Paradoxical Narration

The existing criticism neglects the paradoxes in the political modernization presented by George Eliot's three later novels, Felix Holt, the Radical, Middlemarch, and Daniel Deronda, which focus on the political issues in the modernization in the midland of Britain. The three novels could be studied as a consecution from the viewpoint of narrative development. This dissertation analyzes the paradoxes stemming from the unsolvable contradictory problems in the progress of political reform in the modernization in England presented by the three novels, applying Marxist materialist dialectics, and borrowing cultural theories to interpret the contradictions and conflicts implied in the three novels.This dissertation argues that George Eliot's three later novels signify such a kind of paradox in the political modernization: the satisfying of the demand for power is the losing of the control of power. George Eliot, with her profound political insight, originally combined the structures of the political paradoxes of the society with her artistic paradoxical narrative structures, narrating the progress of political modernization in the modality of violent riots in the political reform in Felix Holt, the Radical, that of the slapsticks in the election in Middlemarch, and that of the supremacy and aggressiveness in Daniel Deronda. The three novels catch hold of the kernel of contradictory political forces, and reveal the conflicting relationship between the factors of the desires for power in English cultural tradition, and refract the paradoxes formed from the unsolvable problems in the political modernization: the modernization in England upgraded prolificacy with an unprecedented speed, offering opportunities of emancipation of personal desires, the appealing to personal power in politics pressed for a breakthrough in the traditional political setups, leading reform to modernization, which emancipated political forces, aggrandized political rights, and satisfied some people's desire for power in a certain extent. However, Driven by the modern engines, the desires for power inflated with an unprecedented speed so that people lost control of them. Although some people endeavored to put their good wishes into practice, trying to pull the train of desire to a safe rail, their own destiny deviated from their initial purposes, which is metaphorized by the relationship between a bow and its arrows: the political modernization is symbolized as a starting train, running like an arrow, yet it is doomed to get out of control and fall into the abyss.This dissertation also sticks to the argument that George Eliot's narrative structures metaphorize the political structures of the society. In the paradoxical narrative structures, these novels imply the paradoxes in the political modernization between the people's affirmations and their performances. While reevaluating the great achievements of the novels in presenting the political paradoxes in modernization, the dissertation analyzes some criticism on the writing of the novels, arguing that it was the paradoxical narrative art that was regarded by some critics as failures and conflicts in the writing of George Eliot's. There are certainly some limitations for George Eliot, who had to deal with the paradox between her adaptation to the paradigm in the discourse of imperial power and her endeavor to surpass it.