Forming and performing the female identity in Daniel Deronda
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published 25/09/2008
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Summary
The Victorian era thrived on ideals; knowing their world is more than knowing the facts of British politics, of documented interactions, or popular amusements, it is striving to understand the light in which they saw themselves, the real or ideal roles society endeavored to fulfill. As Lynn Voskuil explains, “In nineteenth-century England. . . theatricality and authenticity often functioned dynamically together to construct the symbolic typologies by which the English knew themselves as individuals, as a public, and as a nation,” (Voskuil 2004, 2). To define oneself by the fulfillment of archetypical notions requires a social performance that seems to conversely relate to the very ideal of authenticity. There are many cases in which an individual’s own goals and morals align perfectly with those that society as a whole dictates, but there still requires performative expression of these shared ideals. The term ‘natural acting’ was coined by theatre critic (and partner of George Eliot) George Henry Lewes, to describe cases in which an individual uses acting not to mask their motives, but to explore their true emotions and present themselves accurately to the world.
Table of Contents
- Introduction.
- The works of George Eliot and their examination of the way English institutions required performances of nationality.
- The most seductive trait of Femininity.
- The fascination of Gwendolen's character.
- Another aspect of Victorian femininity that contributes to the knowledge of the female situation.
- The situation of sisterhood - pivotal to Victorian womanhood.
- Conclusion.
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