Daniel Deronda's early books focused on Gwendolen Harleth, who shines as a self-centered and domineering young woman. Becoming trapped by her marriage to Grandcourt, she develops a growing fascination with Daniel, an attraction that began with their meeting in the book's opening pages. Daniel's influence on Gwendolen causes her to evolve her ego and become a better woman, and Gwendolen eventually falls in love with him. Unfortunately for Gwendolen, Daniel realizes that despite his attraction to her, his love is for the Jewish Mirah, and Gwendolen's fate remains undecided. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Eliot had begun the novel with Gwendolen and then depicted many scenes of Gwendolen's dependent relationship with Daniel, so naturally both the readers and the characters within the story can imagine an eventual romance love between the two. However, Eliot clearly indicates in Book VIII that a romance with Gwendolen is incompatible with Daniel's discovery of his Jewish origins. Using language that equates marriage with a spiritual union, Eliot emphasizes that Daniel's soul has a distance from Gwendolen's that precludes any satisfactory marriage between the two, and further, suggests that for Daniel and Mordecai, the Jewish characters faithful, religion and marriage are intertwined. since they involve similar acts of union of souls. We first see the obvious religious divide between Daniela and Gwendolen at the beginning of Book VIII, when Mirah feels misplaced jealousy toward Daniel's relationship with Gwendolen, who has the appropriate rank and English background that she lacks. Mirah thinks that the perceived “attachment between Deronda and Mrs. Grandcourt” would surely end with their future marriage” (732). On the other hand, he simultaneously has the contradictory belief that Gwendolen "seemed like a different being from Deronda, something foreign that would disturb his life instead of merging with it" (733). In addition to personality differences, the aspect of Deronda's character that causes this alienation is his ties to Judaism. Although Mirah does not yet know about his parents, she already associates him with Judaism due to his continued interest in the religion and his potential role as a disciple of Mordecai. He concludes that "the relationship between Deronda and his brother" is "incongruous with any close connection with Mrs. Grandcourt" (733). Despite her original misconception that Daniel and Gwendolen are romantically involved, Mirah maintains a strong and conscious awareness that a marriage between the two would not be in harmony with Judaism's hold on Daniel's life. While Mirah doubts Daniel's love for her, Daniel in turn doubts Mirah's love. love for him, even after discovering he was Jewish. When he argues with the disconsolate Hans about Mirah, he says that he has “very little hope” of being Mirah's lover despite Hans' beliefs to the contrary (784). This suggests that the romantic depth of Daniel and Mirah's relationship remains unchanged even after his parentage's revelation, as he no longer sees himself as attractive to her as a lover. However, the new “open card” of his “hereditary right” gives him the potential and ability to marry Mirah, which previously would have been impossible even if they had recognized their love for each other (744). He knows that their relationship is no different outwardly, but “his relationship with Mordecai” brings him “a new closeness to Mirah” despite “no apparent change in his position towards her” (745). After she also comes to know about her parents, so does Mirahshe feels this “suddenly revealed sense of closeness” because Daniel's Jewish birthright allows him to inhabit the same religious plane as Mirah and Mordecai, an intangible but important difference to her (751). Eliot's choice of spatial words such as “proximity” and “location” contrast with the abstract ideas presented, but they allow the reader to concretize the changes in Daniel's relationship with Mirah. Although they are no longer close in love or space, their souls now live under the same God, a closeness that cannot arise organically since Jews can only be born, not become. Feeling closer to Mirah and Mordecai, Daniel's new bonds of "love and duty" to Judaism prevent him from pursuing any impulse to love Gwendolen, which might have been a reality earlier in the story (765). When Daniel and Gwendolen first met at the casino, became transfixed and occupied each other's thoughts, and their intriguing reunions, in the midst of Gwendolen's problems with Grandcourt and Daniel's involvement with the Lapidoth, were a point focal point of the story. Daniel even admits that a year ago "he would hardly have asked himself if he loved her", and he would have wanted to "save her from the pain" and "complete to the end the rescue he had started in that monitoring and redemption of the necklace" (765) However, the deepening bond Daniel feels with the Lapidoth makes him realize that he and Gwendolen differ on a fundamental level her” (765). Once again Eliot invokes a spatial distinction, according to which Gwendolen and Daniel are separate, or “separated.” Unlike the Jewish characters, Gwendolen does not believe in a crucial difference between Daniel's soul and her own. After Daniel tells her about his Jewish parents, she asks, "'What difference should it make?...You're just as if you weren't a Jew'" (801-802). Gwendolen's perspective is that of the conventional English reader of the time, who is expected to be unfamiliar with the need for unity in a Jewish marriage. They may be prejudiced against a Jewish-English marriage for other reasons, but they don't see the same fundamental difference that Mirah and Daniel do. Indeed, other characters, including Sir Mallinger and Hans, have the same opinion as Gwendolen: when they learn of Daniel's Jewish heritage, they still hold the belief that Daniel will marry Gwendolen. In the end, Gwendolen and Grandcourt married out of necessity, and the Klesmers out of pure love, but Daniel and Mirah come to marriage on the heels of religious and romantic unity. In contrast to his distance from Gwendolen, when Daniel proposes to Mirah, he proclaims that they “'can have no sorrow, nor woe, nor joy apart'” (792). The marriage between them is a true union of their souls, as Daniel wishes to accept her completely within himself. Eliot emphasizes the theme that because marriage for Jews unites their souls, they must accept every part of each other, including evil. After Mr. Lapidoth steals the diamond ring from him, Daniel tells Mirah in his proposal that he will also think of her father as his own, a belief that stems from his all-encompassing love for Mirah. Mordecai also embodies this ideal of total acceptance after Mirah faces her father's repugnant return. Mordecai attempts to console her by saying that the good they have inherited allows them to “feel evil,” that they are two opposites that “are married” to them, as “‘[their] father was married to [their] mother'” (743). Mordecai accepts Mr. Lapidoth's misdeeds as necessary to his identity, as something he inherited; Daniel accepts this as a necessary part of Mirah's marriage since he is a partof Mirah's identity. Their faithful Jewish perspective sees marriage not as a blind love between two people, but as a conscious appreciation of both good and evil, because both are the result of God's will work. Eliot extrapolates this into sacred religious doctrine by comparing Mordecai's consoling speech to Mirah to “a rabbi conveying the rulings of an ancient time” (743). In teaching Mirah to understand the religious significance of marriage, Mordecai is like the Rabbi who said, "'The Omnipresent is busy making marriages,'" and "by marriages are meant all the wonderful combinations in the universe the result of which makes the our good and our evil” (743). Here Eliot makes clear that this perspective on marriage applies to all Jews throughout time, and not just the characters in his story. Furthermore, by specifying the distinctive nature of Jewish doctrine, he differentiates the views of Mordecai and Daniel from those typical of the Englishman. Although not an observant Jew, Mirah's father also recognizes the symbolism of marriage in accepting both good and evil in Judaism. When he begs to live with the again his children, turns to Mirah and draws on his faith in marriage and his reverence for his mother. He says that Mrs. Cohen would have forgiven him because "thirty-four years ago [he] put the ring on her finger under the Chuppa, and [they] were made one” (777). Mirah then exclaims that she should stay, and Mordecai does not disagree with her, despite his vehement dislike of her father. While Mirah and Mordecai aren't thrilled that their father is staying, they give him a chance to live out his apology and possible path to forgiveness. He had done them many wrongs, bringing Mirah to the brink of suicide, but the fact that their mother would forgive him makes the children accept him for a while longer. At some point, the mother and father were "one", and the children still hope that the enduring goodness of the mother's soul can prevail over the wickedness of the father's soul. Judaism not only causes Daniel to move closer to Mirah and away from Gwendolen. , but also to find a higher meaning in one's life. After discovering her parentage, Mirah “had taken her place in his soul as a beloved type – reducing the power of other people's charms” in Gwendolen, which, she realised, tended “to arouse in him the enthusiasm of pity self-martyrdom rather than personal piety". love” (744-5). He felt a duty to Gwendolen that eclipsed any potential love he felt, and while aware that "Gwendolen's soul clung to his with a passionate need," he realized that his own soul needed "the closest communion" of "men of the same heritage". ” (765). The idea of ​​Daniel's "self-martyristic piety" and desire to help those in need is woven throughout the novel as he saves Gwendolen, Hans, and Mirah in some way, and struggles with his inability to save Gwendolen from his marriage to Grandcourt. With the change of fate in his relationship with Mordecai, he finds a new vocation, that of saving the multitudes of Jews in diaspora in the same way that his Jewish identity gives him the possibility of marrying Mirah, Daniel he now has the ability to cultivate his wandering soul into a fulfilling vocation. Eliot paints many similarities between Daniel's marriage to Mirah and his new religious calling. In the scene where Daniel reveals his parentage, he enthusiastically tells Mordecai that “ 'have the same people'” and that their “'souls have the same calling'” (748). This moment of revelation mirrors the intimacy of a marriage, as the two men "shaked hands" and Daniel said that “'neither by life nor by death shall they be separated,'” a word choice reminiscent of wedding vows (748). ..