The Compassion And Caring Of Saint Theresa

In almost every respect, George Eliot occupies a profoundly controversial position among feminist literary critics. Although she was considered the "giant" of Victorian literature unequalled by any other woman writer in 19th century England, her credentials as a feminist are less clear. Her ambivalence about the "woman question" and the evident contrast between her "triumphs" and the "melancholy compromise" she created for her heroines render her a sort of "literary hermaphrodite" who uncritically worshiped the patriarchal values of Victorian culture and society. Middlemarch, Eliot's greatest masterpiece, shares the same equivocal position concerning the feminist issue as is occupied by the author herself. As a tentative feminist research on George Eliot, this paper attempts to reveal the uniqueness of Eliot's feminist consciousness both in her insightful exploration of women's present plight and in her subversive feminist ethics.Part one of this paper first gives an introduction to Eliot's life experience and literary works in general and then offers a brief review of the feminist criticism as her work Middlemarch is concerned. A survey of the representative contemporary feminist criticism of Middlemarch both at home and abroad reveals that most of the reactions toward the feminist issue in Middlemarch are thoroughly negative. They compare the heroine's tragic fate with that of her remarkable creator, charging Eliot with lacking positive presentation of women, with her not identifying the fictional life with her own radical and fruitful life, and with denying aspirant women every chance. They take notice of the heroines' moral strength but consider it as a sign of Eliot's conservative attitude toward conventional gender roles which may well illustrate her ambiguity toward feminist movement. Instead of blaming the heroine and comparing her unsatisfactory life with the glaring one of her creator, this paper attempts to integrate the woman question in Middlemarch with its broad social and humanistic content and explore the difficulty and value of women's self-fulfillment in a general pattern of interconnectedness rather than looking for "role models" in the novel.Part two of this paper makes a detailed analysis of the social cause of women's tragic lot in Middlemarch. Dorothea is the latter-born St. Theresa in whom the author vests her aspiration for lofty ideals and sublime spiritual life. Desiring an epic life as sheis, Dorothea finds no outlet for achievement apart from the socially limiting role of "common womanhood", i.e. marriage. Eliot's feminist consciousness lies not only in her presentation of the heroines' suppressed existence but also in her understanding of the formation of such a state by community, expectations and ideological pressures. Revealing the decisive influence of the society upon the construction of women's subjectivity and their personal choice, the paper discloses objectively the enslaved and marginal place that patriarchal ideology imposes upon women and the disastrous effect this hierarchical relationship exerts upon the life of both men and women.On this basis the paper expounds Eliot's unique feminist ethics. She celebrates the many Theresas who struggle to transform their hard lot into the duty, sympathy and devotion that exalt human life. This is not, as some feminists violently oppose, the proof that Eliot speaks for the patriarchal values on gender roles nor the expedient outlet that she takes for the trapped heroines. Rather, resorting to the consistent "maternal emotions" of love, sympathy, compassion and caring, Eliot reinscribes the traditional hierarchies that allow men to dominate woman, reason to subjugate feeling, and justice to counteract mercy, and in doing so attempts to correct the male-centered social norms and the gender opposition it backs up. To George Eliot, this is not only the "incalculary diffusive" influence that the new Theresa could exert around her in spite of the confining circumstances, but also, and more importantly, a positive demonstration of the feminine strength which serves as a challenge to the hierarchical relationship between the two sexes, and as an active endeavor to the genuine partnership in a community that could be achieved through the moral practice of compassion and caring.Eliot the writer herself is the faithful adherent to this doctrine of compassion and caring. To her, "the sympathetic imagination is the foundation of all morality". It enables her to transcend the bonds of gender bias to a point from which she is able to present men and women as equal units and explores the needs of humanity in general. In Middlemarch, Eliot does not limit the scope of her inquiry to the large self of Dorothea Brooke but celebrates the virtues and illuminates the weakness of both sexes, extending her moral ideal of compassion and caring to the sacred duty that is indispensable to an organic society.Comparing feminist critics' positioning of George Eliot in the feminist tradition, this paper points out that Eliot's feminist consciousness actually bears the foresight thattranscends her era, in that it provides a cultural analysis of gender relations which does not view the world as polarized by sex, or the values of women and men as in binary opposition, but regards them as individuals with diverse traits and characters without trying to define any of them in an essentialist manner. Her practices offer an insightful correction over feminist writers' overemphasis on difference which is intrinsic to sexism long before it was inherited by feminism, resembling much to the theory of Kristeva on her brilliant exposition concerning the "essence" of women. Meanwhile her moral ideal of compassion and caring leads to the possibility of intimate partnership which could act as a strong spiritual bond among people in an alienating modern society.