...Silas Marner Essay Fulfill duties or neglect them Concept of duty Statements of “duty” in Silas * Silas had a duty as a future husband to Sarah that he could not fulfill - betray * Sarah had a duty to stand by Silas however she didn’t think twice about the false information she obtained and turned her back on silas - betray * William had a duty as a best friend to fulfill however he didn’t believe Silas and even worse, he turned on him and took away the love of his life - betray * Silas’ community in Lantern yard had a duty of support to fulfill in silas’ life but they turned on him - betray * Silas had a duty to fulfill in ravelo, try to engage – self * Godfrey had a duty as a strong man to fulfill but he gave in and didn’t stand up for himself and married Molly- strength * Godfrey had a duty as a husband - strength * Duty as a father - strength * Molly had duty as mother – self absorption * Godfrey had a duty as husband self * Even though Silas did not need to take care of Eppie he took initiative - love * Fulfilled his duty above and beyond – love * Dunsey did not fulfill they duty he had as a family member – self absorption * Nancy fulfilled hers as a wife, she did not need to stand by Godfrey – love * Dolly and aaron helped when they ddint need to – love * Eppie had no obligation to stay with Silas she fulfilled her duty as a daughter, while , rightfully so, neglecting her duties to her true father...
Words: 1537 - Pages: 7
...I enjoyed the novel and I found the story line intriguing. While I was reading the story it was hard for me to not want to learn more about the two boys’ personality and coping methods. It was definitely amusing to see how ignorant the small prince was and how he knew nothing about the real world before the switch. One of my favorite lines was when Edward and Tom were talking about the people who took care of the prince. When Edward found out that Tom didn’t have a servant to care for him he asked simply, “And prithee, why not? Who helpeth them undress at night? Who attireth them when they rise?” The way Twain portrayed the different boys really brought forward the point of understanding and brought a whole new meaning to the saying “to walk a day in someone else’s shoes.” This book was fun to read and as a reader I go t very emotionally connected to the two boys. I’m sure any one else who would read this novel, will love the plot line and the author’s style, and if not for those reasons at least they would enjoy the message the book gives. It is hard to relate the story to my own life because I am and will always be so different than the two boys. I have never had an uncomfortable living condition or an over exorbitant one. If I were in Tom’s position of having to take the role of the prince, I understand how it were hard for him to deal with but I think I would have been more proactive and less naive. Same with Edward as a pauper, I’m sure it was hard for him to deal with...
Words: 2443 - Pages: 10
...Silas Marner has undergone a massive change of personality and character, or as George Eliot calls it a metamorphosis. Marner goes from being a humble, trusting man, to a man who locks himself up with his money, away from other people, where he can no longer be hurt. This is because of the significant events that happened to him previously. At the beginning of the story, when Silas Marner is still at Lantern Yard, Marner is described as having a “defenceless, deer-like gaze”. This deer-like gaze portrays a soft, quiet, trusting creature. At this point, Marner has complete faith and trust in his friend, William Dane. He also has complete trust in God, and in people in general, to know what is right and wrong, good and bad. When Marner is first accused of stealing the money he said nothing but “God will clear me.” He believes that even if nobody realises that he didn’t steal the money, God will show them, God will protect him. Then, when he finally realises that he has been set up by his ‘best friend’, he states that “There is no just God.” By saying this, he realises that everything he believed in was a lie. That he could no longer trust God or man. Losing belief in the only two things you believe in, made Silas Marner the bitter man we see at the beginning of chapter 1. After being found guilty by the citizens of lantern yard, Marner tries to carry on with normal life in disbelief at what has just happened. Shortly after this, Marner’s fiancée, Sarah, announces the breakup. Only...
Words: 311 - Pages: 2
...In Silas Marner, George Eliot connects the appearance of Eppie to the disappearance of Silas’ gold. Eliot uses an equation of greater than (Eppie > Silas’ gold) to express the connection that they have to each other. Eliot makes it clear that Eppie replaces Silas’ gold but she goes deeper to show that Eppie does more than just replace Silas’ gold, Silas becomes a better man in every sense when he is confronted with being a good father to Eppie. In order to be a good father to Eppie, Silas becomes a better man in a religious sense. Dolly explains to Silas that in order to be a good father to Eppie he must include religion in Eppie’s life; “you must bring her up like christened folks’s children, and take her to church.” (121) Dolly specifically tells Silas that he must have Eppie christened, Silas being devoted to Eppie and her well being is willing to do anything and everything to be a good father to Eppie; “I want to do everything as can be done for the child.” (122) Silas is somewhat reunited with the Church and has a double baptism, both Eppie and him, showing that he is becoming a better man through fathering Eppie. Silas was repressed by his gold, but with Eppie he becomes revitalized; Silas not only becomes a better man in a religious sense he also has more interactions with people becoming a better man in a social sense. In the early chapters of he novel Silas is sequestered only weaving and enjoying the companion ship of his coins; “He handled them, he counted...
Words: 655 - Pages: 3
...How does George Eliot present money and wealth in Silas Marner? George Eliot presents money and wealth in Silas Marner as something which is a prized possession and as if there is nothing better. There are many situations throughout the novel where this is revealed. However closer to the end of the novel there comes a turning point on the point about wealth and money when they realise it’s not all about money. One of the ways George shows the importance of money is when he says “And [he] had lost his money too, so as he had nothing but what he worked for week by week, and when the weaving was going down too—for there was less and less flax spun—and Master Marner was none so young.” This quote is an example of George Eliot's historical precision. That throw-away line, "there was less and less flax spun," keys into a big historical change: the Industrial Revolution, which is basically outsourcing Silas's job. In the cities, factories are churning out cheap fabric that makes his loom irrelevant. Another point about wealth mentioned in the novel is when they are trying to get Eppie (Godfrey’s child) but in this case it is not an obsession of wealth at hand or its importance. “It's natural he should be disappointed at not having any children: every man likes to have somebody to work for and lay by for, and he always counted so on making a fuss with 'em when they were little.” From this we can understand Nancy excuses Godfrey's disappointment in not having children because, she...
Words: 596 - Pages: 3
...character of Godfrey Cass in ‘Silas Marner’ in comparison with characters from a range of short stories? Eliot presents the character of Godfrey as a total moral coward and shows he has a lack of resolution. He is ironically described as ‘fine, open-faced, good natured’ by the approving villagers when he already has much to hide. He goes through life acting on impulses and hoping luck will save him from the results of his actions. In this way he has secretly married Molly Farren and fathered a child, been blackmailed to misuse money due to his father - and yet still somehow hopes to wriggle out of everything and marry Nancy Lammeter. Godfrey is insensitive, weak and deceitful: We are told he has an easy disposition and prefers good. Eliot conveys her opinions about Victorian society in her novel. With Godfrey, she is able to explore the issue of social class. Eliot disagreed with the commonly held belief of society at the time that the upper class were morally superior to the lower class. Through Godfrey is morally questionable character she is able to promote instead the integrity and values of the working class. For a while fortune favours him: Molly dies, Silas takes Eppie and Nancy agrees to marry him. With all his privileges and his loving wife, in the end Godfrey is unhappy because, ironically, he has to appear childless, his only child apparently having died. He had a child whom he disowned - he did not deserve to be a father. Silas adopted the child and was...
Words: 1790 - Pages: 8
...Summary of Silas Marner by George Eliot Silas Marner, a weaver, is an eager and promising young member of a Puritan religious community, Lantern Yard. Marner's supposed best friend, Willam Dane, frames him for the theft of a pouch of coins. Marner suffers from cataleptic fits which leave him as insensible as stone and vulnerable to Dane's frame-up. The community of Lantern Yard draws lots to determine Marner's guilt or innocence in the crime. After the lots proclaim Marner guilty, he flees from Lantern Yard, utterly crushed, leaving behind his faith in God and in humankind. Marner eventually settles at the outskirts of Raveloe, a provincial village in the English Midlands. The villagers appreciate Marner's trade but find him strange and unapproachable. Marner seems to have supernatural powers--he is able to heal a local woman using herbal arts he learned from his mother--but the villagers of Raveloe do not know his background and thus find his knowledge diabolical and threatening. Marner, for his part, is content to live a life of almost total solitude in his simple cottage beside the Stone-pits. Marner has one joy in life: gold. The gold coins that he earns at his loom represent for him all the meaning that he has lost, and the faces printed on the coins serve as his only company. He spends as little as he can in order to save more coins, which he hides in two leather bags in a hole in his cottage floor. Meanwhile, Raveloe is the home of other wealthy citizens. Its...
Words: 5806 - Pages: 24
...represent the relationship between the individual and community in Silas Marner? George Eliot represents the relationship between the individual and the community in the novel Silas Marner (1861). Written in the Victorian era, Eliot sets this novel within the Regency era, early 19th century. This period was characterized by the influence of the French revolution, crowning of the Prince Regent after the confirmed insanity of King George III and rise of meritocracy opposed to aristocracy through service in the military. Eliot empathizes with the poorer people in rural areas and scrutinizes the Aristocracy seen through the gentry. She depicts the transformation of the roles of women and beginnings of industrialization. Relationships between the individual and community is shown through the characters of Silas; how he integrates into society, the character of Dolly; who depicts the role of women in the community and through reaching out to silas and finally through the location; The Rainbow in bringing the community together as a place for rest after work and to help people in crisis. The connection between the individual and the community is seen through the character of Silas and his transformation from being a recluse to an active member in society. Silas is a solitary figure who self excludes himself from the community of Raveloe due to his past experiences in Lantern Yard. This had extremely detrimental effects on Silas and as a result he becomes a suspicious, antisocial figure...
Words: 2417 - Pages: 10
...Silas Deane: a foreign name to most students, and even to some historians too. His story isn’t fantastic, and he didn’t contribute a whole lot to the United States’ history. However, despite this, he is a phenomenal example that can be utilized to show the difference between what most believe history to be and the truth of what history actually is. The main point of the prologue to After the Fact: The Art of Historical Detection is more than a mere retelling of the dramatic life of Silas Deane. In fact, this story is actually more of a building block that is strategically used in favor of the argument that history, and historians, are more than “couriers between the past and present” that simply “deliver messages without adding to them.” The story of Silas Deane begins with a brief...
Words: 704 - Pages: 3
...Hi! Wealthcome! to TodayAdz Online Job & Business Compensation Plan. Thank you for showing your interest to know how we earn thru this Online Job & Business. PAID TO CLICK One of our business segment is PTC or paid to click. We click ads given by the website and we earn 10 pesos per click, but we are only given 20 jobs to click a day or maximum of 200 pesos earnings. To click, just go to the menu at the right PAID TO CLICK…then it will show your clicking jobs. Just click the logo and it will take 20 seconds only. Just go by, kayang kaya mo yan. Just text or call me if you have some questions. HOW DO WE EARN AT TODAYADZ? 1. CLICKING BONUS Basically, we earn from CLICKING ADS placed by the company-advertisers on our company website. Per click is equivalent to 10 pesos and we are given a maximum of 20 clicking jobs a day, that is 200 pesos a day earnings. (The company regulates a maximum number of clicking jobs/earnings per day to ensure that the company will also earn some amounts to sustain its operation). Here's the summary of your allocated clicking jobs: > Upon registration: 60 clicking jobs; 3 days = 600 pesos > Register 3 Pass up Recruits = no clicking jobs (serves as Company Safety Net) > Register your 4th recruit or 1st Downline: 60 clicking jobs; 3 days = 600 pesos (Here, you also earn 70 pesos as signing bonus) > Register your 5th recruit or 2nd Downline: 60 clicking jobs; 3 days = 600 pesos (Another 70 pesos as signing bonus) > Register...
Words: 781 - Pages: 4
...The Yellow Wallpaper: A Woman's Struggle Pregnancy and childbirth are very emotional times in a woman's life and many women suffer from the "baby blues." The innocent nickname for postpartum depression is deceptive because it down plays the severity of this condition. Although she was not formally diagnosed with postpartum depression, Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935) developed a severe depression after the birth of her only child (Kennedy et. al. 424). Unfortunately, she was treated by Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, who forbade her to write and prescribed only bed rest and quiet for recovery (Kennedy et al. 424). Her condition only worsened and ultimately resulted in divorce (Kennedy and Gioia 424). Gilman's literary indictment of Dr. Mitchell's ineffective treatment came to life in the story "The Yellow Wallpaper." On the surface, this gothic tale seems only to relate one woman's struggle with mental illness, but because Guilman was a prominent feminist and social thinker she incorporated themes of women's rights and the poor relationships between husbands and wives (Kennedy and Gioia 424). Guilman cleverly manipulates the setting to support her themes and set the eerie mood. Upon first reading "The Yellow Wallpaper," the reader may see the relationship between the narrator and her husband John as caring, but with examination one will find that the narrator is repeatedly belittled and demeaned by her husband. On first arriving at the vacation home John chooses...
Words: 1033 - Pages: 5
...Analysis on “The Yellow Wallpaper” Charlotte Perkins Gilman was born on July 3, 1860, in Hartford, Connecticut. Gilman was a writer and social activist during the late 1800s and early 1900s. She had a tough childhood. Her father, Frederick Beecher Perkins, but he abandoned the family, leaving Charlotte's mother to raise two children on her own. Gilman moved around a lot as a result and her education suffered greatly for it. Gilman married Charles Stetson in 1884 and the couple had a daughter named Katherine. Sometime during her ten year marriage to Stetson, Gilman experienced a severe depression and suffered a series of uncommon treatments for it. This experience is believed to have inspired her to the short story "The Yellow Wall-Paper" (1892). The story takes the form of undisclosed journal entries written by a woman who is supposed to be recovering from what her husband, a physician, calls a "temporary nervous depression”. This haunting psychological horror story chronicles the narrator's descent into madness, or perhaps depending on your interpretation, into freedom. The author’s use of setting, conflict and point of view, provide this short story with the drama needed to capture the reader’s attention. The author begins the story using the key element setting to keep the readers mind in a constant roam. The narrator's view of the setting is colored by her limited and troubled perspective. She sees the yellow wallpaper in the room as a mostly evil and troubling...
Words: 760 - Pages: 4
...Book Notes 3 The Rise of Silas Lapham Chapter 1 Bartley Hubbard goes to Silas Lapham’s office to interview him for the “Solid Men of Boston” Series in the Boston Events newspaper. Lapham goes into telling him background information on his life. Lapham was born in Vermont near the Canadian border. His father was a farmer and they didn’t have much money. He described his admiration for his mother and how great she took care of the family. His father found mineral paint on their farm from a hole left from an uprooted tree. Buildings were not being painted at that time because of poverish conditions. He decided to start mining and selling the paid in 1855. He married a woman name Persis who was a schoolteacher. He gave credit to his fortune to her because of how encouraging she was towards him. His first paint was named after her, the “Persis Brand”, which is the finest. After fighting in the war, Lapham returned and found a partner. He later bought him out because he claimed he knew nothing about paint. Lapham offers Hubbard a ride back to his office. Upon leaving, Hubbard notices Lapham’s attractive secretary. Hubbard returns home that night with a special package from Lapham, which ends up being his a jar of the Persis Brand paint. Chapter 2 The Lapham’s come to the realization that they live in a socially unacceptable neighborhood in Boston. They are also afraid that they have not educated their daughters with the proper etiquette for social functions. The daughters...
Words: 1339 - Pages: 6
...How many teenagers never ask for anything, and always obey their parents? In truth, not many adhere to such behavior. Certain characters in literature follow similar adolescent patterns--we sympathize with Harry Potter’s struggle with his extended family and criticize Dudley Dursley’s selfish behavior. We applaud Oliver Twist when he eventually asks, “Please sir, may I have some more?” In Willa Cather’s short story “Paul’s Case”, she portrays the protagonist, Paul, in a similar light, proving that teenage years entail a certain disrespect and disdain for one’s life. Indeed, Paul struggles in adolescence with his focus on aesthetics, selfishness, and contempt for authority. Paul’s aesthetic paradigm immediately appears in his dandiness and his lack of appreciation for his own life. Cather notes, “There was something of the dandy about [Paul], and he wore an opal pin…and a red carnation in his buttonhole” (109). For Paul, dressing nicely entails a great sense of pleasure, “[Paul] began excitedly to tumble into his uniform…and thought it very becoming” (111). Cather highlights Paul’s fashion-oriented obsession and how it affects Paul’s judgment of others. For example, Paul criticizes poorly dressed people: “He decided…[the English teacher] was not appropriately dressed and must be a fool to sit…in such togs” (111). Here, Cather depicts Paul’s materialism not only as Paul’s juvenile obsession, but also as a tool for his judgment of others. On top of his sartorial dandiness, Paul...
Words: 1039 - Pages: 5
...In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”, just like group 3 mentioned in slide 2 that the mood gets sadder throughout the story, which I happen to think the same, I think the color that symbolizes this mood is the color brown. The person telling us this story lets us know that all she wanted to do was to change the wallpaper because it was driving her crazy but kept on being rejected by her husband, and it upsets her that he does not take her seriously. At first, the wallpaper was seen as “ugly” by the narrator but in the end, the wallpaper is seen as a symbol of the narrator’s oppression (group 3). Of course, the readers would sympathize with the narrator because she was “imprisoned” by someone who supposedly loved her, which makes the color of the mood of the story, brown (sadness), seem a little more realistic. There are also many meanings given throughout the story but one specific meaning somewhere at the end caught my attention. “I don’t like to look out of the windows even—there are so many of those creeping women, and they creep so fast. I wonder if they all come out of that wall-paper as I did?” (Gilman) - from this, I understand that when the narrator ripped off the wallpaper, the woman who was trapped behind it was finally freed and this led the narrator to finally realize that the woman behind the wallpaper was really herself all along. She was the one who’d been “creeping” (Gilman). The narrator knows there are other women who are just like her but the...
Words: 612 - Pages: 3
