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...
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I feel that if Mordecai represents a Jewish Nation as a body that must be revived, then the Jewish Nation must be a nation that is always threatened. It is fragile and if not guarded can be broken. In taking Mordecai's place, Deronda becomes the Jewish Nation. He is the representation of the Jewish Nation. This means that the Jewish body will now be stronger because he is young and strong...it was becoming weak with Mordecai. This is shown through the fact that "he [Deronda] must glorify the possibilities of the Jew, not sit and wander as Mordecai did" (472). Deronda will give the Jewish Nation a new life...one stronger than Mordecai gave.
"The life of Israel is in your veins" part reminded me of what we were talking about in class on Monday. Is Jewishness a religion or race? Sometimes it is thought that Jews can assimilate or convert. This would mean that it was only a religion. But then they make it seem like you can't because you will always be a Jew no matter what you do. This makes it racial. When you say something like 'the life of Israel is in your veins', this makes it sound like Jewishness is a racial thing. It's about what is in your blood--just like when Deronda has strong feelings in the synagogue. He can relate because the blood of Jewishness is runs in his veins.
From the discussion Mordecai had with the other Jews or Philosophers I believe the body of the Jewish nation is in a state of being fully assimilated into other societies. Like Mordecai’s body the nation is very weak and cannot stand on its own for long. Mordecai is arguing against Gideon, who wants his children to be able to assimilate and even marry a Christian, that they must stay pure and firm in their religion. Mordecai does not want them to blend in with, as they have done lately, with other nations because then their race would be obsolete. The others see that they as Jew have attained some kind of progression in the world because they are now becoming equal to the English. But Mordecai is questioning what have the Jewish race done lately to define as progression. I find Deronda to speak on the same line as Mordecai and he is the new spirit or blood the race needs. He has the knowledge of the English culture and the blood of the Jewish to bring the nation to next phase, to keep it alive.
I think that the whole idea of a "Jewish nation" lends itself to thinking of Jewishness as a nationality and/or a race. Further, identifying it with the body (the looks in other parts of the novel; the heart here) only enhances that idea.
I also think that this kind of physicality also premeditates something that will go beyond it. If Deronda is the perfection or purification or "fellow-soul" of Mordecai's "worn-out body," then it is not such a stretch to see him as some sort of fulfillment of the idea of a Jewish nation. Also, the idea of Deronda as a "soul" rathe than a body goes some way, symbolically at least, towards explaining Deronda's "ghostliness." He is not so much a body, as a soul (though obviously he IS still a...body.)
I feel like using Deronda as a representation of a new nation capitalizes on the idea that acceptance is not so much adhering to the dominant order, as allowing others to be different within a bigger idea of nationality. In Deronda, we get a character who "passes" as an Englishman but is Jewish- in this sense, he is the example of a Jewishness that is not so different from from those that are not...while also maintaining a degree of separation (does that make sense?) Basically, I feel like Deronda is promoting a kind of universality within difference.
I hope that made sense. My brain is a little fried.
If Mordecai represents the Jewish Nation, then the Jewish nation is growing weaker and is threatened with death. It is dying out due to prejudices and assimilation, etc. Deronda helps to fill at least part of this void. By learning of his heritage and being educated on Jewish traditions, etc., he helps to prevent the loss of another Jew, and therefore helps to keep the Jewish body alive. This is especially important, in my opinion, since Deronda could have easily been lost to assimilation, given that he wasn't originally aware of his Jewish heritage.
The mention of Israel helps to reinforce the idea that Jewishness is not just a religion, but a race. When a religion is shared as a nation or associated with a nationality, it becomes easier to see a religious sect as a race.
We see Jewishness nationalized by the philosophers’ group at the “Hand and Banner.” Thoughts pertaining to religion are even described as ideas of “patriotism,” which clearly links nationality to Jewishness. While we have seen racialization of Jewishness in the text, this particular scene seems to promote the idea of connection and universality in mankind. Mordecai’s statement “Isreal is the heart of mankind” seems to universalize religion/faith/Jewishness rather than separate/make unique the race of Jewishness. He seems to generalize the race of mankind that connects everyone together. This is supported by his prior assertion that each nation is a “member of the world” and goes further by claiming each nation enriches the world through their respective works. It seems unclear at this time whether Mordecai intends nation to also mean race. Because while he uses physical/bodily terms (the heart) to link religion to man, he quickly explains his figurative meaning in this. In response to Mordecai’s discussion of history and hope for the future of his people, one of his comrades reveals that in “[pruning] it of a few useless rites and literal interpretations of that sort, and our religion is the simplest of all religions, and makes no barrier, but a union, between us and the rest of the world” (534). In placing Jewishness in the same realm as all other worldly believes and religion, perhaps Eliot is trying to cast off prejudices and exaggerated claims about racialized and stereotyped Jewishness. On the other hand, as we have discussed in class, Jewishness is clearly racialized as it is a physical/biological trait of the Jewish characters. This is evident in Mordecai’s “the life of Isreal is in your veins” (572).
Sidenote: I feel as though the following line captures the concept of Mordecai and Deronda’s bodies/beings representing the Jewish nation: “And as the feeling of nationality is dying, I take the idea to be no better than a ghost, already walking to announce the death” (525). At the time of the “Hand and Banner” discussion, Mordecai is dying; we also keep running into the question of Deronda’s actual body and its existence. Here we can assign him the role as a ghost form of Mordecai’s almost-corpse. I guess it’s sort of a foreshadow of something that could be…Maybe I’m way off, but I still liked the line.
How does this relate to Deronda’s lack of actually having a body? If Deronda is simply a ghost, can he be placed on a nation, which is essentially ghost-like itself? In considering your work on composites, could we say that the Jewish nation is a composite of all the members of it? As composites are a convergence of multiple faces to create one ghost-like face, and by comparing Deronda to such, could we also say that Deronda’s embodiment is the symbolism of the Jewish nation as Mordecai describes?
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