Daniel Deronda by Eliot
Leonora Alcharisi's Individualism in George Eliot's Daniel Deronda Although Daniel's mother is only in two chapters of George Eliot's Daniel Deronda, she stands out as one of the novel's most memorable, and shocking, characters. Leonora Alcharisi completely obliterates any preconceptions that Daniel, and the reader, had about what his mother might be like. The crux of why she is so shocking is that her character is bereft of any motherly qualities. Leonora's renouncing of the role that society values most in women, that of mother, is emblematic of her rejection of every design that society projected on her. Leonora's struggle with the society that doesn't value her because she is a Jewess is embodied in her relationship with her father, Charisi. Her nature is one that needs freedom. This causes her to chafe under the constraints of her strict Jewish upbringing. Although she is only concerned with personal liberation and is thus not a true feminist, Leonora articulates many ideals that are very feminist in nature. By examining her successes and failures, the reader gains insight into the novel, and society as a whole. Eliot describes Leonora's beauty as having "a strangeness in it as if she were not quite a human mo
Since her personal happiness is paramount to all other things, "her experience" is the only "justification" she needs to needs to validate her giving up of Daniel. Even though Leonora herself is not a feminist, her individualism puts her in conflict with roles that constrain all women in a culture similar to her own. (Eliot 540) Caring more about "the grandson to come" than he did about his daughter, Charisi fails to recognize the strength within his daughter (Eliot 544). Becoming Princess Halm-Eberstein represents a failure for Leonora. But she also resigns herself to a force outside of her own in her acknowledging that perhaps "God. If my acts were wrong-if it is God who is exacting from me that I should deliver up what I withheld-who is punishing me because I deceived my father and did not warn him that I should contradict his trust-well, I have told everything. When Daniel invokes its deep "roots knit into the foundation" of man as the reason for his mothers failure in defying his grandfather he does so as a way of vindicating its power. In one sentence Eliot establishes that Leonora does not appear motherly and for that reason seems a bit inhuman as well. I was to be what he called 'the Jewish woman' under pain of his curse. Leonora Alcharisi is not a feminist. (Eliot 537)Leonora dedicated her life to the pursuit of her own happiness, with no regard for anyone else.
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Acceptance Essays
