The Triangular Silas Marner
As a result of betrayal, Silas Marner of George Eliot's so titled novel becomes a man in body without incurring any of the duties normally associated with nineteenth century working class adults. Eliot creates these unusual circumstances by framing our title-hero so it appears to his comrades that he has stolen money. Thereby, she effectively rejects innocent Marner from his community and causes him to lose his fiancé. At this pivotal moment in Marner's life, just as he is about to assume fully the role of a man, depended upon as such by his neighbors, future wife and probable children, he is excised and does not successfully complete the transformation. Accordingly, he moves on to a new place, Raveloe, with the same carefree lack of responsibility as a boy, who is clearly unable to act like the man he seems he should be.
By denying Marner the possibility of a traditional family from the start, Eliot immediately brings forward the question of family values. A question that she answers in the course of her novel. Jeff Nunokawa, in his essay The Miser's Two Bodies: Silas Marner and the Sexual Possibilities of the Commodity, claims that Eliot "simply" shows "support for family values" (Nunokawa 273), and that she "encourages" them through her narrative (Nunokawa 290). As evidence, he cites quotations from the text that paint, as he puts it, "men [living] without women... in a barren region" (Nunokawa 273). Adeptly, he points to Eliot's line, "The maiden was lost... and then what was left to them?'" (Nunokawa 273). Furthermore, Nunokawa goes on to label the moral implications of the novel as those of a "blunt dichotomy," saying that Eliot hands her reader "the ...
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... for it is the middle ground between its own two opposites, which include the possibilities of not having a family at all and going with the one you are biologically given. Silas Marner is not a tale of black and white, right and wrong, it is more complex and aims to depict at least three angles -- if not more that I have, as of yet, failed to unravel.
Bibliography
Carroll, David, "Reversing the Oracles of Religion," Casebook Series on George Eliot, Ed. R. P. Draper. London: Macmillan Press Ltd, 1977.
Cave, Terence, "Introduction to Oxford World Classic's Silas Marner" (see following entry for details.)
Eliot, George. Silas Marner. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Nunokawa, Jeff, "The Miser's Two Bodies: Silas Marner and the Sexual Possibilities of the Commodity," Victorian Studies, 1993, Spring, v. 36. pp. 273-390.
Throughout “Ethan Frome,” Edith Wharton renders the idea that freedom is just out of reach from the protagonist, Ethan Frome. The presence of a doomed love affair and an unforgiving love triangle forces Ethan to choose between his duty and his personal desire. Wharton’s use of archetypes in the novella emphasizes how Ethan will make choices that will ultimately lead to his downfall. In Edith Wharton’s, “Ethan Frome.” Ethan is wedged between his duty as a husband and his desire for happiness; however, rather than choosing one or the other, Ethan’s indecisiveness makes not only himself, but Mattie and Zeena miserable.
Many people oppose society due to the surroundings that they face and the obstacles that they encounter. Set in the bleak winter landscape of New England, Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton is the story of a poor, lonely man, his wife Zeena, and her cousin Mattie Silver. Ethan the protagonist in this novel, faces many challenges and fights to be with the one he really loves. Frome was trapped from the beginning ever since Mattie Silver came to live with him and his wife. He soon came to fall in love with her, and out of love with his own wife. He was basically trapped in the instances of his life, society’s affect on the relationship, love, poverty, illness, disability, and life.
Paris, Bernard J. Experiments in Life: George Eliot's Quest for Values. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1965.
In the early life of Saint Francis he really did not have much meaning to his life, and all his actions were for self-pleasure. Saint Francis born Giovanni Bernardone came from a wealthy Italian family. His father, Pietro, was a textile merchant that allowed a young Francis to indulge in whatever he pleased. It is not apparent that Pietro would get upset on the fact that Francis would spend large amounts of money. It could be because he truly wanted Francis to eventually take over the family business, so maybe he did not want to disillusion Francis. As young man, Francis would go out drinking with his friends and buy expensive clothing with his father’s money (CITE). At this point of his life, Francis did not really understand the meaning of money, as a result of having everything handed to him without any obligations. Francis even went to war so he can gain the glory and benefits that came along with being a soldier; however, he soon learns that this is not the way. Francis’ actions depict him to be egocentric; however, this way being is not...
Thomas Stearns Eliot was perhaps one of the most critical writers in the English language’s history. Youngest of seven children and born to the owner of a Brick Company, he wasn’t exactly bathed in poverty at all. Once he graduated from Harvard, he went on to found the Unitarian church of St. Luis. Soon after, Eliot became more serious about literature. As previously stated, his literature works were possibly some of the most famous in history. Dr. Tim McGee of Worland High School said that he would be the richest writer in history if he was still alive, and I have no choice but to believe him. In the past week many of his works have been observed in my English literature class. Of Thomas Stearns Eliot’s poems Preludes, The Journey of the Magi, The Hollow Men, The Waste Land, and Four Quartets, I personally find his poem The Hollow men to be the most relatable because of its musical allusions, use of inclusive language, and his opinion on society.
Pre-employment background checks are largely justified by the reasoning that a criminal record is an indicator of a person’s character, and to hire a known criminal presents a legal liability for a company. According to Buckhoff , “Employers can be held liable for their employees' criminal actions, under certain circumstances” (2003). What this line of reasoning lacks is the ideology of human individuality – the assumption ...
M.H. Abrams, et al; ed., The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Sixth Edition, Volume I. W.W. Norton & Company, New York/London, 1993.
113- The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 6th ed. of the book. Vol.
T. S. Eliot drafted The Waste Land during a trip to Lausanne, Switzerland to consult a psychologist for what he described as mild case of nerves. He sent the manuscript to Ezra Pound for editing assistance. Between them the draft was extensively edited and published in 1922. As a modernist poet, Eliot struggled to remove the voice of the author from his work but the work is still a reflection of the author’s interpretation. He paints the picture as he sees it for the readers to view and interpret from their own perspective. The Waste Land could be viewed as a chronicle Eliot’s difficult and not quite successful journey to confront his own unconscious or spiritual reality. “Viewed psychologically, Eliot’s juxtaposition of scenes of sterility, fecundity, and sacrifice represents the speaker’s conscious awareness of a sterile society, and his abortive attempt to experience the unconscious” (Jones 22). Eliot’s depiction of a spiritually empty and lost society is a reflection of his inner search for a life-defining spiritual faith. Eliot’s message is that modern man leads a very hollow and disconnected existence because he has abandoned his spiritual values in pursuit of material wealth.
George Eliot’s Middlemarch focuses on relationships within the town of Middlemarch. As restated by David Kurnick, Virgina Woolf proclaimed that Middlemarch is “one of the few English novels written for grown-up people” (583). The complexity of this novel provides an insight into the treatment of female identity during the mid to late 1800s, the time period in which Eliot wrote the novel. The issues presented within this novel include: “social and scientific reform, the law-governed aspects of human behavior, and especially, the ‘Woman Question,’ that catch-all phrase for the interconnected debates about women’s rights, duties, and capacities” (Allison 716). George Eliot’s most prominent female character, Dorothea Brooke, seeks to find fulfillment, professionally and socially, yet never fully achieves this goal. George Eliot is shining a light on the roles women played in relationships by showing a variety of relationships, both failing and thriving. George Eliot, just as Virginia Woolf also explained, had to battle for publishing rights by writing under a pen name and struggling to receive compensation to continue to write.
The Mill on the Floss is full of recreations of George Eliot’s memories of her youth and infancy. This is very much similar to Wordsworth’s style. Given the topic of discussion this not only suggests that Eliot was influenced by Wordsworth but that perhaps their style was somewhat determined by lack of maternal influence. Biographical studies suggest that although Eliot’s mother was present Ruby Redinger speculates in her biography of George Eliot that her mother was strong-willed and incapable of relating to her children. It is believed that Mrs. Evans became ill shortly after her daughter’s birth. This prolonged illness has been interpreted as an unconscious decision to distance herself from her children. As a result of this Mary Anne Evans, George Eliot, along with her siblings were sent out of the home. It is the feelings of rejection and isolation believed to be part autobiographical in The Mill on the Floss that leads to identifying and sympathizing with the characters. This is created by the overwhelming lack of strong maternal counterparts to the central characters. The majority of the community is stunted in some way as a reflection of this. The novel therefore becomes not only a display of the consequences of lacking maternal influence but also of problematic instances of seeking substitution for that which leads to isolation.
McNair’s childhood when she sleepwalks to the pond as a kid. This is where Mrs.McNair always went to get away from things. This plays a big part when the little boy shows up in a dream like state. She is escaping to him, to the baby boy she connected with in the hospital. She is confused because the baby boy she connected with at the hospital wasn’t hers, yet she still dreams about him, about how he is doing. Mrs.McNair lost her own child and through a mistake in the hospital connected with someone else’s, who then had to be taken away from her. While she is dealing with that hardship her husband is never home during the week and is cheating on her. Yet society says she still needs to keep her prim and proper ways other wise she may cause uproar in society. On the other hand Mr.McNair was applauded for his actions, for sticking around with Mrs. McNair while having a mistress. He stayed the good guy throughout the story. While Mrs. McNair and other females during this time, were limited in almost everything that they did. Her actions reflected on her husband. The women of society had a duty to maintain this standard of perfection no matter what they were going through in their
Jane Austen’s works are characterized by their classic portrayals of love among the gentry of England. Most of Austen’s novels use the lens of romance in order to provide social commentary through both realism and irony. Austen’s first published bookThe central conflicts in both of Jane Austen’s novels Emma and Persuasion are founded on the structure of class systems and the ensuing societal differences between the gentry and the proletariat. Although Emma and Persuasion were written only a year apart, Austen’s treatment of social class systems differs greatly between the two novels, thus allowing us to trace the development of her beliefs regarding the gentry and their role in society through the analysis of Austen’s differing treatment of class systems in the Emma and Persuasion. The society depicted in Emma is based on a far more rigid social structure than that of the naval society of Persuasion, which Austen embodies through her strikingly different female protagonists, Emma Woodhouse and Anne Eliot, and their respective conflicts. In her final novel, Persuasion, Austen explores the emerging idea of a meritocracy through her portrayal of the male protagonist, Captain Wentworth. The evolution from a traditional aristocracy-based society in Emma to that of a contemporary meritocracy-based society in Persuasion embodies Austen’s own development and illustrates her subversion of almost all the social attitudes and institutions that were central to her initial novels.
Before the major upheaval occurs Jane Austin gives us a glimpse of what social life, the class distinction, was like through the perspective of Ann Elliot. Ann is the second out of three daughters to Sir Walter Elliot, the proud head of the family (Austen, 2). The Elliots are an old landowning family that seems well known in the upper echelons of British society. The most important piece of background we are presented with as central to the plot of the story is that eight years prior to the setting Ann was engaged to a man she loved, Frederick Wentworth. They were soon engaged, but her family along with mother-like figure, Lady Russell, soon persuaded Ann that the match was unsuitable because Frederick Wentworth was essentially unworthy without any money or prestige (Austen, 30). This piece of background echoes exclusivity among the upper classes of Britain. In that time it would seem unacceptable for a girl like Ann with a family like hers to marry or even associate with someone not of ...
Eliot’s comparison clearly illustrates “proper” feminine beauty. Dinah’s beauty leads to marriage and motherhood; Hetty’s, to moral transgression, murder, and eventual death. However, Dinah is so idealized that she loses the level of realism that Eliot so deftly created within many of her other characters, and the reader is not without sympathy for Hetty, whose fall appears to be precipitated by a common enough form of young feminine vanity. These examples speak volumes toward the practicality of conventions that demanded feminine perfection in both appearance and action. Victorian ideals were just that, and most women could not achieve everything asked of them.