"Sensibility to Resemblance": Sameness, Difference, and Nationality in Eliot

Our last blog post! Please respond in the comments.

Having read Deronda, this section from Eliot's last published work, Impressions of Theophrastus Such (1879) should have a lot of resonance for our previous conversations about race, nationality, and the body. While it's tempting to read this text as 'what Eliot really thought about Jewishness' it's important to remember that it is written in the often cranky and satirical voice of a persona or character. So, think of it alongside Deronda, not as the explanation for it.

Here are some issues and questions I want to discuss on Monday:

1) Nationality: How does the speaker define nationality? What is the function of nationality?

2) Race and Bodily Difference: The speaker uses "race" a number of times. What does the speaker mean by this? How is it related to nationality? When we talk about 'race' here are we talking about visible difference?

3) Sameness and Difference: There is a lot of discussion of assimilation, separateness, cosmopolitanism, and nationality. Certainly, the speaker often treats separateness positively and assimilation negatively (though it gets complicated).
--What I'm interested in here is the relationhship between what the speaker calls Jewish "peculiarity" and the kind of "resemblance" the speaker wants us to see between "us" and "them."

Consider the following quote in perparation for this discussion: “the necessary ground of such distinction is a deeper likeness. The superlative peculiarity in the Jews admitted, our affinity with them is only the more apparent when the elements of their peculiarity are discerned” (174).

4) The Jews and other Others: How do the Jews fit in with other racial groups in this essay? The speaker brings up the Irish a number of times, as well as a panoply of nationalities and races. Are the Jews "exceptional" for the speaker as well as the people he critiques? Remember that the tone can often be ironic and slippery, even and especially when the speaker is discussing or ventriloquising reprehensible views.

There's a lot to talk about. So let's get ready for our last class session

"Glad to Find Myself a Jew"--Race, Identity, and Inheritance in Deronda

Throughout this course, we've looked at moments in texts where either characters or readers are informed that they are not who they thought they were. Think of Fedalma in The Spanish Gypsy, Manrico in Trovatore, or Arline in The Bohemian Girl.

Deronda, however, seems different, partly because Deronda's identity (his sympathy, his ethics etc...) are tied to the uncertainty of his origins. I'm wondering how you read the effect of this revelation on how the reader understands Deronda's character, on how Deronda understands himself, and how others see him. In the quote I've used for the title of this post, "glad to find myself a Jew" (783), Deronda associates a kind of self discovery ("find myself") with a discovery of racial difference. There are a number of issues involved here that I'd like to discuss. A couple questions:
1) Pay attention to Deronda's understanding of his inheritance. How does he characterize it? I'm thinking of his meeting with Kalonymos on pages 724-725, as well as the discussion with Mordecai on pages 750-751. What exactly is inherited? How does inheritance impact identity?

2) How do characters respond to Deronda's Jewishness? How does it affect familial and affective (romantic) ties? Think of Gwendolen's reaction (801-802). Does Deronda ascribe to the same ideas about the relationship between identity and Jewishness that we've seen in this book so far?

We'll also talk about the effect of all of this on Gwendolen (803-804).
--Enjoy finishing Deronda!

"Her words had called out a latent obstnacy of race in him"--Race, Biology, and Gender in Deronda

As I mentioned in class, for our next session, I'd like to discuss Deronda's meeting(s) with his mother, both in terms of how they represent Jewishness and race, but also how gender politics affects racial politics (i.e. her ambition and talent, evading the limitations put on women etc...)

A couple moments to think about:
a) Her "mobile" face that is always changing. How does this relate to the issues of race and legibility that we've been discussing (624). Deronda on the other hand is a "young copy" of his grandfather (630).

b) What do you make of the comparison between her and a Melusina (or fairy that is serpent from the waist down)?

c) What do you make of the scene in which his mother explains that despite shedding her outer Jewishness, people looked at them as if "tattoed under our clothes" (635). Deronda's response is driven by the "obstinacy of race in him" (635).

d) In their 'second interview' they discuss the relationship between individual desires and history ("the effects prepared by generations are likely to triumph over a contrivance which would bend them all to the satisfaction of self" (663). How does Inheritance (biological/cultural) work here?

Obviously, we have much to talk about with regard to Gwendolen and what happens with her, but let's start with Deronday (again):)

"Israel is the Heart of Mankind"--Nationalism, Race, and the Universal in Deronda

Building on what we have been talking about in class about how Jewishness is embodied (seen, read, physicalized), I want you to discuss the relationship between race and nationality in today's section of Deronda---in particular, the conversation that goes on at the "Hand and Banner."

Related to this, I'd like to consider the racial character of nationality---specifically the interplay between particularity (separateness, a Jewish State) and the Universal: hence the quote in my title "Israel is the heart of mankind" (530). This is echoed in Mordecai's discussion of a Jewish state as "a halting place of enmities, a neutral ground for the East as Belgium is for the West" (535). To put it another way, if Mordecai represents a Jewish Nation as a body that must be "revived" what kind of body is the Jewish nation?

Also related to this is the notion that Deronda is literally a re-embodiment of Mordecai's worn out body--see the reference to this on p.472 and 540. There are a number of issues at stake here.
a) If Deronda is to carry on Mordecai's ideas of statehood, how is Deronda's body related to the National body?

b) What do you make of the relationship between them and Mordecai's yearning for Deronda?
the eroticized union of souls (540). How is this related to race and Jewishness? (see p.572--"our souls know each other...the life of Israel is in your veins").

There's a lot to talk about...

"I could not make myself not a Jewess"--Race, Religion, and the Body in Daniel Deronda

The title for today's post is taken from p.375 when Deronda is trying to argue for the lack of difference between Jews and other people---a kind of universality of ideas etc... Mirah however points out that even with Conversion, one is still racially a Jew.

I want to use this to talk about the conflicted response Deronda has to individual Jews. So, for tomorrow, I'd like you to look at Deronda's trip to Frankfurt through this conversation with Mirah (362-380), and of course Deronda's search for Ezra Cohen and encounters with "unpoetic Jews," with recognizable Jews and remarkable Jews (or rather Jew---Mordecai). Recall that Eliot is not expressing what 'she thinks' about Jews but rather dramatizing the conflicted logic of Deronda's attitudes about the relationship between the body and race/religion---that is, toward the question of legibility. Of course related to this is the important scene where Deronda is approached in the synagogue by a man asking about his mother's heritage (368). Please comment on Deronda's response--" I am an Englishman"--which doesn't of course answer the question. But pay attention to the slippage of nationality and race.

I also would like for you to focus on the interactions between Mordecai and Deronda--for example the "exchange of fascinated, half furtive glances" (397). Where does desire fit in here? By desire I don't necessarily even mean sexual desire, but rather that each embodies something the other is yearning for. This is especially important for Mordecai, but I want you to comment on both.

"Like Vision in the Abstract"--Identity, Sympathy, and Desire in Deronda

We have LOTS to talk about for this section of the book. Feel free to respond to any of the following:

1) Following up on our conversation about Gwendolen's relationship to desire, what do you make of a figure like Grandcourt? My title for this post is taken from a description of his look which was like "vision in the abstract." What do you make off his boredom, calm, and power?

2) Following up on our brief discussion of Eliot's invocation of the Civil War to contextualize domestic relations like marriage, what do you make of her statement at the end of Chapter 11: "What in ht emidst of that mighty drama are girls and their blind visions? They are the Yea or Nay of that good for which men are enduring and fighting. In these delicate vessels is borne onward through the ages the treasure of human affections" (124). What is the narrator's take on the relationship between the domestic and the geopolitical? How is it gendered?

3) What do you make of Eliot's description of Deronda---both in terms of his body and his character? You can comment on his sensitivity toward questions of his birth and how this is figured as a wound or deformity (170) and you can comment on his general sensitivity and sympathy (175, 176, 178).

3a) Related to this, think about the discussion of Deronda's relationship to space and identity ("shift his centre till his own personality would be no less outside him than the landscape" (189) in comparison to Gwendolen's 'terror' at open spaces and sense of powerlessness.

4) Or, comment on Deronda's rescue of Mirah. Note the immediate link to his (unknown) mother (191). Note also the blurring of "Jewess" and "Spanish" (193). Note also that he imagines the Meyrick girls will see her as Literary ("a lovely Jewess with Rebecca in 'Invanhoe'")--p.194. What also do you make of the phrase "she is a Jewess--but quite refined" (200)?

"A Statue Into Which the Soul of Fear Had Entered"---Gwendolen, Performance, and the Body

Taking into account all of Book I of Deronda, I'd like you to think specifically about the Hermione scene (Chapter 6, p.61) in which Gwendolen freezes in terror. Given that you've all started to think about this novel in theoretical terms, you have the tools with which to read this scene. However, I'd also like for you to think about it in terms of two issues:

1) First, Performance. We've talked about her tendency to think about herself and her world as a performance. How does this scene fit into this and/or alter our understanding?

2) Second, Desire and the Body. Gwendolen has a "physical repulsion" to being wooed directly by Rex (p.70) and is even described as hardening like a "sea anemome" (81). What do you make of her resistance (figured in physical even oddly erotic terms) to eroticism?

Looking forward to talking about these issues.

"The Pregnant Differences Which Lie in Race"---Arnold, Race, and 'Culture'

Given that Matthew Arnold uses "Hebraism" to refer to strains in British, Christian society, how did you understand the place of 'Jewishness' in this text? What (especially) did you make of the section from which I took the blog title for today---the section in which he discusses the "science" which has taught us about the differences in race and temperament.

Arnold goes out of his way to argue that Hellenism and Hebraism both strive for perfection and must be in balance. Does he exemplify this balance? What do you make of his calls for a return to Hellenism? Finally, what is the place of real Jews in Arnold's transcendent idea of 'culture'? In fact, is there any place for difference in 'culture'?

Please feel free to address any of these ideas.

Jewishness, Money, and Embodiment

Given the representation of Jewishness in Oliver Twist as an inhuman, dark, dirty, and deformed body, how do we read the figuration of Jewishness in Way we Live Now? How is it embodied? Is there a gender difference in the way Jewishness is represented? What is the relationship between the figure of the Jew and money?

Other questions to consider include: What about the relationship between the Jew and the larger society? While critique is leveled against Melmotte’s inauthenticy and deception, what about the society that enables him?