ABSTRACT
George Eliot’s remarkable artistic consistency makes it possible to see specific scenes which are reconstructed in one form or another from novel to novel as they emphasize and reemphasize minute details which take on symbolic moral significances. Each scene is a case study which is designed to illustrate the moral truths of George Eliot’s own moral message. Very frequently in George Eliot’s novels, there appear two young maidens who are placed in deliberate contrast to one another or two members of the same family. In each case, one is distinctly more mature morally than the other when they are evaluated according to George Eliot’s standards. This moral distinction lies in their different capacities for sympathetic understanding or their sensitivity to the impact of the past on the present. It is significant to note that the less morally mature of the pair is self-centered and tends to admire her or his own image in a mirror or some other reflecting surface, and the more mature individual is frequently associated with looking out of windows and taking in vistas that involve distant prospects and the needs of others.
