George Eliot's Early Fiction: The Movement From Alienation to Integration
type: CreativeWork
description: George Eliot's fiction depicts the processes of moral growth in individuals who discover they have held illusionary views about themselves and their relationships. Through the crisis of disenchantment they come to varying degrees of moral awareness. This study shows that in her early fiction moral progress depends upon harmonious integration of self with family and community. Males who fail in the process of integration manage to continue their diminished lives in exile; but females who are unable to adapt their individuality to the roles assigned by family and community lose their lives. At times their struggles against communal constraints threaten to subvert the affirmative theme of integration.
abstract: George Eliot's fiction depicts the processes of moral growth in individuals who discover they have held illusionary views about themselves and their relationships. Through the crisis of disenchantment they come to varying degrees of moral awareness. This study shows that in her early fiction moral progress depends upon harmonious integration of self with family and community. Males who fail in the process of integration manage to continue their diminished lives in exile; but females who are unable to adapt their individuality to the roles assigned by family and community lose their lives. At times their struggles against communal constraints threaten to subvert the affirmative theme of integration.
author: Carter, Margaret Larrabee
keywords: Literature, English
date published: 2014-12-15T19:15:04Z
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:26:00Z
provider: University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: http://hdl.handle.net/2142/69432