74 pages • 2 hours read
George EliotDaniel Deronda
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1876A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Jewish Culture, Identity, and Community
Daniel Deronda explores the links between culture and identity. Like many of Eliot’s other works, large parts of the plot concern the romantic travails of the English middle and upper class in Victorian Britain. Unlike her other works, however, Daniel Deronda explores the experience of Jewish people in Eliot’s England. Antisemitism was rife during this time. While the Jewish characters may not experience the pogroms and violence that occurred at other times in history, they are deliberately marginalized and ostracized by the Christian majority. Many references to Jewish characters by Christian characters are disparaging or dismissive; when Mirah is suggested as a possible singer at a social event, the middle-class Christian guests disparage her as a “little Jewess.” These patronizing comments create a clear delineation between Christian and Jewish communities, with the assumption that this line will rarely be crossed, and only at the behest of the Christian characters. Even Deronda, the “Christian” character who is most sympathetic to the Jewish people, struggles to remove his lingering antisemitic prejudices. Similarly, the Meyrick family loves Mirah as an individual, but they worry that she is overly invested in Judaism, treating her cultural identity as a passing whim. The Christian majority of England are portrayed in the novel as being keenly aware of their difference from Jews and determined to maintain this difference as a core part of their own identities.
As Deronda’s fascination with Judaism deepens, Mordecai becomes for him the embodiment of Jewish culture. He represents a mystical, intellectual engagement with Jewish cultural identity that fascinates Deronda. He feels drawn to this man and the culture that he represents even before he knows that he himself is Jewish. There is a foreign allure to Judaism for Deronda, even though the Jewish people he meets all live in London. As he learns more about Jewish culture from Mordecai, his identity also begins to change. At no point in his early life did he suspect that he might be Jewish. After spending time with Mordecai, however, he becomes almost obsessed with the possibility that his unknown parents were Jewish. In Daniel Deronda, proximity to a different culture—even a radically different culture—has the capacity to influence identity.
For Deronda, community plays an important part in his attraction to Judaism. The sense of history and belonging that Deronda witnesses in London’s Jewish community stands in stark relief beside his own fears, uncertainties, and insecurities about his past. Even the marginalized Jewish people that he meets—people who are ostracized by the elite, privileged society Deronda inhabits—have something he longs for. By the time he meets his mother, he wants to be Jewish because he craves Mordecai’s certainty about his identity and his place in society.
When Deronda learns of his Jewish heritage, he finds himself in a unique position. He explains to his mother, to Mordecai, and to Sir Hugo that he now identifies as Jewish. However, he cannot shed his years of experience growing up as a privileged Christian. In this moment, Deronda acts as a bridge between cultures and identities. His identity is changing, and Christian characters struggle to comprehend him. Sir Hugo and Gwendolen still regard him as the same Deronda, even though he feels completely different. His ability to “pass” as Christian is thus a blessing and a curse. Cultural identity is never truly resolved as a theme in Daniel Deronda. Instead, the novel explores its complexities.
Maternal Power and Influence
Motherhood plays an important role in Daniel Deronda. While none of the principal characters are mothers, their own mothers loom large in their lives and influence their choices.
Almost as soon as Gwendolen is introduced to the novel, her mother is introduced as well, and Gwendolen’s characterization in the first part of the novel is illustrated by her interactions with her mother as they move into a new home. Gwendolen’s sense of self-importance, for example, is conveyed in the way that she dominates her mother. Her resolution never to marry is explained by her mother’s second marriage, in which she was dominated by a brutal man. Mrs. Davilow, rather than protecting her daughter, utterly relies on her; when she loses her fortune, Gwendolen marries Grandcourt to ensure she will be provided for. Mrs. Davilow is meek and passive, but she nonetheless plays an significant role in Gwendolen’s life, shaping Gwendolen’s biggest desires and decisions.
Another influential mother figure in Gwendolen’s life is Lydia Glasher. She is Grandcourt’s former mistress; she left her husband and her child to be with him, and they had four children together. Now, abandoned by him, she lives at the periphery of his life, asking him to marry her and make their children his heirs, as he had always promised. Lydia, like Mrs. Davilow, sometimes struggles with motherhood, still haunted by the mistakes of her past. Unlike Mrs. Davilow, however, she is forced to reckon with her mistakes, embracing her role as a mother more assertively than ever before. She is aggressive in her desire to do right by her children, confronting Grandcourt and threatening to place a curse on Gwendolen.
Perhaps the most complicated mother figure in the novel is Leonora, Deronda’s mother. She has been absent for most of his life, but, unlike other missing mothers (Mirah’s, for example), Leonora’s absence is a choice. She did not want to have a child, and so she arranges for Sir Hugo to look after Deronda. While her choice was partially motivated by the desire to protect Deronda from the antisemitic prejudice she herself experienced, her primary motivation for giving Deronda up was her career: She wanted to have a singing career, and she knew she could not do so with a child. She chooses motherhood only as a last resort, a way to live comfortably on her own terms after vocal problems force her into early retirement. Tragically, however, her voice comes back. Every time she thinks of her children, she thinks of the career that she gave up for them. To Leonora, motherhood has been nothing but a string of regrets that carry her further away from the life she would like to lead. Even when she reunites with Deronda, Leonora does not take on a maternal role, refusing to have an emotional relationship with him. Leonora is a complex, self-aware character who illustrates a nuanced and complicated relationship to motherhood.
Unlike in many other novels from this time, mothers in Daniel Deronda are presented as fallible humans, and motherhood is characterized neither as a blessing nor as an indicator of inherent “moral” good. Rather, motherhood is one of the few realms where female characters can exert agency and control, even if doing so sometimes works against them.
Victorian Gender Roles and Female Subjection
At the beginning of the novel, Gwendolen refuses to subject herself to anyone. As she tells her mother frequently, she loathes the idea of marriage because every marriage involves some degree of subjection. She has good reason for believing this, having seen firsthand the way her stepfather dominated her mother. At a time when women, particularly women of Gwendolen’s social class, were expected to marry, Gwendolen’s refusal to wed is striking. She is naive enough to believe that she can defy social expectations and live on her own terms. Simultaneously, she is confident enough to believe that she will be able to bend any man to her will. Gwendolen’s tragedy is that she is eventually compelled into marriage when her family loses their fortune. Her marriage to Grandcourt is the ultimate subjection; not only must she break her promise to Lydia that she would not marry him, but she must also break her promise to herself that she would never marry anyone. Gwendolen accepts this subjection to save her family, but also to save herself from the humiliation of becoming a governess—essentially a servant.
Grandcourt, like Gwendolen, views female submission as an integral part of marriage. However, for him, this power dynamic is marriage’s chief attraction. He does not love Gwendolen; he does not love anyone. Rather, he takes pleasure in dominating and harming other people. This is one of the reasons why he tolerates Lush’s presence: Lush is willing to subject himself to Grandcourt and seems to be the closest thing to a friend Grandcourt has. With Gwendolen, Grandcourt finds a woman who seems singularly averse to submission, which is what makes her so appealing: She is a challenge, a prize to be won. At first, Gwendolen has control in their relationship, leaving him and traveling to Europe when she learns about Lydia. However, when her family loses their fortune, she is reduced to a position of powerlessness, forced to marry Grandcourt. As soon as they wed, he sets about “breaking” her, restricting her freedoms, emotionally abusing her, and taking pleasure from her suffering. In marriage, the formerly stubborn, spirited woman becomes a ghost of her former self, just as she always feared. She only escapes the subjugation of marriage when Grandcourt dies, and even then Grandcourt uses his will to assert his power over her. Gwendolen’s realization that she can refuse to play by Grandcourt’s rules by rejecting her inheritance marks an important moment in her reclamation of independence.
Leonora shares Gwendolen’s fears of female subjection. Like Gwendolen, she was not willing to subject herself to a husband. Unlike Gwendolen, she found a husband whom she could manipulate and overpower. Her first husband—Deronda’s father—supported her career. When he died, Leonora encountered another form of female subjection: motherhood. Not wanting to subordinate her own needs to those of her child, she gave up Deronda to pursue a life of freedom and artistry. Even this decision does not protect Leonora from subjection, however, as circumstances beyond her control force her into an early retirement. Like Gwendolen, she ends up resigning herself to marriage so that she can live out the rest of her life in material comfort. While many characters in the novel are happily married, those who view marriage as a power struggle experience more pain than most.
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By George Eliot
