Abstract

The primary concerns of this study are certain aspects of narratorial voice in Eliot's novels, and how, through them, the narrator manoeuvres the reader into positions conducive to the "extension of sympathy" that Eliot wishes to inculcate in her readers, hoping, as she does, that sympathy aroused toward characters in the fictional world will, by extension, carry through to situations and people encountered in daily life. A multi-vocal narrative voice, full of variety of perspective and tone, is deployed to influence the response of the reader, and includes among its devices "engaging" narratorial strategies such as direct address, strategic use of personal pronouns, narrative metalepsis, invitations to the reader to superimpose his or her own "fabula" onto/into the story being read, and reflective prudential commentary that applies equally to the phenomenological world as to the world of the novel. Reader-response theory is considered along with narrative theory in an attempt to illustrate and account for the effectiveness of selected strategies. While reference is made to most of her works, the study concentrates mainly on Scenes of Clerical Life, Adam Bede, and Middlemarch.