, as it is quite indefinable. Although Mordecai lives and has always lived in England, he is no Englishman. By holding on to these separate and exclusive definitions, not assuming nationality, the Jewish people become a separate race.

Eliot’s representation of the English and non-secular is entwined with the concept divine providence, which is shown to be rather inane; Gwendolen ‘will not resign … [herself to providence]…I shall do what I can against it’ (p.245). She is left with the opposite feelings of Daniel and Mirah, who are cocooned by their faith, do not feel disenchanted with the world even after suffering, they are immune to the calamities that seem to befall people indifferently; they have a larger vision of purpose.

Juxtaposed to the subject of Providence is the convenient manner in which events take place in the novel; the chance meetings, the coincidences of time and place. Eliot quotes Aristotle at the beginning of chapter 41: ‘It is a part of probability that many improbable things will happen’ (p.233). Eliot deliberately removes this from the power of Divine Providence, the reader becomes aware that these are not only novelistic devices, but the result of God’s Providence, by which He has created a moral universe where actions have inevitable consequences, and by ‘empowering individuals to make something good of the opportunities that present themselves in life’.

Gwendolen’s story exists almost in opposition to the main thread; that of Daniel, Mirah and Mordecai. Her moral leniency and selfish ambitions, with ‘vague conception of an avenging power’ (p.314) led her to lose control of her life; she becomes almost ruined, both materialistically and spiritually. Daniel takes on a role of guidance and informs her that she is quite able to start over, that ‘no evil dooms us hopelessly except the evil we love’ (p.358-9).  She must live with the consequences of her actions, yet she can create a different future for herself and accomplish something good in life.

Similarly, the end of Daniel Deronda, where Daniel and Mirah leave to pursue the Jewish race, with the promise of children and future, Gwendolen is left childless, loveless, and has also lost her material heritage.  The matrilineal nature of Judaism gives the female simultaneously elevation and oppression. She is the bearer of the future generations, the definer of the culture, but is the first to become expelled from the society for adverse behaviour. Daniel’s mother rejects her nationhood in order to attain that which would be disallowed; fame as a singer. She rejected more than just motherhood and family, she had to detach and ‘bury’ a part of her, the part that Daniel regards the highest – her faith and status as a Jew. His mother attempts to break the chain, but it is within him; Daniel is enriched by the multiple past, both genetic and cultural. ‘The past here is not one or two generations in a local community, but of transformation from the primary forms of life, and problems of transmission.’

Literature must address and mediate upon questions of race class and gender, the most complex and urgent questions of personal identity and citizenship. The longevity of text, its wide-reaching format, the infinitely debatable nature of meaning that can be derived from a text makes it the perfect medium in which the ‘vital consideration of ‘who’ we are can be reassessed, problematised and perhaps even transformed’. Writers may reproduce their understanding, beliefs and experience, offering heightened and stylized versions of themselves and ourselves which we may consciously internalise or actively resist. Daniel Deronda not only examines and explores Jewish culture; it also examines the ideological fabrication of ‘Britishness’, and inevitably leads to questioning our own nationhood.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Beer, Gillian, Darwin’s Plots: Evolutionary Narrative in Darwin, George Eliot and 19th Century Fiction, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Bell, Ian A, ed., Peripheral Visions: Images of Nationhood in Contemporary British Fiction, Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1995.

Hodgson, Peter C, Theology of the Fiction of George Eliot, London: SCM Press, 2001.

Eliot, George, Daniel Deronda, England: Penguin Books, 1995.

Manguel, Alberto, A History of Reading, Bath: The Bath Press, 1997.

Ragussis, Michael, Figures of Conversion: “The Jewish Question” & English National Identity, London: Duke University Press, 1995.

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