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Zion's Mimetic Angel: George Eliot's Daniel Deronda.

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From: Shofar
Date: 20040101
Author:Ward, Bernadette Waterman

Although George Eliot wrote Daniel Deronda with a great enthusiasm for Zionism and sympathy for the Jewish people, its hero Daniel rings hollow in the opinion of most critics. He is especially weak insofar as he is a Jew and a Zionist. Magically morally insightful like George Eliot's "angelic" heroines, he strikes most critics as priggish instead of inspiring. He was raised as a privileged Gentile, unaware of his Jewish heritage. Eliot substitutes his bloodlines for the morally sensitizing experiences of oppression that give her heroines mimetic realism. Eliot makes Daniel a Jew ...

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