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Daniel Deronda
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Daniel Deronda 2024: Week 04: Jan 28-Feb 3: Chapters 20-24
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The thing that chiefly struck me about Mirzah’s story in chapter 20 was the strong parallels to Deronda’s childhood story. Being displaced without explanation, a mystery surrounding parents who may or may not be dead, the guardian pushing the child to sing publicly in a semi-professional context, slowly eroding trust in a parental figure. The parallel may be a hint that they could be brother and sister (or some other connection, but Mirzah did have a brother, just sayin’), but it also highlights the differences in outcome that depend on the child’s gender—Deronda gets to decide on a profession at his leisure, Mirzah is a destitute charity case with few options.For that reason it’s my view that Eliot’s sex makes her more sympathetic to the plight of women—in fact, I think highlighting the disproportionate burden on women is a central theme of the story. For every woman in the story in a desperate situation, there is a man implicated who gets off lightly. Outrage at gender inequality is built into the structure of the book.
Gwendolen continues to work my every last nerve, and I remain largely deaf to Eliot’s pleas for compassion toward her. She reminds me of young women today who focus exclusively on celebrity news instead of serious subjects and their schoolwork, and set their ambitions on being movie stars or singers or influencers. When you set her trivial preoccupations against the author’s erudition and seriousness of mind, it’s hard not to believe even the author believes she could have made better choices all her life, choices that would have better prepared her for reverses. And basically, I hate her moral character. She is impatient at being confronted with the sacrifices her uncle and his family are making for hers, and she can’t muster the grace or gratitude to acknowledge his generosity for more than a few minutes at a time. Tired of her self-self-self focus.
Frances wrote: "Was there anything particularly surprising or unexpected in this section for you?"Up til now I'd been thinking ~Well, George Eliot is no Jane Austen, (conveying humor and grace with spare-er words). So I was pleased that I enjoyed this section much more : I found it more engaging and humorous. Several lines that gave me a chuckle.
Abigail, thanks for those thoughts on the parallels between Daniel and Mirah,, did not notice those on my own.
Abigail, good call on Mirah having a brother and Deronda being a mystery orphan... I hadn't made that connection. I find Mirah's story deeply irritating, or rather, her character and the way she's placed in the novel surrounded by virtuous bores to be deeply irritating. Clearly, these are the "good" people, but I hope we won't have to spend much more time with them. Too much virtue and modesty and tiny feet and delicate beauty for me.
The rest of the section I loved. The engagement between Klesmer and Miss Arrowpoint took me by surprise, but only because I had been lulled into thinking Miss Arrowpoint unimportant. I enjoyed that these two rather difficult people are given an, I felt, convincing romance.
And I adore Gwendolen. Yes, she's quite selfish. But I felt for her having her acting schemes dashed. She is suddenly thrown from a world where it is her job to delight everyone (and polite society's job to be delighted with her), into one where her "accomplishments" count for very little. Her "choice" is to be a teacher or a governess and her tastes absolutely don't run that way (if it was me, I would also shrink from this choice). She thinks she might be able to escape this fate to something more interesting, but no, she is told all her talents are mediocre. It must be a hard pill to swallow, but she keeps her calm.
I think she's being set up to betray her principles to escape this, and I'm loving the laying of the psychological groundwork.
Mod
So far, 3 characters have considered the life of a musical performers. Daniel recoiled because it seemed lower class. Mirah disliked the attention of the public. Gwendolen was eager for it, or for her romantic vision of it.
I was pleasantly surprised at the determination of Catherine Arrowpoint, who had to confront the reluctance of her lover and her parents. I think that, unlike Gwendolen, Catherine would adjust to a lesser lifestyle and be happy.
Abigail wrote: " I remain largely deaf to Eliot’s pleas for compassion toward her.(Gwendolen) She reminds me of young women today who focus exclusively on celebrity news instead of serious subjects and their schoolwork, and set their ambitions on being movie stars or singers or influencers..."Gwendolen,’Seeing her image slowly advancing, she thought "I am beautiful"—not exultingly, but with grave decision. Being beautiful was after all the condition on which she most needed external testimony.
I totally agree with you Abigail. George Eliot is gently urging the reader to be sympathetic towards Gwendolen’s plight. Her family’s loss of financial stability was unfortunate. However, loss of income based on stocks and shares was a frequent occurrence in Victorian times and many well to do families had to adjust their ways of life to meaner circumstances.
But after reading about the trials and tribulations of Mirah in the previous chapter, it was very difficult to give Gwendolen anywhere near the same level of pity or compassion. Gwendolen’s choice of becoming an actress actually emphasised her naivety after what we had heard about poor Mirah’s experiences. Even in her ‘discussion’ with the music master she refused to accept his advice and took his honest appraisals as insults.
’ Gwendolen, however, was not convinced. Her self-opinion rallied, and since the counselor whom she had called in gave a decision of such severe peremptoriness, she was tempted to think that his judgment was not only fallible but biased.
Mirah, however, unlike Gwendolen, had very good reasons to ‘hate all men.’ Until she met Deronda, all those men closest to her seemed have used and abused her, including her own father. Surely, nothing, can be more despicable than to sell your own daughter for sex, and Mirah’s gradual understanding of what was happening to her must have been a living nightmare. She forced herself away into the wilderness of the world in the nick of time, an escape that would have ended in tragedy had it not been for Deronda. At least Mirah’s faith in at least one man had been restored by his actions.
The differences between the two women and how they have affected Deronda’s emotions can be revealed in these quotes. Even at nine years old, Mirah had an understanding of the world that Gwendolen lacked at twenty…….
Once when I was nine years old, I played the part of a little girl who had been forsaken and did not know it, and sat singing to herself while she played with flowers. I did it without any trouble; but the clapping and all the sounds of the theatre were hateful to me; and I never liked the praise I had, because it all seemed very hard and unloving: I missed the love and trust I had been born into.’
Mirah is as beautiful as Gwendolen, but she shunned the adulation rather than craved for it, knowing it to be shallow and not founded in trust. Would Mirah ever look in the mirror to see how beautiful she was? And yet both women have attracted Deronda in different ways. When Sir Hugh asked Daniel if he would run after Gwendolen his remark was…….
’ "On the contrary," said Deronda, "I should rather be inclined to run away from her."
With Mirah, something made him turn his boat around and come back to find her…..and save her. And after a few short conversations with her…….
’ Deronda felt that he was making acquaintance with something quite new to him in the form of womanhood. For Mirah was not childlike from ignorance: her experience of evil and trouble was deeper and stranger than his own. He felt inclined to watch her and listen to her as if she had come from a far off shore inhabited by a race different from our own………..
……. And whatever reverence could be shown to woman, he was bent on showing to this girl. Why? He gave himself several good reasons; but whatever one does with a strong unhesitating outflow of will has a store of motive that it would be hard to put into words. ‘
Of course Gwendolen doesn’t hate all men, she just says she does. As George Eliot points out…
’ It was her temper that framed her sentences under this entirely new pressure of evils: she could have spoken more suitably on the vicissitudes in other people's lives, though it was never her aspiration to express herself virtuously so much as cleverly—a point to be remembered in extenuation of her words, which were usually worse than she was.’
No she doesn’t hate all men because, like Mirah, there is one at least she is intrigued with. Deronda.
’ she had a confused state of emotion about Deronda—was it wounded pride and resentment, or a certain awe and exceptional trust? It was something vague and yet mastering, which impelled her to this action about the necklace. There is a great deal of unmapped country within us which would have to be taken into account in an explanation of our gusts and storms.’
Keeping the necklace in Deronda’s handkerchief was like a talisman of hope for the future, one of Gwendolen’s wild leaps into the dark that at that moment she was unable to explain.
I'm not sure how many people here have read Middlemarch, but I find Gwendolen particularly engaging in light of the same author's creation of Rosamond. In Middlemarch, Rosamond is the sort of "bad" woman, equivalent to Gwendolen: spoiled, petted and quite destructive in her relentless self-interest. Although she makes a good foil for the protagonist, I always felt Eliot sold the audience a little short... a character, even one you're meant to disapprove of, should have enough redeeming features that the reader can attempt to see through their eyes. At least, this is how I understand the idea that books can create empathy in readers. And I find in this later work that Eliot takes a Rosamond-adjacent character and gives her depth, and plausible motivations, and inner struggle.
Which is why I find Mirah disappointing. As written, I would rather have Mirah as a friend than Gwendolen, but Mirah feels very idealized, distinctly unreal, a typical Victorian melodrama. There is so much you could do with this material, but instead she is a classic Victorian heroine, for the moment anyway. Albeit Jewish.
Deronda may say he would like to run away from Gwendolen, but I'm not sure I believe him!
As an aside: Eliot makes some biting remarks about the educational system of her time: Parents are astonished at the ignorance of their sons, though they have used the most time-honored and expensive means of securing it;
In view of this remark, I ask myself whether the ‘indisputable’ in this quote from ch. 16 may not be meant ironically:
he felt a heightening discontent with the wearing futility and enfeebling strain of a demand for excessive retention and dexterity without any insight into the principles which form the vital connections of knowledge. (Deronda’s undergraduateship occurred fifteen years ago, when the perfection of our university methods was not yet indisputable.)
Maybe she does not mean ‘indisputable’ as praise, but literally - that for some reason, it has become inopportune or impossible (politically undesirable perhaps?) to discuss and doubt university curricula or didactics.
Trev wrote: "Abigail wrote: " I remain largely deaf to Eliot’s pleas for compassion toward her.(Gwendolen) She reminds me of young women today who focus exclusively on celebrity news instead of serious subjects..."Fascinating analysis of the contrasts between the two women, Trev!
Emily wrote: "I'm not sure how many people here have read Middlemarch, but I find Gwendolen particularly engaging in light of the same author's creation of Rosamond. Mirah is a classic Victorian heroine, for the moment anyway. Albeit Jewish.
Deronda may say he would like to run away from Gwendolen, but I'm not sure I believe him!
."
Just for the record I thought Dorothea’s talents (Middlemarch spoiler alert)(view spoiler)
We have had a feast of Gwendolen so far….
( my description of her would be a Knickerbocker Glory - deliciously and dangerously tasty but so large as to make you ill.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knicker...
- …and very little of Mirah. Perhaps we will get to know more of her character later.
And I agree with you about Daniel. Like Gwendolen, he is only saying he’d run away, but he seems as intrigued by her as she is of him. Their only physical communication has been that necklace and handkerchief (if it is his.) I wonder in what circumstances they will meet again?
Emily wrote: "Eliot takes a Rosamond-adjacent character and gives her depth, and plausible motivations, and inner struggle. Which is why I find Mirah disappointing.I totally agree. But still, despite a lot of 'page time' for Gwendolen, I find her characterisation by Eliot lacking, and I can't make up my mind about her. If Eliot had given us more of her history, for example - how she became what she is - I feel I could understand her better.
I feel this deficit when I compare the Gwendolen character with Gaskell's Cynthia (Wives & Daughters) who is, in my opinion and from what I know about Victorian literature so far, the furthest away from Victorian good/bad stereotypes as you can get.
Eliot is the much more famous author of the two, but not, I think, for her female characters. Mirah, so far, is just another case in point, reminding me of Little Dorrit and the likes of her.
What I feel most strongly in reading this is a cri de coeur from females battered and beaten down by the efforts to cram themselves into “society’s” assigned roles, just as they are crammed into the appalling clothes of the day. All those unrealistic expectations laid on them! I can even feel for Gwendolen a little when I view the story through that lens. Gwendolen raised to be a vapid ornament, but bewildered and angry because she is really good at being an ornament but it still isn’t enough. Mirzah just wanting love and to please, and instead being callously groomed for the life of a courtesan. Catherine getting erased by her family for being true to her conscience instead of marketing herself as a commodity. And all the men strolling through their lives as if they were shopping at a mall.
Mod
One difference is that as a wife, Gwendolen or Catherine should have more security than Mirah who could be dropped at any time, once her seducer is tired of her. On the other hand, marriage meant that the husband now owned and could spend all the wife's money and property. Gwendolen's mother mentions that her current husband sold her jewels. Divorce was almost impossible and any children generally had to remain with the husband, as part of his "property".
There were some high profile cases about this. From womenshistorynetwork.org:
In 1882, after a series of earlier reforms, the Married Women’s Property Act passed for England, Wales and Ireland, while Scotland had a less extensive Act in 1880 and another in 1881. The Act restored to married women the right to own, sell and buy property and returned their legal identities, allowing them to sue, be sued, contract debt and be made bankrupt. In Scotland, women were still restricted by a need to ask their husband’s consent to use their property, but gained greater rights of ownership and wider recognition of their legal person. One interesting repercussion of the Acts was the increase in the divorce rate. In England before 1880, the number of divorces in a single year had only rarely risen above 300, after 1882 it only once fell below that number. Divorces continued to rise year on year to over 1000 divorces by the First World War. After women received the vote in 1918, the number of divorces rose again, tripling within two years (although this is also partly a reflection of post-war instability).
Robin P wrote: "Mirah is being sold for sex, but so are Gwendolen and Catherine., although with more security. They are being exhibited to men in the hopes that someone of the right class will choose to marry them..."Interesting that, despite her feminist leanings, George Eliot herself considered herself ‘married’ to George Henry Lewes and even called him her husband.
There was no way that Mirah’s situation in Prague resembled that of women in the marriage market. There she was being set up to satisfy the sexual proclivities of an old count in return for money. Besides somewhere to stay and food, there would be no other elements of married life available to her.
Marriage in Victorian times was primarily about procreation, the production of children to continue the family line. It was strongly controlled by the church and the vast majority of the population followed their doctrines. Men were in control within marriage because of the overwhelming forces of the patriarchal society that had existed for thousands of years. That started to unravel towards the end of the nineteenth century and has continued. But there are still millions across the world deciding to marry in this day and age without any pressures from the church, their families or anyone else.
Also, it is easy to forget those millions of men and women in Victorian times enslaved in low paid jobs working in factories and on the land whose lives were far worse than families like Gwendolen’s. How can their family be pitied when, if a factory closed down, most of the workforce would immediately lose all their income and be in danger of starving to death?
Moving to a cottage with four bedrooms would be a luxury for two thirds of the population of Britain at that time, but superior Gwendolen thinks it is beneath her. A good helping of humble pie would be the first dose of medicine given to Gwendolen in her search to improve her situation.
Robin P wrote: "I also like Gwendolen, she is a bit like Jane Austen’s Emma. She reminds me of the daughter in the TV series Schist’s Creek, who assumes that she is talented and should be adored by all, just becau..."I agree. Gwendolen very much reminds me of Alexis Rose. If she could capture Alexis' humor it would definitely help the novel .
I haven't yet found Mirah to be a real person. As others have pointed out, she feels like a prototype Victorian heroine. But she also seemed like some sort of fantasy creature with her whole backstory coming off more like a scary fairy tale than a recitation of a true human experience. I expect her to get more human to me as the story moves on.
Mod
I was struck by the contrast between the calm, ordered environment within the household of the Meyrick family, compared with the disunity of the Davilow’s. I also compared Grandcourt’s dog menagerie, a symbol of his controlling power, with Hafiz the cat ‘lording it’ on the windowsill of the Meyricks.’ The neat mother who had weathered her troubles, and come out of them with a face still cheerful, was sorting colored wools for her embroidery. Hafiz purred on the window-ledge, the clock on the mantle-piece ticked without hurry, and the occasional sound of wheels seemed to lie outside the more massive central quiet.’
I wondered about the unusual name of the cat and found this.
https://www.poetseers.org/the-poetsee...
No doubt a fitting name for a resident within a family of poor but enthusiastic artists.
Good contrast, Trev!
I'm always delighted by the things I learn from my fellow readers. Your comments really enhance my reading adventures. I agree with those who have sympathy for Gwendolen. Yes, she is spoiled and immature, but I find her to be naive rather than evil. She is, after all, only twenty-one and has never known anything but adoration for her beauty. The thought of genuinely hard times never occurred to her. I continue to hope she will learn some hard lessons and become a better person by the end of the novel. We don't know why she has such a negative attitude toward men (maybe her mother's unhappy marriage?), nor do we understand the strange fears she has, so I also hope those things are revealed in the future. The possible connection between Daniel and Mirah occurred to me, but I wonder if the reader is being set up. Mirah has a faint memory of her brother, but Daniel seems to have no memory of a little sister, although he is the older of the two. So much in this section. I suspect Eliot's rather unusual choices in life (scandalous for the age) and her brand of feminism are greatly coloring her choices in female characters.
Interesting, Nancy! We actually don't know much about Gwendolen's and her mother's background, but by contrast are told a rather detailed story about Mirah.
Claudia wrote: "Interesting, Nancy! We actually don't know much about Gwendolen's and her mother's background, but by contrast are told a rather detailed story about Mirah."I also noticed this. I wish Gwendolen's background had been more fleshed out actually. Early in the book we get this:
She had disliked their former way of life, roving from one foreign watering-place or Parisian apartment to another, always feeling new antipathies to new suites of hired furniture, and meeting new people under conditions which made her appear of little importance; and the variation of having passed two years at a showy school, where, on all occasions of display, she had been put foremost, had only deepened her sense that so exceptional a person as herself could hardly remain in ordinary circumstances or in a social position less than advantageous.
I can see that the school might be seen as a universal enough experience for Eliot's readers as to be glossed over, but I am very curious as to what it would mean to grow up in this series of Parisian apartments. Despite the hired furniture, you would think that Paris would have some attractions, and that it might be a shock to the system suddenly relocating to a house in the country and being thrust in with quite a small, pre-established social circle.
Emily wrote: "I can see that the school might be seen as a universal enough experience for Eliot's readers as to be glossed over,."We know a little about Eliot's (not high ;-)) opinion of this kind of schools - see Middlemarch, where she writes that stepping into and out of a carriage like a lady is part of the curriculum.
Mod
Am I the only one who wonders if Gwendolen may fall somewhere under the LGBTQIA+ umbrella? Her utter apathy towards men and her distaste for their enthusiastic attention seems to point to this
Lili wrote:Am I the only one who wonders ……………….
Well, I juxtaposed Gwendolen (George Eliot) with Orlando (Virginia Woolf), and Stephen (Radcliffe Hall). With due consideration of those protagonists I feel that Gwendolen is no more than a belligerent rebel. I like the way she turned convention to he own advantage by marrying to save her family from the shame of poverty.
Oo, both of those books are still on my TBR!I'll have to wait till the end of the book to know if I agree with you. Sometimes there are more "tells" (Charlotte Brontë has several in her novels)
Ch 20 gives us a full explanation of Mirah's tale, and her full support from the Meyrick family and Deronda himself. It is another example of the precarious existence of many young women of the time, and their susceptibility to being "sold" to some wealthy man whether they wish to be or not.
Ch's 21-24 continue Gwendolen's tale, and after her gloomy homecoming with no one to meet her at the station (through her own impatience) she learns that the family money is all gone, that her uncle is also under financial duress but has found them a smaller cottage, and has arranged a possible Governess position for her. Gwendolen asks to speak with Klesmer to find out about whether or not she might be able to earn her keep on the stage, and he answers her with rather brutal honesty, dashing her hopes on this possibility. Resigned, she accepts the possible Governess position with some trepidation, and still needs to present for an interview to finalize the arrangement.
We also learn of the engagement of Catherine Arrowpoint to Herr Klesmer, which has upset her family and put her at risk of being disinherited, but they are both standing firm on this point.
Was there anything particularly surprising or unexpected in this section for you?
What did you think of Gwendolen's plan to become an actress/singer, and did this change your opinion of her?
Do you feel that Eliot's sex makes her more or less sympathetic to, or more understanding of, the plight of women of her day than her male contemporaries?
We are meeting characters from a variety of social backgrounds or gradations in society-the Meryricks, Mirah, Klesmer, posibly Deronda himself, and we see Gwendolen's family that are perhaps about to move lower in the social hierarchy, perhaps onto a level with the Meyricks. How well do you think Eliot is able to address this social mobility?
Please share your thoughts on this section, whether or not you use the prompts above.