Daniel Deronda Summary: George Eliot's Last Novel Explained
What Daniel Deronda is about
Daniel Deronda was published in eight instalments between February and September 1876. It was the last novel George Eliot completed, and the only one she set in the Victorian society of her own day. The book carries two stories at once, joined by the man in the title.
It opens in September 1865 in the fictional German town of Leubronn. Daniel Deronda watches a beautiful young Englishwoman lose everything she has won at the roulette table. He is drawn to her and wary of her at the same time. The next morning a letter arrives telling Gwendolen Harleth that her family has been financially ruined and that she must come home. She pawns a necklace and weighs up one more night at the tables. The necklace comes back to her by the hand of a porter, and she understands that Daniel saw what she did and quietly redeemed it. That small act of interference sets the whole book in motion.
From there the novel breaks into two flashbacks. One gives Gwendolen's history, the other Daniel's. Gwendolen's story runs back to October 1864, soon after her stepfather's death, when her family moves to a new neighbourhood and she meets Henleigh Mallinger Grandcourt. He is quiet, calculating and rich, and he proposes almost at once. She is open to him until she learns he has several children by his mistress, Lydia Glasher. She flees to Germany, which is where Daniel finds her.
Daniel's story runs on different rails. Raised by the wealthy Sir Hugo Mallinger, he has never been told who his parents are. He assumes, as most people do, that he is Sir Hugo's illegitimate son. In late July 1865, while boating on the Thames, he rescues a young Jewish woman, Mirah Lapidoth, from drowning herself. Mirah is a singer who has come to London to look for her mother and brother, having run away from the father who kidnapped her as a child, forced her into an acting troupe and then pledged her in marriage to a wealthy patron. Helping her search brings Daniel into London's Jewish community for the first time.
The main characters
Gwendolen Harleth is one of the great creations in English fiction, and the "story of Gwendolen" has been called one of the masterpieces of the form. She is haughty, selfish and manipulative, admired for her beauty and distrusted for her satirical tongue. She is also an affectionate daughter, and she is prone to sudden fits of terror that break through her composed surface.
Daniel is intelligent and compassionate and cannot settle on what to do with his life. This frustrates Sir Hugo, who wants him in politics. Grandcourt is cold, unfeeling and controlling, a man who exerts power without raising his voice. Mirah is gentle and steady. Mordecai, the consumptive visionary Daniel meets while searching for Mirah's family, is the novel's conscience: he wants the Jewish people to keep their national identity and to be restored one day to the Promised Land, and he wants Daniel to be his intellectual heir before he dies.
The themes
Identity sits at the centre. Daniel is strongly drawn to Mordecai's vision but hesitates to commit to a cause he cannot connect to himself, because he does not believe he is a Jew. The novel's sympathetic treatment of proto-Zionist ideas was unusual for its moment and is a large part of why it is still discussed.
Class and money drive Gwendolen's half. Returning home ruined, she finds her options narrow to almost nothing. Marriage was the only respectable route to real financial security. Becoming a governess would drop her from the landed gentry to something close to a servant. She tries the stage and is told by a prominent musician that she has no talent. So she marries Grandcourt, breaking a promise she made to Mrs Glasher and knowing in advance that she may be making a terrible mistake.
The turn the novel takes
Gwendolen believes she can manage Grandcourt and keep her freedom. She cannot. The marriage crushes her, and guilt over possibly disinheriting Lydia Glasher's children works on her constantly. On her wedding day Mrs Glasher curses her and promises she will suffer for her treachery.
Why it still matters
It is the final statement of one of the most renowned Victorian novelists, mixing social satire with hard moral searching. Critics have long split it, praising Gwendolen's half and calling Daniel's flat and unconvincing, and that argument has kept the book alive. It has been filmed three times, once as a silent feature and twice for television, and adapted for the stage, including a 1960s Manchester production by the 69 Theatre Company with Vanessa Redgrave as Gwendolen.
