George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda: A Theme-related Anthroponymic Study

Abstract

This paper investigates George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda from an anthroponymic angle in establishing the relationship between the eponymous hero and the different themes of the novel. In its first leg, it seeks to show how Daniel Deronda embodies the oppressed Jewish community through historical associations of his two-halved name and in the name of all the Jews who pervade Eliot’s novel. In its second leg, the paper focuses on the meanings of this anthroponym and seeks to show how it epitomises the battle waged by the authoress against such cultural barriers as xenophobia and racism in Europe and elsewhere. To do this, recourse to stylistic analysis, especially at its lexico-semantic level, is needed.