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George Eliot's problem with action.(Critical Essay)

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From: Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900
Date: 20010922
Author:Markovits, Stefanie

D. H. Lawrence remarked that "it was [George Eliot] who started putting all the action inside." (1) So, for example, in Felix Holt, she shifts the focus from the political revolution implied by the title of the novel to Esther Lyon's "inward revolution." (2) When George Eliot "puts things inside"--exploiting narrative's potential to describe the invisible--willing, judging, desiring, and feeling gain the same ontological status as acting. And yet, properly speaking, action is set apart by its externality. Moreover, it is only by doing that we become just or unjust, as ...

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