Tese (doutorado)—Universidade de Brasília, Instituto de Letras, Departamento de Teoria Literária e Literaturas,Programa de Pós-Graduação em Literatura, 2014. / Submitted by Albânia Cézar de Melo (albania@bce.unb.br) on 2014-04-30T14:08:57Z No. of bitstreams: 1 2014_JanainaGomesFontes.pdf: 1834313 bytes, checksum: 0629da2461016856df2d73659acaad1e (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Guimaraes Jacqueline(jacqueline.guimaraes@bce.unb.br) on 2014-04-30T14:54:29Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 2014_JanainaGomesFontes.pdf: 1834313 bytes, checksum: 0629da2461016856df2d73659acaad1e (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2014-04-30T14:54:29Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 2014_JanainaGomesFontes.pdf: 1834313 bytes, checksum: 0629da2461016856df2d73659acaad1e (MD5) / O presente trabalho objetiva analisar o tema da maternidade nos romances da escritora inglesa do século XIX Mary Ann Evans, que publicou sua obra sob o pseudônimo de George Eliot. Embora a maternidade seja um tema constante em sua produção ficcional, ela não tem sido suficientemente explorada nos inúmeros estudos críticos que identifiquei sobre a obra da escritora. O foco desses estudos quase nunca se volta para suas personagens femininas, para suas experiências, apesar de os romances de Eliot nos apresentarem uma rica variedade de mulheres de diversas classes sociais da sociedade vitoriana, com diferentes e complexas experiências, inclusive a da maternidade. Eliot, que optou por não ter filhos, retrata mães em diversas situações, apresentando desde aquelas mulheres que exercem o papel de mães tradicionais, até mulheres que se tornam transgressoras dos valores da época e desafiam esse papel. Objetivo analisar a representação da maternidade em seus sete romances – Adam Bede (1859), Silas Marner (1860), The Mill on the Floss (1861), Romola (1863), Felix Holt, The Radical (1866), Middlemarch (1874) e Daniel Deronda (1876) – desenvolvendo novas leituras de sua produção ficcional, a partir da perspectiva dos estudos feministas e de gênero. Com esse estudo, espero contribuir para novas perspectivas sobre esse tema e para a problematização e desconstrução de valores e mitos patriarcais. ______________________________________________________________________________ ABSTRACT / The present work aims to analyze the theme of motherhood in the novels of the 19th century English writer Mary Ann Evans, who published her writings under the pseudonym George Eliot. Although motherhood is a recurrent theme in her fictional production, it has not been sufficiently explored in the innumerable critical studies I identified about her work. The focus almost never is on her female characters, on their experiences, though Eliot’s novels present a rich variety of women of diverse social classes of Victorian society, with different and complex experiences, including motherhood. Eliot, who opted against having children, portrays mothers in different situations, presenting those women who perform the role of traditional mothers and women who become transgressors of the values of the epoch and defy this role. I intend to analyze the representation of motherhood in her seven novels – Adam Bede (1859), Silas Marner (1860), The Mill on the Floss (1861), Romola (1863), Felix Holt, The Radical (1866), Middlemarch (1874) e Daniel Deronda (1876) – developing new readings of her fictional production, from the perspective of the feminist and gender studies. With this study I hope to contribute to new perspectives of this theme and to the problematization and deconstruction of patriarchal values and myths.

D.Litt. et Phil. (English) / This study investigates George Eliot's approach to the existential dilemma of her times, the collision of the individual with the general. It takes into account the historical context in which political radicalism and religious controversy threatened the stability and continuity of the individual and of society. The novels fictionalize the philosophical ideas expressed in earlier writings in terms of the individual experience of the characters. Each of the eight chapters is devoted to one ofthe novels and is discussed in chronological order of publication. Reference is made to George Eliot's letters and essays where relevant. The affinities of George Eliot with Auguste Comte and with Wordsworth are also considered. The nature and extent of a protagonist's rebellion is defined as it appears in each specific novel. The forms of active and passive rebellion are diverse. An utterance, usually an extended speech act made in complete sincerity, is a visible sign of the shift of consciousness which occurs when the individual moves from a state of rebellion to one of continuity of being. The two main categories of utterance are those of confession and those of commitment. The continuity of being towards which the individual strives consists of a belief in the innate goodness of the individual and trust in another sympathetic human being to release the good. Chapter One, Scenes of Clerical Life and Chapter Two, Adam Bede, emphasize the ceI,ltral role of a confessional utterance in the attainment of coherence of self. Chapters Three to Six focus on the novels published between 1860 and 1866 that are marked by key utterances of commitment and belief, arising from a sympathetic feeling towards another person. In The Mill on the Floss, Silas Marner and Romola, the pervasive Antigone theme is evaluated in which there is an opposition of two equally valid claims proposed by characters uttering contrary points of view in their expression of a rebellion against accepted norms. With the novel Felix Holt in Chapter Six, a political dimension appears and is further emphasized in the criticism of contemporary mores of the last two...

A mid-nineteenth century feminist anxious to enlist the support of the illustrious George Eliot in her cause would have found in the novelist a curious blend of progressive and conservative responses to the "woman question." Marian Evans' own struggle for a literary career coupled with the materialistic world view which she adopted from Ludwig Feuer-bach gave her an acute understanding of the oppression women endured under a patriarchal system. But at the same time she felt that women had a distinctive psychological makeup which meant they could exercise a special beneficent moral influence in social life. She would not admit woman's full equality with man because she felt that the complete emancipation of her sex might coarsen the feminine nature. George Eliot's contradictory attitudes to the position of women are reflected in her fictional writing, often marring the unity of her presentation of female characters. In The Mill on the Floss, Middlemarch and Daniel Deronda brilliant analysis of the effects of male supremacy turns into blind worship of the Victorian vision of woman as "the angel in the house." My argument is not with the traditional view of woman per se; but that in George Eliot's work it is in direct opposition to a stronger and more aesthetically satisfying radical interpretation. The presence of stereotyped images of women in otherwise brilliant novels reduces complexity to artifice, realism to idealism and hard-edged irony to facile sentiment. In The Mill Maggie Tulliver is clearly struggling for some personal identity other than the strictly "feminine" one her brother Tom insists on. However, by the end of the novel Maggie has apparently found fulfilment in passive submission to Tom's male superiority. Similarly In Middlemarch Dorothea's quest for some greater meaning in her life than the cloistered position of a gentlewoman usually allows for is answered first with an idealized marriage to Will Ladislaw, and second with Vague references to her goddess-like perfection. One of Eliot's greatest achievements as a novelist is her determination to take the bitch seriously. With both Rosamond Vincy and Gwendolen Harleth she probes the usual stereotype of the evil woman to show that these two are as much victims of a repressive patriarchal society as are the more attractive characters such as Dorothea and Maggie. But she does not carry through her sympathetic understanding of the bitch character. Rosamond is finally declared to be the unregenerate evil woman who "flourishes wonderfully on a murdered man's brains." Gwendolen does change but as is implied by the comparison to Mirah Lapidoth, it is only to be removed from one role, the bitch and placed immediately in another, the good woman. This pattern is repeated in Felix Holt the Radical by measuring Mrs. Transome against Esther Lyon. The ambiguous treatment of the female personality does not arise in George Eliot's other novels because none of the women characters is ever lifted far enough above stereotype for there to be any question of a departure from realism. However Adam Bede, Silas Marner and Romola are briefly discussed with Felix Holt in Chapter IV. Although this thesis dwells largely on certain aesthetic weaknesses in the fictional writing of George Eliot, I am not suggesting that her reversion to traditional images of the feminine character destroys the novels. On the contrary recognizing and exploring these obvious areas of failure dramatically points up the brilliance of the initial feminist perspective (i.e. the recognition that much of what is called the female character is in fact a response to patriarchal values) which George Eliot takes in introducing her women characters. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

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The Mill on the Floss, by Victorian novelist George Eliot, is a polylinguistic novel in Bakhtine's sense of the word in that it integrates the linguistic diversity of the society which it depicts. This novel published in 1860 was translated six times into French but never enjoyed a great reception in France. We examine three translations in this thesis: the first is by Francois D'Albert-Durade (1863), the second is by Lucienne Molitor (1957) and the last is by Alain Jumeau (2003). / D'Albert-Durade's translation evacuates the linguistic diversity in order to shape the novel to the requirements of the target literary polysystem. Molitor, by homogenising the eliotian prose, turns the canonised English novel into a French popular novel. Jumeau, for his part, by rehabilitating the peasant sociolect in his translation, marks the beginning of a rehabilitation movement of George Eliot in France. This study, through the analysis of the voice of a few key characters, attempts to follow the French "translative journey" of The Mill on the Floss.

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The thesis will examine the influence of Biblical literature on some of the novels of George Eliot. In doing so it will consider the following aspects of Eliot criticism: current theoretical debate about the use of midrash; modes of discourse and narrative style; prophetic language and vision; the influence of Judaism and Jewish exegetical methods on Adam Bede, "The Lifted Veil", The Mill on the Floss, Felix Holt, and Daniel Deronda. Literary critics have, for a long time, been interested in the influence of the Bible and Biblical hermeneutics on literature and the extent to which Biblical narratives and themes are used typologically and allegorically in fiction has been well researched. In this regard, the concept of midrash is not a new one in literary theory. It refers both to a genre of writing and to an ancient Rabbinic method of exegesis. It has, however, been given new meaning by literary critics and theoriticians such as Frank Kermode, Harold Bloom, and Jacques Derrida. In The Genesis of Secrecy, Kermode gives a new nuance to the word and demonstrates how it may be used to read not only Biblical stories but secular literature as well. It is an innovative, self-reflexive, and intricate hermeneutic processs which has been used by scholars such as Geoffrey Hartman and Sanford Budick, editors of Midrash and Literature, a seminal work in this thesis. Eliot's interest in Judaism and her fascination with religion, religious writing, and religious characters are closely connected to her understanding of the novelist's role as an interpreter of stories. In this regard, the prophetic figure as poet, seer, and interpreter of the past, present, and future of society is of special significance. The thesis will investigate Eliot's reinterpretation of this important Biblical type as well as her retelling of Biblical stories. It will attempt to establish the extent to which Eliot's work may be called midrash, and enter the current debate on how and why literary works have been and can be interpreted. It will address the questions of why Eliot, who abjures normative religious faith, has such a profound interest in the Bible, how the Bible serves her creative purposes, why she is interested in Judaism, and to what extent the latter informs and permeates her novels.

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Although rejecting Christian dogma, George Eliot retained, throughout her life, a strong sympathy for the humanitarian aspects of Christianity, which finds expression in her humane and moral philosophy, and especially in the value she attaches to right conduct. The treatment of death in her novels is governed both by this humanitarian emphasis and by her conviction of unalterable cause and effect in the universe. Given the interrelationship between individuals in society, the awesome reality of this law of consequences, demonstrating the ramifications of human error, makes it incumbent on man to avoid selfish choices. A study of the death episodes in Eliot's novels provides a comprehensive way of understanding and appreciating the operation of these concepts, in their moral and artistic aspects.