Gwendolen and Daniel

[Carmilla]

Hello everyone!!

Yesterday I finished reading 'Daniel Deronda.'I loved it!!
The way things ended for Gwendolen made me cry. :cryin: When I read her brave words to Deronda, and the wish she maintained of being a better person, it really moved me. What do you think of Gwendolen?

[kev67]

I ended up feeling rather sorry for Gwendolen. I have read some articles that suggested Gwendolen had been sexually abused by her step-father as a child, and that is what was causing her hysteria and frigidity. It was quite an intriguing theory. Gwendolen may not be capable of forming a loving physical relationship with a man. Daniel never touches her, and he acts as a sort of counsellor to her.

[Jackson Richardson]

Isn't he the father she never had? Or at least didn't have around. (Having read the book recently I can't remember anything about her father, and I don't find the theory about abuse by her father very convincing. Many people are just not very cuddly,)

Mind you Daniel didn't have a mother, but he doesn't seem to find a need for one. But he is a bit too good to be true.

If there had been any physical contact between Daniel and Gwendolen it would have probably been regarded as scandalous at the time. Grandcourt gets furiously jealous just as it is. And if there had been the remotest physical contact between them, it would have spoiled George Eliot's idealistic view of the relationship.

Gwendolen is a tragic figure.

[Carmilla]

Hello kev67 and JonathanB!!

Thank you for your answers. :)

JonathanB:

When Daniel finds his mother he tries to establish a relationship with her, but she rejects him.

[Jackson Richardson]

Thanks, Caarmilla. I remembered he met his mother at last, but I couldn't remember the details. Is he particularly worried about the absence of a mother when he is growing up.

I don't think Gwendolen is a substitute mother for him. From the first scene in the casino he is guiding and criticizing her, as I remember.

[Carmilla]

No, only when he becomes an adult he begins to worry about his origins.

Yes, he criticizes her from the first, and as he meets her more frequently he tries to help her by offering counsel to her.

[kev67]

I do find the abuse theory convincing, even though none of the early reviewers seem to have picked up on it. Eliot was interested in psychology. The first chapter, 'The Spoiled Child', can be read two ways. Gwendolen was disturbed before she met Grandcourt, or why did she react so hysterically to the picture of the dead face with the figure running from it. Later when Gwendolen is telling Daniel about Grandcourt's drowning, and his drowning face that keeps coming to the surface, she also brings up her step-father, Captain Davillow, and how much he disliked him coming home. That must be significant. In both incidents there is talk of keys. In the first, Gwendolen demands the key to to cabinet where the painting of the dead face is kept, which her half-sister later finds. In the second, I cannot remember exactly, but she needs a key to lock up a knife, or else unlock the knife to dispose of it. What do you do with keys, but lock things away? It may or may not be cod psychology by C21st standards, but I expect Eliot meant Gwendolen was suppressing painful memories, and these were associated with her step-father.

[Carmilla]

Hello kev67!

I always read the Introductions after finishing the books because I don't want spoilers. And, I was reading the Introduction to Daniel Deronda and found something that I think could give force to your argument. Carole Jones says:

"Meanwhile her night terrors, 'fits of spiritual dread' (pp.50-51) and the inexplicable hysteria at the sight of the painting of the dead face and fleeing figure -- a vision which is to haunt her continually (pp.20;48) -- all suggest trauma. Psychoanalising characters is always dangerous, but the unspoken is always significant in Eliot's work, and there are repeated hints that Gwendolen has suffered because of Mr. Davilow (pp.22; 577), perhaps explaining why 'mamma had always been in an apologetic state of mind for the evils brought on her by a stepfather.' (p.32)"

All the page references belong to the Wordsworth edition of Daniel Deronda which is the copy I have. :)

As for my point of view, I don't tend to think she was sexually abused. Perhaps her traumas stem from other kinds of mistreatment.