In George Eliot's Daniel Deronda, the theme of subjugation through observation becomes a unifying link between Jews and women, the novel's two main categories of characters . Eliot's female characters provide a complex commentary on the performance required of women in their public lives, a quality of society that transcends boundaries of race and religion. The direct use of theater and singing as a career choice for Jewish women illuminates this idea and inspires a natural comparison with the behavior expected of women in English culture. In 1876, when the book was published, critics and the public were outraged by Eliot's attempt to attract the Jewish element (including these female performers) into fine English literature. Eliot's critique of his society is clear in the novel's attempt to consider the Jewish woman beyond the stereotypical role of interpreter. In fact, the role of professional actress is starting to hold its own. As an art form, it is a level of honest posing, as opposed to the false premises of married life offered to English ladies. In its language and mode of description, the novel manages to draw even more unique conclusions about these two groups. Essentially, Eliot shows us English wives petrified into statues, disillusioned by a world that demands a public stand. Meanwhile, the Jewish characters demonstrate the very ability to express their emotions when offstage, which is required of English women in relationships. The relationship between authenticity and performance varies across the wide range of female characters, constantly relying on the ability to submit to circumstances, to embrace reality, to succumb to the unequal conditions of society. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an Original EssayThe choice to make three of the most important female characters performers of a given type is certainly an important one. Eliot insists that her readers keep the role of interpreter in mind when examining women's lives, across cultural or racial barriers. Deronda's Jewish mother, Alcharisi, turns out to be a retired singer, once very famous. And Mirah was raised by her father for the stage. Gwendolen is a step away from these two in that she desires to become an actress but instead chooses marriage, seeing this new life as a role to play. The continued presence of this performance theme is extremely important, as it draws our attention to the similarities between the politeness of the drawing room and the nature of the theater. But there are not only parallels between these two worlds. There is a clear differentiation buried deep in the descriptions of Gwendolen and Mrs. Glasher, a quality that is not included in the presentations of Alcharisi or Mirah. These two English characters are petrified by tragedy and hardship, rather than enlightened by them. They bristle when forced to submit, using performance to mask their true emotions and hardening depictions of their own failures. While Mirah's pose is imbued with natural talent, Gwendolen's seems full of determination. These subtle contrasts help to highlight the divergence that is at the heart of Eliot's critique: a trained performance before an audience and a professional performance on stage have objectification in common, but acting for money and acting for obtaining social leverage are not the same thing. Gwendolen defines herself as a statue figure as much as Eliot doesdefined as such. Gail Marshall suggests that “Gwendolen is from the outset absorbed and locked in by her desire to be seen,” a desire that willingly drives her to transform herself into an object to be read. From the beginning of the novel, in the game's famous scene, Gwendolyn is introduced to us through Deronda's eyes. The first lines of the book are Deronda's first impression of her (although we don't know this until the second paragraph). This choice for Gwendolen's entry into history certainly fixes her in the eyes of others. Deronda's response seems to mimic one's reaction to a work of art, in the sense that heightened aesthetic quality inspires deep reflection and naturally calls for the personal judgment of one's viewers: "Was it beautiful or not beautiful?" And what was the secret of form or expression. who gave the dynamic quality to his look? Did the good or the bad genius probably dominate the evil; otherwise, why was the effect one of unrest rather than quiet charm? Why did the desire to look again feel like a constraint and a force? not as a desire to which the whole being consents?." Before we even know her name, Gwendolen is frozen in time, her physical presence being an object of inspiration for a man's gaze. For the reader's knowledge , these questions could be inspired by a captivating painting or sculpture depicting a woman, since it is not specified that what is being looked at is a human being. The rays of her eyes are apparently static enough to be considered with constancy, weighed in concrete terms of good and evil, and descriptions such as "the secret of the form", "gave the dynamic quality" and "the desire to look again", allude to a desired effect, carefully and skillfully. conceived by art. The moral quality of the questions, by contrasting "the good or the bad genius", creates a kind of paradoxical state Although the language insists on an inner depth in question, Eliot continues to prove that it. simply interrogates the surface. The question is not “is she?” but “what does she look like?” », and the male gaze is thus fixed in this aesthetic sphere, despite its noble intentions. The play scene, which remains an important memory throughout the story, continues to make Gwendolen a statuesque figure. Eliot also shows us with what will, even on purpose, she occupies this role. The second paragraph provides the reader with crucial twists and turns to the ambiguous questions of the beginning, while ensuring the authority of Deronda's gaze in describing it further. Eliot tells us who is watching and what exactly the object is by beginning: "She who raised these questions in Daniel Deronda's mind was busy playing: not in the open air under a southern sky, tossing coins on a ruined wall, with rags around it. its members; but in one of those splendid vacation spots that the Enlightenment of the centuries has prepared for the same kind of pleasure at the high price of gilded moldings, dark colors and plump nudities..." (DD, 7). Note that the we learn the name of the male observer, but the person in question remains the ambiguous "she." In fact, Eliot will continue to guide the reader through Deronda's long, careful examination of Gwendolen's person, and she will even consider. her presence (DD, 7-10) before Eliot provides Gwendolen's name This naming decision not only aligns the reader's gaze with Deronda's, but, like introductions at a party, tells us who. it is most important to respect and know as an equal Placing agency in “the one who raised these questions” implies the intention to provoke questions from “her” part, as if that were the case. its inevitable function in itspresence. Eliot goes further, showing us how Gwendolen fails to introduce herself by hinting at her true place, by mentioning where she might be. Her being conjures up in Deronda's mind the image of a beggar and shows us how her pose has failed. The skeptical tone of the "high cost of gilded moldings", as well as the choice of "dark" and "chubby nudities", especially next to the open air of the girl in rags, suggest a conscious attempt to hide the truth. . The aesthetic therefore currently fails on two levels. Space itself lies about its own purpose, with its shoddy attempt at wearing a clunky costume of gilded, generic art. On top of that, there is a woman who is not what she tries to appear and uses performance (unsuccessfully) to try to hide the truth about herself and her situation. Gwendolen's inability to play her ideal part is revealed in a series of disappointments, just as it will be in her consciousness over the course of the narrative. Her excessive awareness of herself in the pose, a troublesome element that will later separate her from Mirah, is betrayed both by Deronda's conclusions and by her own apprehensions. It is not immediately recognizable as artificial like the space around it, but as alive and vibrant as it wants to be. In fact, Deronda initially chooses to look at this creature because it seems to contain more movement than its painting-like surroundings. After his eyes scan the crowd of players in "that boring, gas-poisoned absorption scene", he stops on Gwendolen because "...he suddenly [feels] that the moment is becoming dramatic" (DD, 9) . He watches her win, the reader following his every perception, until suddenly she turns to meet his gaze. The effect of her gaze overrides her own action: "...her eyes met Deronda's, and instead of turning them away as she would have liked, she was unpleasantly aware that they were stopped - how many time ?" (DD, 10). It is clear that Gwendolen is not only affected, but even controlled by Deronda's gaze. He looks, so she has to look back. Here, the creature that stood out as dramatic was frozen by the male gaze. She betrays a deep awareness of her artifice in her (correct) conclusion about this look. "The acute feeling that he measured her and considered her inferior, that he was of a different quality from the human dross around him, that he felt himself in a region outside and above her and him examining her as a specimen of a lower order, aroused a stinging resentment which prolonged the moment of conflict” (DD, 10). The reader is thus warned very early on that Gwendolyn is having difficulty playing, because she is perfectly aware of her failure. By revealing her immediate doubt when subjected to a penetrating gaze, the novel begins the process of differentiating between what she is and what she wants to be. Its sculptural quality penetrates her, as Eliot transforms her into marble before his eyes. This moment “does not bring blood to his cheeks, but keeps it away from his lips... without any other sign of emotion than this pallor of the lips turned towards his game” (DD, 10). She turns white, like a real statue, and tries to show as little emotion as possible, deciding to “continue playing as if she were indifferent to loss or gain” (DD, 11). Not only does Gwendolen freeze under this gaze, but she loses because she is fully aware of it and determined to conquer it, mistaking her self-objectification for defiance. Eliot's careful differentiation between the authentic self and the realized self becomes a critique because it expands to include other female characters. This characteristic of self-objectificationdeliberate is hardly specific to Gwendolen Harleth. This is most evident in the scenes with Mrs. Glasher, tragically frozen in time and space by a deliberately malevolent Grandcourt. She personifies Gail Marshall's notion that "sculpture can both defy time and be time-limited." It presents an image that can persist as long as its concrete form endures, disregarding the transience of the sculptor and perpetually condemned to repeat this same moment. "Lydia Glasher is frozen in Grandcourt's false promise of eventual marriage and thus an inheritance for their son. The scene in her house certainly contains a sense of condemnation - she is basically trapped in a moment of patient patience. hope, and Eliot shows her carefully trapped in this emotion When Grandcourt arrives, she is "sitting in the pleasant room where she usually spent her mornings with her children around her. It had a square projecting window and looked out on wide ones. gravel and grass, sloping towards a small stream which entered the swimming pool” (DD, 343) The symmetrical placement of Lydia in a circle (designated by “round”) of children, then framed by a square containing a small bottom. picturesque, certainly resembles a painting or plastic pose waiting for its entrance. Almost like stage actors, a proscenium effect suggested by the "protruding" aspect of the window, these carefully placed characters will remain here, moving only one step. little to suggest reality: “The children were all there. The three girls, sitting around them near the window, there were miniature portraits of her - brunettes with dark eyes, delicate features, with rich flowers on their cheeks, their small nostrils and eyebrows singularly finished like if they were little women, the eldest being barely nine years old. sitting on the carpet at some distance, leaning his blond head on the animals of a Noah's ark... Joséphine, the eldest, was doing her French lesson and the others, with their dolls on their knees, were sitting quite quietly for images of the Madonna" (DD, 343-344). Here, the children are either small statues of their mother, or posed images that we recognize in classical paintings. This is a scene of a recognizable tableau of quiet domesticity, symmetrical and visually coherent The tableau effect created by Ms. Glasher only becomes dramatic, or alive, when Grandcourt enters. to come or not, to contain the tragic potential he hears. As readers, we know that he is standing on the threshold and that the dramatic effect of a scene about to occur is skillfully realized. The feeling of condemnation, of imprisonment of the statue in time is not only suggested by Grandcourt's opposing freedom of decision. This is also evident in Lydia's pitiful and determined preparation at this very moment: "Mrs. Glasher's toilet had been done very carefully - every day now she thought that Grandcourt might come in." Her head, which, despite its emancipation, had been an indelible beauty in the fine profile, the sharp curves of the hair and the clearly marked eyebrows, rose impressively around her bronze-colored silk and velvet, and the necklace gold that Grandcourt had clasped around her neck for the first time years before" (DD, 344). Here we have a woman who puts on her costume, stage makeup or mask every morning for that particular scene . She spent more time frozen, waiting, than she will spend alive, acting. Once again, Eliot gives us clues to the statue metaphor by dropping clues.linguistics throughout the passage. The words “indelible,” “clear,” and “clearly marked” all suggest the presence of careful, hardened art. Even his clothes, described as bronze, evoke a material traditionally used in sculpture. She is more a symbol of her own fossilization than a real human being, carefully crafted down to the smallest details of her necklace. There is a dark cynicism in Eliot's inclusion of "despite emancipation," which suggests that Lydia is fighting against something inevitable and greater than she is. The reader should note that circumstances have changed, but this is not the case. This only reinforces the feeling that a horrible, stagnant quality defines one's life. She is beautiful in the challenge, but tragically struggles in another cycle of helplessness. As powerful as its craft presence may be, it is entirely dependent on Grandcourt. His gaze, and he alone, will decide whether his being will occupy a statue or a human life. Without ever saying it explicitly, Eliot shows us the horrible Medusa effect that Grandcourt produces on the two women in his life. Gwendolen will also be frozen in a moment, doomed to repeat her expression forever (or at least until she is freed from marriage, which is a period largely outside the scope of the novel). This moment is her wedding night, where Lydia exerts her haunting power over Gwendolen and petrifies the new Madame Grandcourt into self-hatred through guilt. Eliot draws strong parallels between their two situations. The presence of meaningful necklaces is barely hidden - Lydia wears the gold one, while discussing the diamond one, which is the very object she will use as a symbolic yoke on Gwendolen's emotional freedom. The diamond necklace will be a crucial detail in the sculptural figure of Mme Grandcourt that Gwendolen will become, the story of Lydia Glasher thus injected into this role. The language of the scene again presents the notion of the statue, connecting the two women through this pose. This doubling shows us a shared destiny between the English women of the novel, silently waiting to be destroyed by the inevitable disappointments of their lives. Gwendolen makes small movements between tragic poses, moving from one depiction of despair to another. a new spasm of terror made her lean forward and extend the paper towards the fire, lest the accusation and the proof should meet all eyes at once. It flew like a feather from his trembling fingers and was caught in the great current of flames. his movement, the box fell to the ground and the diamonds rolled away. She didn't pay attention to it, but fell back into her chair, helpless, she couldn't see her reflections: they were like so many petrified white women but approaching; herself, you could have seen the trembling of her lips and hands. She sat like that for a long time, barely knowing that she felt bad and that those written words kept repeating within her. (DD, 359)Finally, Gwendolen can submit to the present moment. She unleashes all power as paper, diamonds and even repeated words move more than she does. She just leans and shakes, trying to regain her balance in the pose that will occupy the rest of her married life. This is truly an explanatory moment in the novel. Gwendolen is at the limit of her own ideal in an impeccable and poignant aesthetic composition that reflects great drama with little movement. She is a fluid part of a perfectly placed painting; The letter burns in the fire, she succumbs to the moment without pretension and the diamonds which represent her ideal life symbolically move away from her. Eliot makes this allusion very clear, with "so many women petrified in white", recallingthat Gwendolen inhabits a collective identity in her suspended tragedy, thereby aligning herself with the Lydia Glashers of the world. It is also a place devoid of any gaze, even introspective, since we recall that she “paid no attention to it” and “could not see its reflections”. This momentary realization will be disrupted, and therefore essentially controlled by Grandcourt once again. Gwendolen fails to maintain aesthetic perfection in the face of the demands of the male gaze. She is no longer reified in a sculptural tragedy, since he enters and finds her "pale, screaming as it seemed in terror, the jewels scattered around her on the floor" (DD, 359). Gwendolen is ultimately stripped of her presumed power, unable to create a strong posture for this situation. Eliot has now brought the reader to the very threshold of Gwendolen's success, the near realization of his ideal, and left him to crash to the ground. The novel comprehensively considers the nature of performance in all its female characters. Gwendolen's inability to perform adequately is not only highlighted by comparison with Jewish women, but also subjected to criticism of their relative success. Eliot places Mirah and Alcharisi in similar situations, where their performance style is far removed from the static postures adopted by Lydia and Gwendolen. When Deronda first sees Mirah attempting suicide by the river, she is absolutely frozen, another woman subjected to her discerning gaze. As he rows and sings, "Deronda...turns his head towards the edge of the river and [sees] a few meters from him a figure which might have been an imitation of the misery he unconsciously was. giving the speaking to: a young girl barely eighteen years old, low and slim, with a very delicate little face, her dark curls pushed back behind her ears under a large black hat, a long wool coat on her shoulders. Her hands hung clasped in front of her, and her eyes were fixed on the river with a look of unchanging despair, similar to that of a statue” (DD, 187). her misery is projected onto her being before we are told what she actually looks like And here, Eliot uses the statue metaphor directly and once again presents a woman through the eyes of his male protagonist as opposed to her own. , the female author, like the theatrical effect of the Glashers waiting on stage, or Gwendolen with the diamonds, the entrance to Grandcourt, we have the impression that Mirah is frozen here, waiting to be activated by the arrival of the male gaze. However, she is not posing to achieve something, but rather by effectively inhabiting her own emotional state. In examining the changing relationship between authenticity and performance, Eliot considers more than the effectiveness of performance, in the same way that Gwendolen's sculptural submission is clarified by the presence of an extreme version (in Lydia Glasher). , Alcharisi serves to illuminate the nature of Mirah's abilities. Eliot gives a brief glimpse of a character that goes even beyond Mirah in terms of performance. The Alcharisi shows us a state in which the connection between emotions and action has become transparent. The nature of her scene of course contributes to drawing the parallel, in its basic outline: it will also be described for the first time through the eyes of Deronda, in an apprehensive posture awaiting her arrival to begin her role. Deronda enters and “finds himself in the presence of a character who, at the other end of the large room, was waiting for his approach” (DD, 624), in another moment where we wait in balance for his first reaction, which the objective. right away. Deronda sees that "she was covered, except for theface and part of her arms, of black lace which hung freely from the top of her whitening hair to the long train which extended from her tall figure” (DD, 624). The language here has subtle implications, nowhere near as explicit as the tableau effect depicted in the scenes involving the English women: Eliot twice calls her a "figure", as opposed to a more vivid term such as " woman”, “person” or “being”. She is not wearing clothes, but rather "covered", like furniture in a dusty room. Even her pose is perfectly suited to the scene she is about to play, the grand finale, the family reunion: “Her arms, bare to the elbow, except for a few rich bracelets, were crossed in front of her, and the beautiful balance of her head made her more beautiful than she really was” (DD, 624). She stands ready to receive his reaction. She is both proud and tragic, beautiful and old, regal but broken. The variety of effects is much wider, with more nuance than what is achieved by Gwendolen and Lydia's simplistic pose. The scene between Deronda and her mother continues to be stilted and slow, somewhere between the sculptural and the dramatic. The authentic quality of one's emotions is reinforced by a level of truth and submission. This complete lack of challenge and the efficiency it achieves recall Mirah's honest posture, proving their similarity in the author's mind. Eliot continues to connect Mirah and Alcharisi, the two Jewish women, imbuing them with an honesty of performance. which remains absent elsewhere. The fluidity of Alchirisi's manner does not exist in Gwendolen's pose, nor in Ms. Glasher's obvious intention for effect. Even though she barely moves in her scene, the theatrical nature of her behavior (as opposed to the frozen picture effect) is constantly evoked. Eliot describes his mode of explanation, after Alcharisi calmly tells Deronda his life story and admits the pain it has caused him and herself, after barely batting an eye: "The The varied transitions of tone with which this speech was delivered were as perfect as the most accomplished actress could have made. The speech was in fact a piece of what we can call sincere acting: the nature of this woman was such that any feeling - and a fortiori when it was tragic as well as real - immediately became material for representation conscious: the experience immediately transformed into drama. , and she acted according to her own emotions” (DD, 629). The immediacy of the performance here has a dynamism that sets it apart from Gwendolen's more convoluted efforts. Mirah, on the other hand, performs this same unintentional art in Deronda's eyes. Mirah can become the living statue without Gwendolen's work or struggle. Like Alcharisi, she always seems to be playing herself when she is happy, her aesthetic presentation reflects this perfectly: “The delicacy of her hair and her dress, the shine of her dress. a quiet happiness in a face where a painter would not have changed anything if he had wanted to place it before the guest singing “Peace on earth and good will towards men” (DD, 369). This frank admission of one's inner state is communicated in one way or another but without pretension or art. Mirah and Alchirisi also don't play to hide their feelings, but rather to express them expertly. Gwendolen is more often seen acting to hide or repress her instincts. Although both roles require performance, these details clearly distinguish them because they are very different. There may be a strong link between motivations for action and relative level of success. Since Lydia and Gwendolen are fighting their feelings and both betraying a more obvious effort, their frozen appearance maybe due to increased difficulty. The fight against repression seems to require more effort than simply speaking the truth. In Gwendolen, Eliot certainly depicts more effort in interpretation than is felt in any of these characters. In the world of play, she had to actively try (with difficulty), whether she wanted to win or lose, to do so “strikingly” (DD, 11). During Grandcourt's marriage proposal to her, we realize perfectly to what extent "she had to concentrate all her energy in this self-control which made her appear gravely graceful when she held out her hand", setting the scene with such meticulousness that “if we saw them as an image, we would have concluded that they were in a certain phase of romantic suspense” (DD, 299). We are constantly reminded of Gwendolen's intentional posing and her awareness of the difficulties involved. In Gail Marshall's assessment of the sculptural, this intense focus might distract Gwendolen enough to paralyze the outcome of her efforts. Marshall asserts that "the sculptural may be approved on an initial register of visual appreciation, but too much emphasis on spectacle militates against the absorption of the moment and the actress into the disrupted narrative of the play." Gwendolen is too busy playing the role to understand its context. Her poses freeze her and trap her in her own story. The existence of this consciousness is absent in characters who breathe their inner self perfectly. Where Gwendolen, "with all these nagging troubles in her conscience... barely loses for a moment the feeling that it was up to her to behave with dignity and to appear what we call happy" (DD, 425) Mirah n is never visibly aware of such an obligation. She places almost no emphasis on her own sculptural role but therefore seems to occupy it naturally. Eliot shows us again and again that Mirah's poses are meant to be involuntary, although entirely effective. She tells us this directly, when Mirah inspires in Deronda the feeling that it would be "impossible to see a creature freer from both embarrassment and audacity." His theatrical training had left no recognizable trace; probably her manners had not changed much since she played the abandoned child at the age of nine; and she had grown in her simplicity and truth like a little flower seed which absorbs the accidental confusion of its environment into its own mold of beauty” (DD, 225). It is interesting that in order to betray affectation, one must be trained in this very art. When Mirah is suicidal, she appears this way artistically, just as when she is happy, she appears as a perfect image of happiness. Acceptance of reality, or at least an awareness that is not too egocentric to perceive it, is something that is manifesting itself. differently in the four women. Whatever the motive, any form of denial tends to paralyze a performance. On the spectrum of authentic performance proposed by Eliot, the woman who submits succeeds. There is also an element of submission to Mirah and Alcharisi's authenticity that is clearly not a personality trait found in Gwendolen or Lydia. Unlike Gwendolyn, Mirah freezes in pitiful despair, as opposed to ardent defiance. She also willingly submits to reality or her situation, no matter how cruel, in such moments. This flexible submission is exactly the opposite of the type of reaction observed in Gwendolen when faced with difficult situations. The two English women are presented as stubborn, often proud characters who are fighting against something. Mirah's cooperative tenderness, among other crucial qualities, softens her enough to let the