From goddess and Odysseus themes to an evolving Christ mythos: George Eliot's 'Romola', 'Middlemarch', and 'Daniel Deronda'

The character Romola Bardi in Eliot's historical novel Romola (1863) undergoes trials not unlike those faced by both Odysseus and Telemachus in the Odyssey. Where her husband Tito Melema fails as husband and son, Romola journeys successfully home to claim a family.;Eliot's Middlemarch is unlocked with the resources of current Jungian methodology. The groundbreaking work of feminist Jungians is employed to reveal Dorothea Brooke as quintessential spirited Artemis horsewoman. Though her patriarchal society forces upon her through marriage the "underground" role of Persephone, by her second marriage she transcends that also, merging with the intellectual energy of Athena. Daniel Deronda opens with Artemis typology, but moves swiftly to a complex Christ and Magdalene tableau. Applying archetypal criticism reveals these Christian archetypes. Eliot purposefully chose this method of development in all three novels because she intuitively understood her own gift for using myth to highlight perceptions about the human condition.