Ragussis ocuses on the Protestant concept of Jewish conversion in the 19th century—particularly, the strange double ideology of simultaneous toleration and conversion. The Jew, according to this strange double bind, is merely an “imperfect Christian” who should be converted. This notion of conversion is troubled somewhat by notions of race, in which the Jew does not become a Christian but a “Converted Jew” or an “English Jew.” In this view, there is something essential about the Jew that cannot be changed, even if a change in faith is professed.
Ragussis looks at the various literary forms around conversion—from conversion novels to conversion memoirs. Although he looks to some specific types of texts (like the conversion of the Jewess), he also identifies series of common tropes to most conversion novels, many related to reading:
The Jew to be converted reads Christian books (often in secret)
The Jew “reads anew” a Scripture and suddenly sees it from a Christian perspective
Child converts adult
Servant converts master
The converts are persecuted by other Jews after their conversion
There are secret believers in Jesus Christ throughout the Jewish community
1.) Questions:
1. 1. What role has literature and reading played in Daniel Deronda? Are we seeing the reading trope occurring backwards when Mordechai is disappointed that Daniel does not read Hebrew?
2.) 2. Ragussis notes that England wants to consider itself the “new Israel,” the new chosen nation (17). How do we square this with the inherent anti-Semitism of, for example, the London Society? In short, I guess I’m asking how England is able to balance the seemingly paradoxical ideas of conversion and tolerance?
3.) 3. How does “the Jewish question” relate to the concepts of British identity that we’ve dealt with all semester? How are the notions of inclusion and exclusion, assimilation and Othering, playing out here—and how does it differ from the way that the Irish were figured?
4.) 4, Does Mirah’s character thus far comply with or defy Ragussis’s definition of the Jewess in conversion novels?
5.) 5. When Hans and Mirah discuss her stage-dress, Hans says, “’We must not make you a role of the poor Jewess—or of being a Jewess at all.’” Hans had a secret desire to neutralize the Jewess in private life, which he was in danger of not keeping secret. ‘But it is what I am really. I am not pretending anything. I shall never be anything else,’ said Mirah. ‘I always feel myself a Jewess’” (488).
What do we make of this passage, regarding the concept of Jewish essentialism and, perhaps, the idea of passing? Does Eliot’s novel consistently hold up the idea of Jewish essentialism—as it does here?
#3: I'd like to explore the question of Othering and assimilation further. It seems that the modeling of the hegemon and that of the "Other" changes according to the group targeted. Consider Kipling's "White Man's Burden," published over 20 years after Daniel Deronda:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.wwnorton.com/college/history/ralph/workbook/ralprs30b.htm
Meant to rally the "civilized" nations into acting, the poem oozes elitism over colonized nations. The intent is certainly different from the tone and intents of the most of the conversion texts that Ragussis discusses. These texts use religion as a unifier, and Jewish people can redeem themselves by converting to the "correct" religion, Christianity. The impetus for conversion may be a person's health in peril, like it is in Meriam (38-41). The act of conversion mostly gives the appearance of "righting" a person. One of the standout differences lies in the "savage" Friday, who converts, but is still a "native" and after converting, still doesn't "pass" (3).
What can we say about the "dominant" force, or hegemon, and how "Othering" is used as a device to exercise power over others? The modeling of the hegemon appears to be different according the intended outcomes. Specifically, I'm thinking about colonizing for monetary gain, versus immigrants whose behavior and/or religious affiliations are expected to be modified when they travel to the physical territory of the hegemon.
Italia and The Merchant of Venice
I'll be vague because I don't think we're required to have read this section until Thursday, but I did want to mention that I think it's curious that some of the main characters in the novel end up in Italy. It seems kind of random, except that Eliot could somehow wish to link her text to the The Merchant of Venice (the play has been mentioned quite often in our readings, too). A rewriting is too strong of a term (at least at this juncture), but I do think there may be some sort of intended connection perhaps through location.
Juliette,
ReplyDeleteLook at you with your reading ahead and your outside texts! I agree that the way that groups are Othered changes from group to group in whatever ways best serve the group in power.
I don't know that I agree fully that converting to Christianity "rights" the Jew--he is referred to as a "Converted Jew" or "English Jew" afterward, but still racially marked--and the best possible outcome to the Victorian sensibility was to convert the Jew and then promptly pack him off to Palestine. I guess the conversion seems to me to be only a partial "righting."
Yeah, Stephanie, I agree with you. Conversion didn’t ultimately function to “right” Jewish people or have them assimilate into English. As Raggusis maintains in his reading of Julamerk, “conversion is nothing more than a masked form of banishment so radical that death is its clearest analogue” (42). Ragussis’s analysis on Zoraide (a converted Jewess in Julamerk) is interesting in thinking about your question 4 and 5. He says Zoraide is rendered disembodied so that her body does not interfere “Christian propagation.” Obviously Mirah is disembodied, too (of course she has beautiful face, but she does not have a “body” to propagate). Not only Mirah’s ethereal body does not intrude into the space of Christian propagation, but also she herself holds an idea similar to that of those who attempted to quarantine Jews in Palestine. Mirah says, “I could not make myself not a Jewess, … even if I changed my belief” (375), as if endorsing a dominant view on a “ converted Jew” as a marked existence. Raggusis says that Daniel Deronda attacked institutionalized conversion plot (11, 13), resisting to utilizing the Jewish existence to define the English character, and perhaps he is right about it (though I can’t say exactly because I don’t read his argument on Deronda). But at the same time, (especially when considered Daniel’s decision at the end) Deronda does seem to act on the view that two races cannot exist together in a same sphere and cannot mix with each other.
ReplyDeleteOK, you two! You make good points. I guess, simply, I feel like "the Jew" is more included than other Othered groups. There appears to be more room for acceptance and inclusion. I provided the example of the converted Friday as a counter to the kinds of reception that greeted certain converted Jewish individuals. Are the Jewish--even those who convert to Christianity--excluded to some degree? I can see that, yes.
ReplyDeleteThat passage about the chosen nation (17) struck me also. In that way the Jews have some type of special position, as Juliette is pointing out, but it is conflicted. Assimilating the Jews is both "the English madness" of conversion projects, and a means of national redemption via "the chosen people." Ragussis does a good job of demonstrating the evident futility by pointing out the many cases of "the spurious Jewish convert," or the non-acceptance of converts—it reminds me of the one-drop rule. Further, on the issue of race (I do not see how this term can be used to characterize the Jew), the secret reading of the New Testament reminded me of the slave narratives—Frederick Douglass learning to read and write undercover.
ReplyDeleteI wonder what type of Zion Eliot was thinking of. Ragussis describes sending converted Jews off to Palestine as a type of expulsion, and a type of colonialism. I wonder if he simplifies Eliot’s program in Daniel Deronda, given Deronda’s travel plans at the end of the novel. Does “the goal of establishing for the Jews a nation-state of their own” supersede the goal of “defining the English national character”? Or is that part of defining the English national character?
Stephanie: It seems like numbers two and three are certainly related. Ragussis notes that, for the London Society, ‘the Jew’ cannot convert in the sense that Arnold might have hoped: “In short, ‘the Jews remain the same, in features, in habits, in customs, and in character,’ and their unchangeable nature becomes the basis for claiming their unconvertability” (19). This, of course, gets rendered through the act of conversion, oddly enough. The article adds to the simultaneity of nineteenth century race concepts that we read with regard to the Irish. I wonder if we can say that the indeterminacy of race—seemingly at every turn—relates to a) the introduction and mainstreaming of nascent race concepts, like physiognomy, and b) the use of those race concepts on other Others, who we might say (using a contemporary race lens) are not (empirically?—the terminology for even discussing this stuff is incredibly elusive) “racially” other. Physical difference has to be constructed, in other words, and, thereby, it’s impossible to eradicate. Or, ‘the Jew’ cannot convert because he was already converted—or because he never was, I’m not sure. Or, the terminology of conversion exists on one plane, and race exists on another, but the two planes occasionally merge. All of these explanations seem to add to the slippage rather than explain it. Even Juliette’s line of inquiry seems to be related to these problems of slippage—“who is the most Othered?” Ragussis is the latest to note the “questionable legitimacy” of Victorian England’s other Others (50). I dare say he won’t be the last.
ReplyDeleteThe absence of a monolithic response to “the Jewish Question” and the inherent paradoxes in the responses that appeared do complicate the history of this problem. As Stephanie points out at the beginning, toleration and conversion have a strange simultaneity. Along with this agenda of conversion is the paranoia over the “secret Jew.” Emily mentions “national redemption via ‘the chosen people.’” It strikes me as ironic that England would see itself as “the chosen nation,” and build that self-image partly on its policies toward Jews. Did Eliot see such paradoxes? Eliot does seem to reverse or invert many of the themes that Ragussis mentions. Stephanie, you’ve pointed to that in your first question. On a broader scope, while the Meyricks contemplate a conversion of Mirah, Deronda begins down a path to his embrace of Judaism. Deronda is a twist on the secret Jew—so secret that Deronda doesn’t know himself.
ReplyDeleteTo leave off the “tolerance” part of the question and talk about simply the discourse of “conversion” Stephanie brings up in question 2, I see the English manifesting a similar conflation of religious and racial identity that they often ascribe to or project onto the Jewish figure. In the interests of Christian eschatological thinking, the Jew must remain converted because it is the conversion of the Jews that heralds the Second Coming. They cannot simply become Christians; they must be marked as one who has converted.
ReplyDeleteAlso, as Ragussi points out, at this time, “history…began to dictate the boundaries of English national life” and “its apparent ability to uncover the origins of the English nation, history was used to define the limits of English national life—its religious tradition, its racial composition, its cultural heritage.” Therefore, conversion to this history always leaves them outside of it. They can participate but are recognized as inherently of it. It seems that to be simply “English” one has to be born into all of its traditions. One must have always been Protestant, white, English, etc. I wonder if converted Catholics or Indians ever were able to lose the label of “conversion.”
This religious consideration bleeds into a racial and national one in the idea of the “new Israel.” England can, simultaneously, remain anti-Semitic and desire to take the banner of Jewish tradition because the “new Israel” consists of a different race—a different chosen people. They want to convert Jews to their new tradition and have them join the new chosen ones because Christianity has superseded Judaism, even if traditions remain. In the religious and racial conflation, the Jew can claim he was chosen first and gain some credit, and possible purchase in society—especially as one who converted—but England knows that the Jews are no longer the chosen people, because the English are. Therefore, the converted Jew, and possibly Jews in general, are more “tolerated” than other Others, but they must remain othered in order to distinguish new Israel from old, and the passing of God’s favor from one race to another. It must remain a purely English cultural heritage, whatever that means.
Random final thought: this discourse of conversion, and the converted Jew, is born out of the New Testament/early church and, most prominently, in the Pauline epistles, when Paul and those following him wanted to convert Jews to Christianity as they had been converted. So paradoxically, the entire nascent Christian church was converted Jews—a beginning of a religious identity that could not continue, apparently.