George Eliot’s Art Of Narration presents in most of the literary writings and works of George Eliot, we come to know that the psychological interpretation or element is very much prominent in the inner working operations of the minds of the characters of her most of the novels. This is the very reason for which George Eliot has great importance in the history of English fiction.
She always felt delight in dealing with the problems of the human personality and its relationship with forces outside itself. As she had always special interest in psychological analysis of the inner consciousness of human beings which served as determining the future course of the English novel.
The very characteristic of her art of writing novels is that her most of the writings are unique and alive and her major achievements such as “Adam Bede”, “A Mill on the floss”, “Silas Marner and Remola” always run in our blood and stay in our bones. As she always discusses her characters psychologically and her characters are always affected by external forces of nature. As most of the learned and prominent critics mark George Eliot as a pessimist but she is more successful in this presentation of scenes of pathos.
Most of the incidents which she depicted in the novel, really had touched the cores of the ‘hearts of the readers. That’s why her tragedies are always heart rendering. She completed the work of Wordsworth who dealt with the pathos of pastoral life in the spirit of measureless humanity. The uniqueness of her art is observed and acknowledged when she mingled her pathos, with humour and produced the greatest dramatic effect, that’s why, being a serious writer, basically yet she was not without touch of humour. Even there is no lackage of humorist touch in her rustic characters and their dialogues. Mrs. Poyser e.g. there is no doubt that she is unconsciously humorous and she causes mirth & delight in other’s personality. Her humour is not sarcastic and bitter but lucid and genteel.
Her humour is not vast but limited and as far as her style is concerned which is a really lucid and simple one which appeals to every kind of reader. It is over weighed with abstractions. It is by the influence of her excellent dialogues and her command of idioms which enables her to achieve a fine naturalness. Another very sublime trait of her art of writing is that her Biblical and half Shakespearean dialogues impress the readers to the highest degree. By using this technique, she presents the characters in their full colours and tastes.
As it is said that George Eliot is really artful in presenting female characters and they are vividly; openly and convincingly drawn by her. One thing which we commonly observe in her presentation of female characters is that her female characters are always given preference by their lovers. Her stories are always written from the female character’s viewpoint. G. Eliot’s men and women are usually depicted and presented after her relatives and friends because she reveals and presents herself and her relatives through her characters. It is said that Hetty’s aunt shows some glimpses and traits of George Eliot’s mother. Dinah is drawn after her aunt and Adam Bede is drawn after her own father.
In her other famous novels where we see that Maggie Tulliver in “The Mill on the Floss” is depicting her own personality and personal study.Apart from this one, George Eliot achieves great success in drawing complex characters. Mostly this fact is observed when most of the novelists generally concentrate on the outside aspects of the characters but generally fail in the portrayal of complex characters. But it is the successful art of G. Eliot that she draws them successfully because her characters have always close touch with social customs, rites and environment. Her characters are always on the moving dimensions of life and have deep relations with changing trends of life. That’s why they never seem to be static as she always portrays them gradually and perfectly. She is of the view that “character too is a process”.
As far as Dickens and Thackeray’s characters are concerned which to some extent seem to be static and unchanging but George Eliot’s heroes and heroines are radically different from those of above mentioned writers. She presents and depicts her characters in such a marvelous but lucid style that its gradual evolution enables the viewers and readers to know her characters gradually and perfectly. The factor of morality which is the key note to every novelist’s writing we see that George Eliot is not exempted from this because her chief figures are dominated and governed by moral considerations. She always gave too much importance and concentration on the moral side of human nature which becomes a major source of her great place as a novelist in English literature.
Her power of imagination is not distorting glass like Dickens while it is an X-ray with which she brings her characters to life and peeps into their secrets which spring up from their actions. That’s why, all her minor and major characters are true to their respective moral natures and any violation of the moral values and laws, brings of leads her characters to utter ruin. The case of Hetty in Adam Bede is very apt in this respect because a slip in her conduct is likely to lead to serious consequences, though she desires to mould her character into the right shape and form yet it is too late.
In the concluding remarks, it can be said that being the greatest novelist of the Victorian age, she has always a proper and high place in both old as well as new novelists. Though some of her novels seem to be old in their appeal yet most of her novels prove to be the novels of ultra modern trend.
As she is rightly considered as the novelist of intellectual life and her psychological insight into human motives and actions.is deep rooted and profound one. She had the best use of her imaginative power to intellectualism the English novel and characterization and imparted to it moral fervor and ethical bias which Dickens and Thackeray had not yet got. It is she who gave to the English novel an air of sobriety and grimness. Having such qualities, her novels serve as sermons for a vast satisfaction of the readers and her novels are not cheap entertainments but these are the collection of highly complicated, philosophical and abstract thoughts.
