The Females’ Representation of Males’ Image of Women in George Eliot’s Works
The Females’ Representation of Males’ Image of Women in George Eliot’s Works

Summary/Abstract: The article focuses on man's treatment of women in the literary works of George Eliot. In the Victorian patriarchal society, for the "English" novels, as well as for the "Italian" novel, man is considered as the decision-making person, to whom everything is subjected, including woman and nature. However, although it happens rarely, in the Eliotean novels there are several instances when either woman or nature plays a decisive role in the plot, surmounting the male characters' dominant status. Several theoretical approaches have been used in the attempt to demonstrate that the woman in Eliotean novels is considered the Other. I employ the concepts of “intermental thought” (Palmer), “consciousness” (Young), “mirror stage” (Lacan), Hatten’s viewpoint on woman’s social lot in high Victorian patriarchal society, and Henson’s use of feminine attributes of Nature. The relations between the sexes are crucial to Victorian literature as they reveal the social and political frames of the British society portrayed in George Eliot’s novels. The theoretical framework and the practical approaches to several novels of George Eliot’s assist me in my attempt to demonstrate that Eliotean male characters consider their counterparts the Other.

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