George Eliot: An evaluation of the criticisms of George Eliot's characterization techniques and an investigation and assessment of those techniques by means of a detailed analysis of several major characters.

THE SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE and the two early novels of George Eliot, ADAM BEDE and THE MILL ON THE FLOSS, are a rich and rewarding experience. In these early works she writes of an English rural society rendered mellow by the backward glance of memory. In them we see her giving expression to all those accumulated perceptions and experiences of her childhood and youth. With ROMOLA there comes a clear change but, although there is a sense that her tread is less certain and more measured, there is, nevertheless, the feeling that the artistry has not disappeared; that inevitably it will reappear and when it does it will have gained because of the interval of experiment and search