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Chapter 52
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Daniel Deronda, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Identity and Self-Discovery
Judaism and Zionism
Marriage, Gender, and Control
Familial Duty
Wealth and Social Class
Summary
Analysis
Daniel receives a final summons from Leonora, who is preparing to leave. When he arrives, he finds her more composed and regal than before, though still distant. She confirms that all the family history he might want to know is in his grandfather’s chest. When Daniel expresses a desire for a deeper connection with Leonora, she coldly insists that it is better they remain apart, believing he could never truly love her. He protests, but she claims he condemns her in his heart for the choices she made. When she presses him about his future, he declares his intention to embrace his Jewish heritage and devote himself to his people. Skeptical, she accuses him of being driven by love for a Jewish woman.
Daniel approaches his final meeting with Leonora hoping for something deeper, but her composure signals that she remains emotionally distant. Her insistence that they remain apart shows that she views their relationship as irreparable, not because of circumstance, but because she believes maternal love is something she is incapable of giving. By claiming that he could never truly love her, she shifts the burden onto him, framing his disappointment as a failure of understanding rather than her own failure as a mother.
Themes
Daniel talks to Leonora about Mirah. Although Leonora starts off dismissive, she eventually recognizes that Mirah is suited to Daniel in a way she herself never was to his father. In a rare moment of vulnerability, she wonders how their relationship might have been different had she raised him. She sees herself as someone who dominated others rather than submitting to love, and she admits that she miscalculated her choices and now lives in a different kind of existence. Overcome with emotion, Daniel sobs, and in their final farewell, they embrace and kiss.
Leonora’s skepticism toward Daniel’s embrace of Judaism shows that she still associates heritage with constraint rather than identity. She assumes that love for a Jewish woman must be motivating him because she cannot conceive of anyone willingly choosing what she spent her life rejecting. Her inability to see beyond her own experience makes her unable to connect with her son and the transformation he is in the midst of undergoing.
Themes
