مهند رشدى نمر صبحه

 

Jane Eyre

  

 

 

 

Jane Eyre (Author Biography)

 

Jane Eyre is subtitled An Autobiography. It is, however, a novel. Yet critics have discerned a number of autobiographical elements in the book.

 

Charlotte Brontë was born on March 31, 1816, in the village of Thornton in the West Riding of Yorkshire (now West Yorkshire), England. She was the third child in a family that soon consisted of five girls and a boy. Only seven years separated the eldest, Maria, from the youngest, Anne. Her father, the Reverend Patrick Brontë (originally Brunty), came from an impoverished Irish family; he had immigrated to England in the late 1700s and studied at Cambridge University before being ordained as a clergyman in the Church of England. Charlotte's mother, Maria Branwell, was originally from Penzance, Cornwall, at the southwest tip of England. In 1820 the family moved to Haworth, an isolated mill town on the edge of the Yorkshire moors. They took up residence in the small parsonage next to the local parish church where Reverend Brontë was minister. Mrs. Brontë died of cancer the following year.

 

In 1824 Reverend Brontë sent his four eldest daughters to the Clergy Daughters School at Cowan Bridge, Yorkshire, run by a Reverend Carus Wilson. Conditions at the school were strict and physically harsh. The two eldest Brontë sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, both developed tuberculosis and died the following year. More than twenty years later, Charlotte's experiences at the school would form the basis of several characters, incidents, and settings in Jane Eyre. Reverend Wilson became the model for the character Mr. Brocklehurst, while Maria Brontë served as the model for Helen Burns. Lowood Institution in the book was based largely on the Clergy Daughters School.

 

Charlotte and Emily returned to Haworth, where they remained for the next six years with their father and their surviving siblings, Branwell and Anne. During this time the children escaped into a world of imagination and creative fantasy. Charlotte and Branwell collaborated in writing romantic stories, in tiny hand-made books, about a fictional kingdom called Angria. The hero of these stories was a character known as the Duke of Zamorna — a character to whom Mr. Rochester in Jane Eyre bears much resemblance.

 

In 1831 Charlotte went away to Roe Head school. Although she remained only a year, she made two life-long friends, Ellen Nussey and Mary Taylor. The school's principal, Margaret Wooler, would be the model for Ms. Temple in Jane Eyre. In 1839 Charlotte took her first job as a governess. She also received, and turned down, proposals of marriage from two ministers, one of whom was Ellen Nussey's brother. She was not in love with either of these men, and did not feel that she could enter into this kind of marriage. This situation was to be recounted fictionally in the relationship between Jane and Reverend St. John Rivers. Several years later Charlotte and Emily went to Brussels, Belgium, to attend a school run by Constantin Héger. Charlotte evidently formed a passionate attachment to Héger, an older, married man who did not return (and probably was not even aware of) her affection.

 

Returning to Haworth, Charlotte wrote poetry and was surprised to find that Emily also wrote poetry — as did Anne and Branwell. In 1846 the three women published a joint volume of their poems, using the pseudonyms Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell. The collection, produced at their own expense, sold only two copies. Undaunted, the three women each wrote a novel, which they submitted to a London publisher, again using the same pseudonyms. Emily and Anne's manuscripts — Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey-were accepted, but Charlotte's — The Professor — was turned down. Almost immediately, Charlotte began writing JaneEyre. She completed the book quickly and sent it off to the publishing firm of Smith, Elder & Co., the same company who had rejected The Professor. The publishers reacted with great enthusiasm, and Jane Eyre was published just three months later, in October, 1847. So good were the sales that within a year the book was issued in its third edition. Whereas her sisters had earned advances of fifty pounds for their novels, Charlotte received five hundred pounds for hers — a considerable sum of money at that time. However, her publisher and the reading public still knew the audhor only as "Currer Bell." There was even speculation that the three "Bells" were in fact a single author writing under three different pseudonyms. In July, 1848, Charlotte and Anne took the train to London to visit their publisher, who was astonished but delighted to learn that Currer Bell was a woman.

 

In the midst of their literary success, more tragedy struck the Brontë family. Branwell, who had become a hopeless alcoholic, died of tuberculosis in 1848, followed in December of that year by Emily. Anne died of the same disease the following year, leaving Charlotte the sole survivor among the original six Brontë children. She went on to write two further novels, Shirley (1849) and Villette (1853). In 1854 she married the Reverend Arthur Nicholls, her father's curate. Charlotte Brontë died less than a year later, apparendy from complications during pregnancy. However, her reputation, and that of Jane Eyre, continued to grow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jane Eyre (Plot Summary)

 

Volume I

Jane Eyre opens with the narrator, the adult Jane Eyre, recalling her childhood experiences growing up as an orphan at Gateshead, the home of her unfriendly aunt, Mrs. Reed. Mrs. Reed treats Jane as an outcast. On one occasion when her cousin John attacks her, Jane tries to defend herself. As a result, she finds herself being punished by being locked in the frightening "Red Room," where her uncle Reed had died many years earlier. A terrified Jane screams and faints.

 

Jane soon learns that Mrs. Reed plans to send her away to school. The stern Mr. Brocklehurst of the Lowood School for orphaned girls comes to visit. Having been told by Mrs. Reed that Jane is an evil child, he questions Jane about her religious beliefs and assures her that bad girls will suffer in hell. Mr. Brocklehurst agrees to enroll Jane in his school. On the day she is to depart, only the servant Bessie rises to say good-bye to her.

 

The Lowood School offers Jane a very different life, as the conditions there are very poor. It is cold and drafty, the water is frozen, and the bland food the girls are given, which is often burnt, is insufficient to satisfy their hunger. On her second day at Lowood, Jane sees the cruel Miss Scatcherd punish a new friend, Helen Burns. Helen's reaction, however, is that she deserves such treatment and that she believes in Christian patience and endurance.

 

After three weeks Mr. Brocklehurst visits the school, ordering the long hair of the older girls to be cut off and lecturing the girls on the sin of vanity. Though trying to avoid notice, Jane drops her slate and catches Mr. Brocklehurst's attention. Ordering Jane to stand on a stool for punishment, Brocklehurst announces to the rest of the children that she is a liar and is not to be trusted. Jane is comforted by Helen and by the kind head teacher, Miss Temple.

 

In the spring Lowood suffers a typhus epidemic. Many of the girls die, and Jane learns that Helen has grown quite ill. One night after a doctor's visit, Jane sneaks into Helen's bed and talks with her about dying. Helen expresses no fears or regrets. Jane falls asleep, and when she awakens in the morning, she discovers that Helen had died during the night. Jane remains as a pupil at Lowood for six more years, and then becomes a teacher for two more. When her beloved Miss Temple marries and leaves Lowood, Jane has no reason to continue there, so she secretly advertises her services as a governess and soon is offered a position.

 

Jane travels to Thornfield, the estate where she is to begin a new career as a governess. She is greeted by Mrs. Fairfax, the woman who had hired her, who is the housekeeper for the house's owner, Mr. Edward Rochester. Jane's pupil is to be Adèle Varens, a young French girl who is Mr. Rochester's ward. While showing Jane around the spacious house, Jane hears a haunting cackle coming from a room on the third floor. Mrs. Fairfax assures her that it is Grace Poole, an eccentric woman hired to do sewing.

 

Jane finds life at Thornfield pleasant, but unstimulating. While walking out to mail a letter one day, she is passed by a huge dog and then a strangelooking man on horseback. After passing Jane, the horse slips on a patch of ice and the rider is thrown, spraining his foot. Jane helps the man back onto his horse, and upon returning home, she learns that the man is her employer, Mr. Rochester. Although his manner is brusque and often offensive, Jane is drawn to him. One night after talking with Mr. Rochester, Jane is awakened by the strange laugh, and leaves her room to find Mr. Rochester's bedroom in flames. She wakes him and helps him to put out the fire, but he offers no explanation concerning these events. To Jane's surprise and disappointment, Mr. Rochester leaves early the next day without saying good-bye.

 

Volume II

 

Two weeks later, Mr. Rochester returns home and holds a huge party at his house, during which time Jane witnesses his flirtatious behavior with the beautiful but cold Blanch Ingram. One night a gypsy visits Thornfield, and tells the fortunes of the guests. As the gypsy tries to learn of Jane's feelings for Rochester, she discovers that the gypsy is Rochester in disguise. Jane tells Mr. Rochester of a visitor, Mr. Mason, who had arrived at Thornfield that day. That night Jane hears noise coming from the ceiling, and running upstairs, finds that Mr. Mason has been attacked, apparently by Grace Poole.

 

Shortly after the Mason incident, Jane learns that her Aunt Reed is dying. Returning to Gateshead to visit her aunt, Mrs. Reed tells her that many years ago Jane's Uncle John in Madeira had tried to contact her; he was interested in making Jane the heir to his fortune. Mrs. Reed, however, had told Uncle John that Jane was dead.

 

Upon Mrs. Reed's death, Jane returns to Thornfield and meets Mr. Rochester one night while walking in the garden. He admits to her his plans to marry. Jane begins to cry, but she soon learns that Mr. Rochester's intention is to marry her, and not Blanche Ingram. That night lightning strikes the huge horse chestnut tree under which she and Mr. Rochester had become engaged.

 

The night before her wedding, Jane awakens to see a strange and frightening figure in her room, shredding her wedding veil. Rochester assures her that the figure is Grace Poole. The next morning, Mr. Rochester tries to rush the wedding ceremony along, but it is stopped ultimately by Mr. Briggs, a lawyer, and Mr. Mason, who reveal that Rochester is already married to Mr. Mason's sister. An angry Rochester then takes the entire party up to the third floor at Thornfield and reveals his insane wife, Bertha, who is attended there by Grace Poole. Against Rochester's wishes, Jane decides that she must leave Thornfield:

 

"Jane, do you mean to go one way in the world, and to let me go another?"

 

"I do."

 

"Jane" (bending towards and embracing me), "do you mean it now?"

 

"I do."

 

"And now? softly kissing my forehead and cheek.

 

"I do — " extricating myself from restraint rapidly and completely.

 

"Oh, Jane, this is bitter! This — this is wicked. It would not be wicked to love me."

 

"It would to obey you."

 

A wild look raised his brows — crossed his features: he rose, but he forebore yet. I laid my hand on the back of a chair for support: I shook, I feared — but resolved.

 

"One instant, Jane. Give one glance to my horrible life when you are gone. All happiness will be torn away with you. What then is left? For a wife I have but the maniac up stairs: as well might you refer me to some corpse in yonder churchyard. What shall I do, Jane? Where turn for a companion, and for some hope?"

 

"Do as I do: trust in God and yourself. Believe in heaven. Hope to meet again there."

 

Volume III

 

Jane steals out early in the morning and boards a coach. Soon out of food and money, she desperately stumbles over the moors to a small house and begs for help. She is taken into "Moor House" by two kind young ladies, Diana and Mary, and their brother, the pious minister St. John Rivers. When she recovers her health, St. John finds Jane a position as a school mistress in a small local school. Soon news comes that the Riverses' Uncle John has died, but has left them only ten pounds each. One night St. John visits Jane, and amazingly, begins to recount for her the story of her past life. It turns out that he has discovered Jane's real name and identity, and that she and the Riverses are cousins. Moreover, their Uncle John is also Jane's Uncle John, and she has inherited her uncle's fortune of twenty thousand pounds.

 

St. John Rivers begins to press Jane into marrying him and wishes her to join him in his life as a missionary. One night, St. John attempts to make Jane believe that not following her destiny with him will result in her going to hell. A stunned Jane suddenly hears Mr. Rochester calling her name. Sharing her new wealth with her cousins, she leaves them and returns to Thornfield.

 

Jane is shocked to find Thornfield in ruins and learns that Mr. Rochester's wife started a terrible fire that took her life, destroyed the house, and crippled and blinded Rochester. Traveling to look for Rochester at his other house, Ferndean, Jane is reunited with him. When he describes his desperate calling out for her several days earlier, Jane realizes that they have had a psychic experience. She agrees to stay with Mr. Rochester and to marry him.

 

 

Characters

 

Bessie

 

A woman who is the "nurse" at Mrs. Reed's house, Gateshead Hall, Bessie helps take care of the Reed children and young Jane Eyre. Jane regards Bessie as the most sympathetic figure in the Reed household, although Bessie seems somewhat aloof. In her narrative, Jane recalls Bessie as "pretty" and "a slim young woman, with black hair, dark eyes, very nice features, and good, clear complexion." Jane also remarks on Bessie's "capricious and hasty temper, and indifferent ideas of principle or justice." Bessie helps Jane prepare for her departure to Lowood Institution. Bessie shows up again about eight years later as Jane is leaving Lowood for Thornfield Hall. She has married, and she tells Jane what has happened to the Reeds in the intervening years. She also says that Jane's uncle had come to Gateshead Hall searching for Jane but had gone back to his home on Madiera when Mrs. Reed told him that Jane was dead. Jane meets Bessie again when she (Jane) returns to Gateshead to visit the dying Mrs. Reed.

 

 

 

 

 

Mr. Brocklehurst

 

Mr. Brocklehurst is the proprietor of Lowood Institution — the boarding school for orphans that Jane Eyre attends. He is introduced in chapter 4, when he comes to Gateshead Hall (Mrs. Reed's home) to examine Jane before admitting her to Lowood. He is described as "a black pillar! The straight, narrow, sable-clad shape standing erect on the rug." Mr. Brocklehurst is one of the novel's hypocrites. Although he professes to run Lowood as a charitable institution, he is more concerned with making a profit than he is with educating the girls who live at the school. He criticizes Miss Temple for giving the girls a special lunch of bread and cheese, saying that the girls' bodies should be starved to help save their souls. He also denounces some girls for having naturally curly hair and orders it to be cut off. (However, he does not seem to object to his own daughters' elaborate curls.) When Jane drops her slate and breaks it, Mr. Brocklehurst makes her stand on a stool in front of the class as punishment. The character of Mr. Brocklehurst is based partly on William Carus Wilson, an evangelical clergyman who founded the Clergy Daughters' School at Cowan Bridge. Wilson mismanaged the school and many of the girls (including Charlotte Brontë and her sisters) suffered from the resulting poor conditions. However, Wilson was evidently well intentioned, unlike the hypocritical Brocklehurst.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Helen Burns

 

Helen Burns is a girl who becomes Jane Eyre's best friend at Lowood Institution — the boarding school for orphans that Jane attends. Jane meets Helen in chapter 5, during an outdoor exercise period. Jane notes that Helen is reading Samuel Johnson's Rasselas; the book's name strikes Jane as "strange, and consequently attractive." Jane has earlier heard "the sound of a hollow cough" but does not immediately identify Helen with this cough. (The cough foreshadows Helen's fatal bout of consumption, or tuberculosis). Four years older than Jane, the fourteen-year-old Helen helps the newly arrived orphan adjust to the school and teachers. Helen embodies the virtues of patience, forbearance, humility, forgiveness, and Christian love. She conveys the importance of these qualities to the more worldly Jane. As Helen lies dying of tuberculosis, she tells Jane that she is not afraid: she is going to a better world. Jane gets into bed with Helen; the next morning, Helen has died. The character of Helen Burns is modeled after Charlotte Brontë's eldest sister Maria, who died of tuberculosis in 1825.

 

 

 

 

Jane Eyre

 

The narrator, central character, and eponymous heroine of Jane Eyre, Jane is both a fully realized fictional creation in the novel and, in many ways, a voice for the author, Charlotte Brontë. In a book that makes use of many of the stock situations and characters of the Gothic genre, Jane stands out as a woman who runs against the Gothic stereotype of the submissive woman in distress. Physically plain and slight, Jane is acutely intelligent and fiercely independent. She is also a shrewd judge of character. Throughout the novel, she relies on her intelligence and determination to achieve selffulfillment. Yet her strength of character does not make her immune to suffering; on the contrary, she suffers because she is so keenly aware of the difference between how things are and how they might be. Jane believes that "we were born to strive and endure." Her nature is passionate, but she also recognizes the dangers of uncontrolled passion. Although she is rebellious when rebellion is called for, she is inherently conscious that actions must be tempered by reason. When she refuses to become Rochester's mistress, she cites a higher moral law as her justification: "Laws and principles are not for the time when there is no temptation; they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise against their rigor." In this action, as well as in refusing to marry St. John Rivers, she proves her unwillingness to compromise her principles. She wants to achieve her goals on the right terms, not on any terms. Utterly opposed to hypocrisy, she nonetheless is capable of recognizing that goodness exists within flawed human beings. Because she is secure in herself, she is able to give herself fully to Rochester as his equal. At the end of the novel, writing about her marriage in language reminiscent of the Song of Solomon, she says: "I hold myself supremely blest — blest beyond language can express; because I am my husband's life as fully as he is mine." Intellectual, faithful, loving, Jane Eyre is one of the most original, vivid, and significant characters in the nineteenth-century English novel.

 

Mrs. Fairfax

 

The housekeeper at Thornfield Hall, Mrs. Fairfax replies to Jane's advertisement and offers her the position of governess at Thornfield. Jane initially assumes that she is the owner of the house. An older woman, Mrs. Fairfax is a widow, and is a distant relation of Mr. Rochester by marriage. Jane finds her "a placid-tempered, kind-natured woman, of competent education and average intelligence." Although she treats Jane in a friendly manner, she cannot provide the kind of intellectual stimulation and companionship that Jane craves.

 

Jack

 

See John Reed

 

 

Blanche Ingram

 

Blanche Ingram is a young woman, the daughter of a local aristocrat who spends some time in the company of Mr. Rochester. Mrs. Fairfax tells Jane that Rochester is expected to marry her. Blanche is very tall but has a proud, haughty manner, a "mocking air," and a "satirical laugh." Her speech is affected, especially when she speaks to her snobbish mother, Lady Ingram. In short, Blanche is "very showy" but "not genuine." She treats Jane with extreme condescension and exhibits a "spiteful antipathy" toward Adèle. Although she herself is in love with Rochester, Jane seems to stoically accept that he will marry Blanche. Ironically, this apparent certainty makes Jane more passionate toward Rochester, who in turn reveals that he had no intention of marrying Blanche. As well as serving the plot function of bringing Jane's passion for Rochester to a head, Blanche serves as a character foil to Jane: her artificiality makes Jane's frankness all the more evident and attractive.

 

Lady Ingram

 

The mother of Blanche Ingram, Lady Ingram makes rude, condescending remarks about governesses during a social visit to Thornfield Hall. She reminds Jane of Mrs. Reed, with whom she has certain parallels.

 

Mr. Lloyd

 

An apothecary who examines and treats young Jane Eyre in chapter 3, Mr. Lloyd is a sympathetic figure. He notes that Jane is profoundly unhappy at Gateshead Hall (Mrs. Reed's home) and asks Jane if she would like to go away to school. He apparently broaches this subject with Mrs. Reed, although it is some months before Jane is sent away to Lowood Institution.

 

Bertha Mason

 

Bertha Mason, the insane wife of Edward Rochester who has been hidden away in an attic room at Thornfield Hall, is one of the more exotic figures of nineteenth-century fiction. Yet she appears on only a few pages of the book and never speaks. (Indeed, she is not capable of rational conversation; the noises she makes are scarcely human). She is not so much a character as a symbol, although critics do not agree on exactly what she symbolizes. She may be an embodiment of violence, unbridled sexuality, or the animal nature that lies behind the veil of civilization. She also suggests Rochester's dark side. It has been suggested, too, that she is Jane's darker double. (Indeed, Bertha's confinement in the attic may be seen as an echo of Jane's earlier confinement in a locked room at Gateshead Hall.) In more immediate terms of the plot, Bertha functions as an impediment to Jane's marriage to Rochester. Her Gothic existence is felt long before it is revealed. Shortly after her arrival at Thornfield, Jane hears a strange laughter that is attributed to Grace Poole, the woman who in fact looks after Bertha. Bertha subsequently instigates several violent acts that disrupt the calm of Thornfield, setting fire to Rochester's bed and later attacking her brother, Mr. Mason. On both occasions, Jane intervenes, respectively rescuing Rochester and tending to Mr. Mason's wounds. On both occasions, Rochester tells Jane that Grace Poole was responsible for this violence. On the eve of Jane and Rochester's intended wedding, Bertha enters Jane's room and tears Jane's wedding veil; Jane tells Rochester what she has seen, but Rochester dismisses the vision as a nightmare. Once Bertha can no longer be denied, Rochester shows her to Jane and tells Jane the sordid story of his arranged marriage, years earlier in Jamaica, to this woman whom he barely knew. Bertha ultimately dies when she sets fire to Thornfield — an act that also results in terrible injury to Rochester; but this action sets up Jane's return and Rochester's redemption.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mr. Mason

 

Mr. Mason is the brother of Mrs. Rochester (Bertha Mason). Mason's sudden arrival at Thornfield Hall during Rochester's social party clearly upsets Rochester, though Jane is not aware of its significance. That night, Jane hears a horrible sound and discovers that Mason has been attacked and is bleeding badly. On Rochester's instructions, she tends to Mason, whose true identity she does not know. Mason is spirited away early the next morning. He returns to interrupt Jane and Rochester's wedding and reveals that Rochester is already married. Mason, who resides in the West Indies, is conventionally handsome, but Jane notes that his face lacks character. Rochester suggests to Jane that Mason shares the Mason family congenital feeblemindedness.

 

Miss Miller

 

An "underteacher" at Lowood Institution — the boarding school for orphans that Jane Eyre attends — Miss Miller is introduced in chapter 5 when Jane arrives at Lowood. She receives Jane and helps to orient her. Miss Miller is described as "a tall lady with dark hair, dark eyes, and a pale and large forehead." Jane's narrative also describes her as "ruddy in complexion, though of a careworn countenance; hurried in gait and action, like one who had always a multiplicity of tasks on hand." Miss Miller disapproves of Mr. Brocklehurst and of the way he runs the school, but is powerless to do anything about it. Jane notes that she looks "purple, weather-beaten, and over-worked."

 

 

 

Rosamond Oliver

 

The daughter of a wealthy landowner who lives near the home of St. John Rivers, Rosamond Oliver is very pretty, kind, and high-spirited. Jane finds her "elfin" and fairy-like. However, she is essentially vacuous. Jane initially assumes that Rosamond and St. John will marry, but St. John is uninterested in Rosamond, preferring to consider Jane as his potential wife.

 

Grace Poole

 

Grace Poole is a mysterious servant who works at Thornfield Hall. When Jane hears strange laughter coming from the attic, Mrs. Fairfax tells her that it is only Grace Poole, who occasionally works there as a seamstress. Grace is "between thirty and forty; a set, square-made figure, red-haired, and with a hard, plain face." She is also fond of alcohol. Rochester initially tells Jane that Grace is responsible for the mysterious incidents at Gateshead. Jane later learns that Grace is actually employed to look after Mrs. Rochester (Bertha Mason), who is insane and who is kept locked in the attic.

 

 

 

 

Blanche Ingram

 

Blanche Ingram is a young woman, the daughter of a local aristocrat who spends some time in the company of Mr. Rochester. Mrs. Fairfax tells Jane that Rochester is expected to marry her. Blanche is very tall but has a proud, haughty manner, a "mocking air," and a "satirical laugh." Her speech is affected, especially when she speaks to her snobbish mother, Lady Ingram. In short, Blanche is "very showy" but "not genuine." She treats Jane with extreme condescension and exhibits a "spiteful antipathy" toward Adèle. Although she herself is in love with Rochester, Jane seems to stoically accept that he will marry Blanche. Ironically, this apparent certainty makes Jane more passionate toward Rochester, who in turn reveals that he had no intention of marrying Blanche. As well as serving the plot function of bringing Jane's passion for Rochester to a head, Blanche serves as a character foil to Jane: her artificiality makes Jane's frankness all the more evident and attractive.

 

Georgiana Reed

 

Georgiana, Jane Eyre's cousin and the younger daughter of Mrs. Reed, is introduced early in the novel when the young orphan Jane is living at Gateshead Hall as a ward of Mrs. Reed. Young Georgiana has "pink cheeks and golden curls" as well as "a spoiled temper, an acrid spite, a capricious and insolent carriage." She is "universally indulged" by her mother. When Jane returns to Gateshead some nine years later, Georgiana has grown into a frivolous, self-centered woman. Jane eventually learns that Georgiana has married a wealthy man.

 

John Reed

 

Jane Eyre's cousin John, the son of Mrs. Reed, is introduced at the beginning of the novel when the young orphan Jane is living at Gateshead Hall as a ward of Mrs. Reed. John, or Jack, is fourteen years old at this time. He bullies and torments Jane behind his mother's back. Jane finds him "disgusting and ugly," but Mrs. Reed indulges the boy and blames Jane for causing trouble while overlooking John's sadistic behavior. Some years later, Jane hears that John has been expelled from college. When Jane is summoned to Gateshead to attend the dying Mrs. Reed, she learns that John had become even more dissolute and has committed suicide.

 

 

 

 

Mrs. Reed

 

Mrs. Reed is Jane Eyre's aunt, the widow of Jane's uncle Mr. Reed (who was the brother of Jane's mother and who died nine years before the novel begins). She is also the mother of John (Jack), Eliza, and Georgiana. Mrs. Reed is introduced at the beginning of the novel, when the young orphan Jane is living at Gateshead Hall as her ward. When Mr. Reed was on his deathbed, Mrs. Reed promised him that she would "rear and maintain" the orphan Jane. However, Mrs. Reed resents Jane and treats her as an unwanted burden rather than as a dependent child. She continually belittles Jane and punishes her for what she regards as Jane's rebellious nature, while overlooking the faults of her own children. She arranges for Jane to be sent away to Lowood Institution, a boarding school for orphans. In chapter 4, Jane defies Mrs. Reed and tells her what she really thinks of her. This incident is Jane's first moral victory. Jane returns to Gateshead just before Mrs. Reed dies, but is unable to effect a reconciliation.

 

Diana Rivers

 

The sister of Mary and St. John Rivers; Diana Rivers also turns out to be Jane Eyre's cousin. When Jane arrives at Moor House, hungry and penniless, seeking shelter after she has fled Thornfield Hall, Diana and Mary help restore her to health. Skilled, talented, and well-read, the Rivers sisters develop a close friendship with Jane. Like her, they are both governesses, and Brontë portrays them in a favorable light.

 

Mary Rivers

 

The sister of Diana and St. John Rivers; she also turns out to be Jane Eyre's cousin. When Jane arrives at Moor House, hungry and penniless, seeking shelter after she has fled Thornfield Hall, Mary and Diana help restore her to health. Skilled, talented, and well-read, the Rivers sisters develop a close friendship with Jane. Like her, they are both governesses, and Brontë portrays them in a favorable light.

 

St. John Rivers

 

A handsome young clergyman who is the brother of Diana and Mary Rivers; St. John also turns out to be Jane Eyre's cousin. When Jane arrives at Moor House, hungry and penniless, after she has fled Thornfield Hall, St. John offers her shelter. Although Jane becomes close friends with the Rivers sisters, she finds that St. John has "a reserved, an abstracted, and even a brooding nature"; he is also restless and does not feel at home in England. He tells Jane that she is "intelligent" and that "human affections and sympathies have a most powerful hold on you." Listening to him preach a sermon with Calvinist overtones, she realizes that he has not found peace in his religious faith. He offers Jane the post of schoolmistress at a girls' school he is establishing. It is Rivers who reveals to Jane that they are cousins and that she has inherited a fortune of twenty thousand pounds from their mutual uncle, John Eyre. He persistently asks Jane to marry him and accompany him to India as a missionary — an offer she declines because she realizes that the marriage would be loveless. Although St. John is intelligent, he is austere and inflexible and is unable to appreciate Jane for herself; he would lead her into a life (and death) of martyrdom. In this, he is a complete contrast to the passionate Mr. Rochester.

 

Mr. Rochester

 

Mr. Rochester is the central male character and hero (or perhaps antihero) in Jane Eyre. He is generally considered to be one of the most memorable romantic characters in nineteenth-century English fiction. A wealthy landowner, Rochester is the master of Thornfield Hall. Jane gradually falls in love with him after she arrives at Thornfield to tutor his ward Adèle, the daughter of an earlier mistress. When Mr. Rochester is introduced, he is somewhere between age thirty-five and forty, and thus is as much as twenty years older than Jane. Jane first meets him when she is walking from Thornfield to a nearby town to mail a letter. When his horse slips on the ice he is thrown and injured slightly; Jane helps him to remount. She only learns his identity when she returns to Thornfield and finds him there. He is described as having "a dark face, with stern features and a heavy brow" and is not considered handsome. The frequent references to his supposed ugliness help to underscore the fact that he is not a conventional hero; they suggest both secret troubles and hidden strengths that are more than skin-deep. Also, by deliberately making him physically unattractive, (at least by a conventional definition of attractiveness), Brontë wants the reader to know that Jane is not attracted to him because of his looks but because she recognizes something good in his soul. Rochester may be considered a Gothic hero. He is haunted by his guilty knowledge and by a past of which he is ashamed. Like the typical Gothic hero, he is prone to bouts of depression and to seemingly irrational behavior; he also possesses a macabre sense of humor. However, he is much more complex than a stereotypical Gothic hero and has more humanity. His treatment of his insane wife may seem cruel by modern standards, but in his eyes it is the best that can be done for her and is preferable to abandoning her. Yet he also acts selfishly in wishing to keep her existence a secret. He considers himself the victim of a cruel hoax: His marriage to Bertha was an arranged one, and he was not told that insanity ran in her family. His subsequent wanderings in Europe and his taking of three successive mistresses are perhaps a stock reaction to the restrictions imposed on him by his sham marriage. His relationship with Jane springs from a different motive. He recognizes Jane for what she is, and realizes that he can find salvation in her love. However, in knowingly planning to enter into a bigamous marriage, and then suggesting that she become his mistress, he transgresses moral law. He must lose Jane and suffer punishment and penance (in the form of losing his eyesight and his right hand, as well as his home) by fire before Jane can be fully restored to him. His marriage to Jane is the meeting of true minds, a marriage without secrets or locked doors.

 

Mrs. Rochester

 

See Bertha Mason

 

 

Miss Scatcherd

 

A teacher at Lowood Institution — the boarding school for orphans that Jane Eyre attends — Miss Scatcherd is the most severe of the teachers. Jane's friend Helen Burns tells Jane that "you must take care not to offend her." Miss Scatherd punishes Helen for some minor infraction by flogging Helen on the neck with a bunch of twigs, and she verbally abuses Helen. However, Helen accepts her punishment meekly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Miss Temple

 

The superintendent of Lowood Institution — the boarding school for orphans that Jane Eyre attends — Miss Temple is introduced in chapter 5 when Jane arrives at Lowood. Jane describes her as "tall, fair, and shapely," with "a stately air and carriage." She is also kindly, perceptive, well educated, and genuinely concerned with the welfare of her students. After the schoolgirls are fed an inedible breakfast, Miss Temple orders that they receive a special lunch of "bread and cheese." Later, she invites Jane and Helen Burns to her room, where she offers the two girls some seedcake and converses with them. She recognizes that both Helen and Jane are exceptional, and acts as their mentor. When Miss Temple eventually marries and leaves Lowood, Jane (who is by then age eighteen, and who with Miss Temple's help has become a teacher at the school) decides to leave the school herself and take a position as a governess.

 

Adèle Varens

 

Mr. Rochester's young ward, about seven or eight years old, Adèle is the daughter of a French opera-dancer with whom Mr. Rochester has had an affair. The woman had claimed that Mr. Rochester was the father, but there is some ambiguity as to whether this is really the case. Adèle has lived most of her young life in France and speaks a mixture of French and English. When her mother abandons her, Mr. Rochester has her brought to England, where he intends to raise her. On Mr. Rochester's instructions, Mrs. Fairfax hires Jane to be Adèle's governess at Thornfield. Adèle is lively and talkative and likes to sing and dance. Jane finds her somewhat coquettish behavior disconcerting, but she comes to feel affection for Adèle in spite of the girl's flaws. By contrast, Blanche Ingram regards Adèle with distaste.

 

 

 

 

 

Themes

Love and Passion

One of the secrets to the success of Jane Eyre, and the source of its strength in spite of numerous flaws, lies in the way that it touches on a number of important themes while telling a compelling story. Indeed, so lively and dramatic is the story that the reader might not be fully conscious of all the thematic strands that weave through this work. Critics have argued about what comprises the main theme of Jane Eyre. There can be little doubt, however, that love and passion together form a major thematic element of the novel.

 

On its most simple and obvious level, Jane Eyre is a love story. The love between the orphaned and initially impoverished Jane and the wealthy but tormented Rochester is at its heart. The obstacles to the fulfillment of this love provide the main dramatic conflict in the work. However, the novel explores other types of love as well. Helen Burns, for example, exemplifies the selfless love of a friend. We also see some of the consequences of the absence of love, as in the relationship between Jane and Mrs. Reed, in the selfish relations among the Reed children, and in the mocking marriage of Rochester and Bertha. Jane realizes that the absence of love between herself and St. John Rivers would make their marriage a living death, too.

 

Throughout the work, Bronte suggests that a life that is not lived passionately is not lived fully. Jane undoubtedly is the central passionate character; her nature is shot through with passion. Early on, she refuses to live by Mrs. Reed's rules, which would restrict all passion. Her defiance of Mrs. Reed is her first, but by no means her last, passionate act. Her passion for Rochester is all consuming. Significantly, however, it is not the only force that governs her life. She leaves Rochester because her moral reason tells her that it would be wrong to live with him as his mistress: "Laws and principles are not for the time when there is no temptation," she tells Rochester; "they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise against their rigor."

 

Blanche Ingram feels no passion for Rochester; she is only attracted to the landowner because of his wealth and social position. St. John Rivers is a more intelligent character than Blanche, but like her he also lacks the necessary passion that would allow him to live fully. His marriage proposal to Jane has no passion behind it; rather, he regards marriage as a business arrangement, with Jane as his potential junior partner in his missionary work. His lack of passion contrasts sharply with Rochester, who positively seethes with passion. His injury in the fire at Thornfield may be seen as a chastisement for his past passionate indiscretions and as a symbolic taming of his passionate excesses.

 

 

 

 

Independence

 

Jane Eyre is not only a love story: It is also a plea for the recognition of the individual's worth. Throughout the book, Jane demands to be treated as an independent human being, a person with her own needs and talents. Early on, she is unjustly punished precisely for being herself — first by Mrs. Reed and John Reed, and subsequently by Mr. Brocklehurst. Her defiance of Mrs. Reed is her first active declaration of independence in the novel, but not her last. Helen Burns and Miss Temple are the first characters to acknowledge her as an individual: they love her for herself, in spite of her obscurity. Rochester too loves her for herself; the fact that she is a governess and therefore his servant does not negatively affect his perception of her. Rochester confesses that his ideal woman is intellectual, faithful, and loving — qualities that Jane embodies. Rochester's acceptance of Jane as an independent person is contrasted by Blanche and Lady Ingram's attitude toward her: they see her merely as a servant. Lady Ingram speaks disparagingly of Jane in front of her face as though Jane isn't there; to her, Jane is an inferior barely worthy of notice, and certainly not worthy of respect. St. John Rivers does not regard Jane as a full, independent person. Rather, he sees her as an instrument, an accessory that would help him to further his own plans. Jane acknowledges that his cause (missionary work) may be worthy, but she knows that to marry simply for the sake of expedience would be a fatal mistake. Her marriage to Mr. Rochester, by contrast, is the marriage of two independent beings. It is because of their independence, Brontë suggests, that they acknowledge their dependence on each other and be completely happy with one another in this situation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

God and Religion

 

In her preface to the second edition of Jane Eyre, Brontë made clear her belief that "conventionality is not morality" and "self-righteousness is not religion." She declared that "narrow human doctrines, that only tend to elate and magnify a few, should not be substituted for the world-redeeming creed of Christ." Throughout the novel, Brontë presents contrasts between characters who believe in and practice what she considers a true Christianity and those who pervert religion to further their own ends. Mr. Brocklehurst, who oversees Lowood Institution, is a hypocritical Christian. He professes charity but uses religion as a justification for punishment. For example, he cites the biblical passage "man shall not live by bread alone" to rebuke Miss Temple for having fed the girls an extra meal to compensate for their inedible breakfast of burnt porridge. He tells Miss Temple that she "may indeed feed their vile bodies, but you little think how you starve their immortal souls!" Helen Burns is a complete contrast to Brocklehurst; she follows the Christian creed of turning the other cheek and loving those who hate her. On her deathbed, Helen tells Jane that she is "going home to God, who loves her."

 

Jane herself cannot quite profess Helen's absolute, selfless faith. Jane does not seem to follow a particular doctrine, but she is sincerely religious in a nondoctrinaire way. (It is Jane, after all, who places the stone with the word "Resurgam" on Helen's grave, some fifteen years after her friend's death.) Jane frequently prays and calls on God to assist her, particularly in her trouble with Rochester. She prays too that Rochester is safe. When the Rivers's housekeeper, Hannah, tries to turn the begging Jane away, Jane tells her that "if you are a Christian, you ought not consider poverty a crime." The young evangelical clergyman St. John Rivers is a more conventionally religious figure. However, Brontë portrays his religious aspect ambiguously. Jane calls him "a very good man," yet she finds him cold and forbidding. In his determination to do good deeds (in the form of missionary work in India), Rivers courts martyrdom. Moreover, he is unable to see Jane as a whole person, but views her as a helpmate in his proposed missionary work. Rochester is far less a perfect Christian. He is, indeed, a sinner: He attempts to enter into a bigamous marriage with Jane and, when that fails, tries to persuade her to become his mistress. He also confesses that he has had three previous mistresses. In the end, however, he repents his sinfulness, thanks God for returning Jane to him, and begs God to give him the strength to lead a purer life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Atonement and Forgiveness

 

Much of the religious concern in Jane Eyre has to do with atonement and forgiveness. Rochester is tormented by his awareness of his past sins and misdeeds. He frequently confesses that he has led a life of vice, and many of his actions in the course of the novel are less than commendable. Readers may accuse him of behaving sadistically in deceiving Jane about the nature of his relationship (or rather, non-relationship) with Blanche Ingram in order to provoke Jane's jealousy. His confinement of Bertha may bespeak mixed motives. He is certainly aware that in the eyes of both religious and civil authorities, his marriage to Jane before Bertha's death would be bigamous. Yet, at the same time, he makes genuine efforts to atone for his behavior. For example, although he does not believe that he is Adèle's natural father, he adopts her as his ward and sees that she is well cared for. This adoption may well be an act of atonement for the sins he has committed. He expresses his self-disgust at having tried to console himself by having three different mistresses during his travels in Europe and begs Jane to forgive him for these past transgressions. However, Rochester can only atone completely — and be forgiven completely — after Jane has refused to be his mistress and left him. The destruction of Thornfield by fire finally removes the stain of his past sins; the loss of his right hand and of his eyesight is the price he must pay to atone completely for his sins. Only after this purgation can he be redeemed by Jane's love.

 

 

 

 

 

Search for Home and Family

 

Without any living family that she is aware of (until well into the story), throughout the course of the novel Jane searches for a place that she can call home. Significantly, houses play a prominent part in the story. (In keeping with a long English tradition, all the houses in the book have names.) The novel's opening finds Jane living at Gateshead Hall, but this is hardly a home. Mrs. Reed and her children refuse to acknowledge her as a relation, treating her instead as an unwanted intruder and an inferior.

 

Shunted off to Lowood Institution, a boarding school for orphans and destitute children, Jane finds a home of sorts, although her place here is ambiguous and temporary. The school's manager, Mr. Brocklehurst, treats it more as a business than as school in loco parentis (in place of the parent). His emphasis on discipline and on spartan conditions at the expense of the girls' health make it the antithesis of the ideal home.

 

Jane subsequently believes she has found a home at Thornfield Hall. Anticipating the worst when she arrives, she is relieved when she is made to feel welcome by Mrs. Fairfax. She feels genuine affection for Adèle (who in a way is also an orphan) and is happy to serve as her governess. As her love for Rochester grows, she believes that she has found her ideal husband in spite of his eccentric manner and that they will make a home together at Thornfield. The revelation — as they are literally on the verge of marriage — that he is already legally married — brings her dream of home crashing down. Fleeing Thornfield, she literally becomes homeless and is reduced to begging for food and shelter. The opportunity of having a home presents itself when she enters Moor House, where the Rivers sisters and their brother, the Reverend St. John Rivers, are mourning the death of their father. (When the housekeeper at first shuts the door in her face, Jane has a dreadful feeling that "that anchor of home was gone.") She soon speaks of Diana and Mary Rivers as her own sisters, and is overjoyed when she learns that they are indeed her cousins. She tells St. John Rivers that learning that she has living relations is far more important than inheriting twenty thousand pounds. (She mourns the uncle she never knew. Earlier she was disheartened on learning that Mrs. Reed told her uncle that Jane had died and sent him away.) However, St. John Rivers' offer of marriage cannot sever her emotional attachment to Rochester. In an almost visionary episode, she hears Rochester's voice calling her to return to him. The last chapter begins with the famous simple declarative sentence, "Reader, I married him," and after a long series of travails Jane's search for home and family ends in a union with her ideal mate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Style

Narrative

Jane Eyre is written in the first person, and told from the viewpoint of its main character, Jane Eyre. As part of her first-person narrative, Brontë uses one of the oldest conventions in English fiction: this novel is allegedly a memoir written by a real woman named Jane Eyre and edited by Currer Bell (Charlotte Brontë's pseudonym). (Indeed, the full title of the book is Jane Eyre: An Autobiography. As part of this convention, the narrator occasionally addresses the reader directly with the word "reader.") Modern readers know, of course, that this is simply a convention, and accept it as such.

 

Although the first-person viewpoint means that the narrative scope is somewhat restricted, at times the narrator of Jane Eyre seems more omniscient (aware and insightful) than a typical first-person narrator. Much of the action seems to unfold naturally. In part, this may be because the story is told in retrospect. That is, in Brontë's narrative technique, the action is not happening as it is being told, but has already happened. As in many traditional first-person narratives, the narrator in Jane Eyre describes other characters astutely, both their external appearance and their inner personalities. There are also passages in which the narrator offers particular observations and opinions about life — observations and opinions that sometimes seem as if they are coming from the author. Yet the novel's suspense relies on the fact that the narrator is not entirely omniscient — or at least on the fact that she does not reveal key information until the point in the chronology of events when Jane herself became aware of this information. For example, the narrative does not report that Rochester is married and that his wife is locked away upstairs until the moment in the wedding ceremony when other characters come forth with this information. Similarly, Jane lives with the Rivers for some time before she, and the reader, learn that they are her cousins.

 

 

 

 

 

Setting

 

The action of the book takes place in northern England sometime in the early-to mid-nineteenth century, and covers a span of about a dozen years. Brontë does not give specific year-dates for the incidents in the book, nor does she refer to contemporary historical events. Scholars generally assume that Jane Eyre's "autobiography" parallels Charlotte Brontë's life at the same age. Because the narrative frequently mentions specific months and seasons, the reader is rarely in doubt as to the exact time of year a particular incident is taking place. This precision helps give the book a more realistic feeling.

 

Brontë uses a succession of several main settings — primarily, individual houses — for the plot's action. She describes the settings vividly, thereby creating a particular atmosphere as well as giving the illusion of realism. Moreover, setting is used in a way that gives the novel structural unity and variety. Each setting or grouping of settings corresponds with a distinct phase of Jane Eyre's life.

 

Among the novel's main settings are Gateshead Hall, the home of Jane's aunt (by marriage), with whom the orphaned girl is living at the beginning of the book. At the age of ten, Jane is sent to Lowood Institution, a charity school for impoverished orphans. From there, at age eighteen Jane goes to Thornfield Hall to serve as a governess. When she learns the secret of Mr. Rochester's marriage to Bertha, she flees across the moors to Moor House, where she is taken in by the Reverend St. John Rivers. Toward the end of the book she finds Mr. Rochester at his other home, Ferndean Manor — Thornfield having been destroyed in a fire set by Bertha during Jane's absence.

 

Brontë does not use the real names of her locations. However, scholars have identified a number of real places as models for the settings in the book. Lowood Institution is believed to be based on the Clergy Daughters' School at Cowan Bridge, in Yorkshire, which Brontë attended as a girl. Thornfield Hall may be modeled on two different manor houses with which Brontë was familiar. The first, called Norton Conyers, is near the city of Ripon in North Yorkshire. North Lees Hall, a large, forbidding-looking stone manor house in Derbyshire, also seems to fit the description of Thornfield. In 1846 Brontë spent three weeks in the village of Heathersage, in Derbyshire, visiting her old school friend Ellen Nussey. Just before Brontë left to return to her home at Haworth, Ellen's brother, the local vicar, conducted a funeral service for a man named Thomas Eyre. The Eyre family was prominent in the area, and Brontë would most likely also have seen the name on various memorials in the church. North Lees Hall is nearby. Local history books recount that the first mistress at North Lees Hall, one Agnes Ashurst, was insane and was kept locked in an upstairs room. This woman died in a fire, just as Bertha does in the novel. (There is a similar legend about Norton Conyers.) In this area, visible from the vicarage where Brontë stayed, is another manor house called Moorseats — believed to be the model for Moor House.

 

Regardless of the factual bases of her settings, Brontë's descriptions of these settings, and of the surrounding countryside, are always exceptionally vivid. These descriptions help the reader visualize the places where the action is taking place. They also create a particular mood and atmosphere. Brontë takes stock Gothic descriptive elements (clouds, moonlight, stormy weather, dark hallways) and gives them a particularity that transcends the limitations of the Gothic genre.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Coincidence

 

When critics point out the weaknesses of Jane Eyre, they almost always mention its use of unbelievable coincidence. Yet, by no means was Brontë the only major writer to use coincidence as a device for advancing a novel's plot. During the Victorian period, the use of coincidence for this purpose was very common, even among the greatest writers. It was an accepted literary convention of the period. The works of Charles Dickens, for example, are filled with coincidences that no one would believe today, yet Dickens's books remain great works of literature. Thomas Hardy, who wrote later in the Victorian period, also has unbelievable coincidences occur in most of his novels.

 

Of the coincidences in Jane Eyre, at least two have drawn critical comment. The first concerns the way in which Bertha's brother, Mason, finds out about Jane's impending marriage to Rochester. Mason, who lives in Jamaica, is in the wine trade. So is Jane's uncle John Eyre, who lives on the island of Madeira, several thousand miles away. Earlier, on his way back to Jamaica after his attack by Bertha, Mason happened to stop at Madeira and stayed with John Eyre, unaware of Mr. Eyre's relation to Jane. When John Eyre mentions that his niece Jane is to marry a Mr. Rochester, Mason hurries back to England to stop the wedding. The second incredible coincidence concerns the way that Jane receives her inheritance and learns that the Riverses are her cousins. After Jane flees Thornfield and is penniless and on the verge of starvation, she is finally taken in by strangers — St. John Rivers and his two sisters. The Riverses nurture her back to health and provide her with lodging, friendship, and a position as a schoolmistress, but she does not tell them her real identity. One day St. John tells Jane that he has had a letter from a London attorney informing him that his uncle — John Eyre — has died and left a fortune to Jane Eyre. St. John deduces that the young woman he has assisted is that very Jane, and Jane discovers that the very people who had helped her as a stranger are in fact her cousins. Both these coincidences strain the reader's credibility, yet they are necessary in order to drive important developments in the plot.

 

Symbolism and Imagery

 

Jane Eyre is filled with imagery drawn from nature and the English countryside. Brontë uses this imagery to suggest her characters' moral condition and state of mind. There are numerous references to weather and to the sky, in the form of storms, rain, clouds, and sun. At the very opening of the novel, Jane sets the scene by mentioning that "the cold winter wind" had brought with it "clouds so sombre, and a rain so penetrating." The moon, too, appears frequently. There is a full moon on the night when Bertha attacks her brother, as there is on the night when Jane flees Thornfield. Later, St. John Rivers reads his Bible in the moonlight. Tree imagery is perhaps even more significant. Critic Mark Shorer has noted that "nearly every important scene in the development of the passion of Rochester and Jane Eyre takes place among trees — in an orchard, an arbor, a woods, a 'leafy enclosure."' Shortly after Jane has agreed to marry Rochester, he tells her that she looks "blooming." After their wedding is interrupted, "the woods which twelve hours since waved leafy and fragrant now spread, waste, wild and white as pineforests in wintry Norway." Ferndean, the house where the blind and maimed Rochester has gone after Thornfield is destroyed, is hidden by the "thick and dark timber of the gloomy wood about it." The house itself can scarcely be distinguished from the trees; when Jane arrives there, she also notes that "there were no flowers, no gardenbeds." On their reunion, Rochester tells Jane that "I am no better than the old lightening-struck chestnut-tree in Thornfield orchard." Jane retorts that, on the contrary, he is "green and vigorous," and tells him that "plants will grow about your roots because your strength offers them so safe a prop."

 ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

 

Second Novel

Silas Marner  by  George Eliot

 

 

Author Biography

 

George Eliot, neé Mary Ann Evans, was born on November 22, 1819, in Chilvers Coton, in Warwickshire, England, the daughter of estate manager Robert Evans and his wife Christiana Pearson. Evans was educated at home and at various schools, including Mrs. Wallington's school in Nuneaton, where she became an Evangelical Christian. When her mother died in 1836, Evans became her father's housekeeper, while continuing her education through private tutors. She learned Italian, German, and Latin, and within a few years also studied Greek and Hebrew.

 

In 1841, Evans and her father moved to the outskirts of Coventry. There she met the philanthropist Charles Bray and his wife, Caroline Hennell, as well as Hennell's family, who introduced her to new political and religious ideas and under whose influence she rejected Christianity.

 

Evans translated and published David Friedrich Strauss's The Life of Jesus in 1846, and within three years she had also translated the work of the philosophers Spinoza and Feuerbach. After her father died in 1849, she moved to London and became assistant editor of the influential journal, Westminster Review. In the London literary circles in which she now moved, she met the man of letters, essayist and playwright, George Henry Lewes, and in 1853 she traveled to Germany with him. Lewes was estranged from his wife but was unable to obtain a divorce, and he and Evans lived together until Lewes's death in 1878. Their relationship shocked Victorian society; even Evans's brother Isaac refused to communicate with her in any way until after Lewes's death.

 

While Evans experienced social isolation because of her relationship with Lewes, she excelled as a novelist. In 1857, she published her first work of fiction, "The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton," in Blackwood's Magazine, under the pseudonym George Eliot, the name she used for all her subsequent works. The following year, "Amos Burton" was republished as one of Eliot's Scenes of Clerical Life, in two volumes.

 

Evans's first novel, Adam Bede, appeared in 1859, and achieved huge critical and popular success. Evans continued to maintain her anonymity, going to some lengths to disguise the fact that she was George Eliot. Over the next dozen years, Evans produced a series of novels that placed her in the front rank of English novelists. In 1860, after traveling with Lewes to Italy, she published The Mill

 

on the Floss. Silas Marner followed in 1861, and Romola, a historical romance, was published in serial form in the Cornhill magazine in 1862 and 1863. It appeared in three volumes in 1863. Felix Holt: The Radical appeared in 1866, after which Evans and Lewes traveled extensively in Europe, visiting Holland, Belgium, Germany, and Spain. These European travels were a regular feature of Evans's life for the next decade.

 

Evans began writing her greatest novel, Middlemarch, in 1869. It was published in serial form from 1871 to 1872, and then in three volumes. Evans's last novel was Daniel Deronda (1876).

 

In 1880, two years after Lewes's death, Evans married John Walter Cross, who was twenty years her junior. She died that year, on December 22

 

Plot Overview

 

Silas Marner is the weaver in the English countryside village of Raveloe in the early nineteenth century. Like many weavers of his time, he is an outsider—the object of suspicion because of his special skills and the fact that he has come to Raveloe from elsewhere. The villagers see Silas as especially odd because of the curious cataleptic fits he occasionally suffers. Silas has ended up in Raveloe because the members of his religious sect in Lantern Yard, an insular neighborhood in a larger town, falsely accused him of theft and excommunicated him.

 

Much shaken after the accusation, Silas finds nothing familiar in Raveloe to reawaken his faith and falls into a numbing routine of solitary work. His one attempt at neighborliness backfires: when an herbal remedy he suggests for a neighbor's illness works, he is rumored to be a sort of witch doctor. With little else to live for, Silas becomes infatuated with the money he earns for his work and hoards it, living off as little as possible. Every night he pulls his gold out from its hiding place beneath his floorboards to count it. He carries on in this way for fifteen years.

 

Squire Cass is the wealthiest man in Raveloe, and his two eldest sons are Godfrey and Dunstan, or Dunsey. Dunsey is greedy and cruel, and enjoys tormenting Godfrey, the eldest son. Godfrey is good-natured but weak-willed, and, though secretly married to the opium addict Molly Farren, he is in love with Nancy Lammeter. Dunsey talked Godfrey into the marriage and repeatedly blackmails him with threats to reveal the marriage to their father. Godfrey gives Dunsey 100 pounds of the rent money paid to him by one of their father's tenants. Godfrey then finds himself in a bind when Dunsey insists that Godfrey repay the sum himself. Dunsey once again threatens to reveal Godfrey's marriage but, after some arguing, offers to sell Godfrey's prize horse, Wildfire, to repay the loan.

 

The next day, Dunsey meets with some friends who are hunting and negotiates the sale of the horse. Dunsey decides to participate in the hunt before finalizing the sale, and, in doing so, he has a riding accident that kills the horse. Knowing the rumors of Silas's hoard, Dunsey makes plans to intimidate the weaver into lending him money. His walk home takes him by Silas's cottage, and, finding the cottage empty, Dunsey steals the money instead.

 

Silas returns from an errand to find his money gone. Overwhelmed by the loss, he runs to the local tavern for help and announces the theft to a sympathetic audience of tavern regulars. The theft becomes the talk of the village, and a theory arises that the thief might have been a peddler who came through the village some time before. Godfrey, meanwhile, is distracted by thoughts of Dunsey, who has not returned home. After hearing that Wildfire has been found dead, Godfrey decides to tell his father about the money, though not about his marriage. The Squire flies into a rage at the news, but does not do anything drastic to punish Godfrey.

 

Silas is utterly disconsolate at the loss of his gold and numbly continues his weaving. Some of the townspeople stop by to offer their condolences and advice. Among these visitors, Dolly Winthrop stands out. Like many of the others, she encourages Silas to go to church—something he has not done since he was banished from Lantern Yard—but she is also gentler and more genuinely sympathetic.

 

 

Nancy Lammeter arrives at Squire Cass's famed New Year's dance resolved to reject Godfrey's advances because of his unsound character. However, Godfrey is more direct and insistent than he has been in a long time, and Nancy finds herself exhilarated by the evening in spite of her resolution. Meanwhile, Molly, Godfrey's secret wife, is making her way to the Casses' house to reveal the secret marriage. She has their daughter, a toddler, in her arms. Tiring after her long walk, Molly takes a draft of opium and passes out by the road. Seeing Silas's cottage and drawn by the light of the fire, Molly's little girl wanders through the open door and falls asleep at Silas's hearth.

 

Silas is having one of his fits at the time and does not notice the little girl enter his cottage. When he comes to, he sees her already asleep on his hearth, and is as stunned by her appearance as he was by the disappearance of his money. A while later, Silas traces the girl's footsteps outside and finds Molly's body lying in the snow. Silas goes to the Squire's house to find the doctor, and causes a stir at the dance when he arrives with the baby girl in his arms. Godfrey, recognizing his daughter, accompanies the doctor to Silas's cottage. When the doctor declares that Molly is dead, Godfrey realizes that his secret is safe. He does not claim his daughter, and Silas adopts her.

 

Silas grows increasingly attached to the child and names her Eppie, after his mother and sister. With Dolly Winthrop's help, Silas raises the child lovingly. Eppie begins to serve as a bridge between Silas and the rest of the villagers, who offer him help and advice and have come to think of him as an exemplary person because of what he has done. Eppie also brings Silas out of the benumbed state he fell into after the loss of his gold. In his newfound happiness, Silas begins to explore the memories of his past that he has long repressed.

 

The novel jumps ahead sixteen years. Godfrey has married Nancy and Squire Cass has died. Godfrey has inherited his father's house, but he and Nancy have no children. Their one daughter died at birth, and Nancy has refused to adopt. Eppie has grown into a pretty and spirited young woman, and Silas a contented father. The stone-pit behind Silas's cottage is drained to water neighboring fields, and Dunsey's skeleton is found at the bottom, along with Silas's gold. The discovery frightens Godfrey, who becomes convinced that his own secrets are destined to be uncovered as well. He confesses the truth to Nancy about his marriage to Molly and fathering of Eppie. Nancy is not angry but regretful, saying that they could have adopted Eppie legitimately if Godfrey had told her earlier.

 

That evening, Godfrey and Nancy decide to visit Silas's cottage to confess the truth of Eppie's lineage and claim her as their daughter. However, after hearing Godfrey and Nancy's story, Eppie tells them she would rather stay with Silas than live with her biological father. Godfrey and Nancy leave, resigning themselves to helping Eppie from afar. The next day Silas decides to visit Lantern Yard to see if he was ever cleared of the theft of which he was accused years before. The town has changed almost beyond recognition, though, and Silas's old chapel has been torn down to make way for a new factory. Silas realizes that his questions will never be answered, but he is content with the sense of faith he has regained through his life with Eppie. That summer Eppie is married to Aaron Winthrop, Dolly's son. Aaron comes to live in Silas's cottage, which has been expanded and refurbished at Godfrey's expense.

 

,,,,,,,,

 

Character List

 

Silas Marner -  A simple, honest, and kindhearted weaver. After losing faith in both God and his fellow man, Silas lives for fifteen years as a solitary miser. After his money is stolen, his faith and trust are restored by his adopted daughter, Eppie, whom he lovingly raises.

Silas Marner (In-Depth Analysis)

 

 

 

Godfrey Cass -  The eldest son of Squire Cass. Godfrey is good-natured but selfish and weak-willed. He knows what is right but is unwilling to pay the price for obeying his conscience.

Godfrey Cass (In-Depth Analysis)

 

 

Eppie -  A girl whom Silas Marner eventually adopts. Eppie is the biological child of Godfrey Cass and Molly Farren, Godfrey's secret wife. Eppie is pretty and spirited, and loves Silas unquestioningly.

 

Nancy Lammeter -  The object of Godfrey's affection and his eventual wife. Nancy is pretty, caring, and stubborn, and she lives her life by a code of rules that sometimes seems arbitrary and uncompromising.

Nancy Lammeter (In-Depth Analysis)

 

 

Dunstan Cass -  Godfrey's younger brother. Dunsey, as he is usually called, is cruel, lazy, and unscrupulous, and he loves gambling and drinking.

 

Squire Cass -  The wealthiest man in Raveloe. The Squire is lazy, self-satisfied, and short-tempered.

 

Dolly Winthrop  -  The wheelwright's wife who helps Silas with Eppie. Dolly later becomes Eppie's godmother and mother-in-law. She is kind, patient, and devout.

 

Molly Farren -  Godfrey's secret wife and Eppie's mother. Once pretty, Molly has been destroyed by her addictions to opium and alcohol.

 

William Dane -  Silas's proud and priggish best friend from his childhood in Lantern Yard. William Dane frames Silas for theft in order to bring disgrace upon him, then marries Silas's fiancée, Sarah.

 

Mr. Macey -  Raveloe's parish clerk. Mr. Macey is opinionated and smug but means well.

 

Aaron Winthrop -  Dolly's son and Eppie's eventual husband.

 

Priscilla Lammeter -  Nancy's homely and plainspoken sister. Priscilla talks endlessly but is extremely competent at everything she does.

 

Sarah -  Silas's fiancée in Lantern Yard. Sarah is put off by Silas's strange fit and ends up marrying William Dane after Silas is disgraced.

 

Mr. Lammeter -  Nancy's and Priscilla's father. Mr. Lammeter is a proud and morally uncompromising man.

 

Jem Rodney -  A somewhat disreputable character and a poacher. Jem sees Silas in the midst of one of Silas's fits. Silas later accuses Jem of stealing his gold.

 

Mr. Kimble -  Godfrey's uncle and Raveloe's doctor. Mr. Kimble is usually an animated conversationalist and joker, but becomes irritable when he plays cards. He has no medical degree and inherited the position of village physician from his father.

 

Mr. Dowlas -  The town farrier, who shoes horses and tends to general livestock diseases. Mr. Dowlas is a fiercely contrarian person, much taken with his own opinions.

 

Mr. Snell -  The landlord of the Rainbow, a local tavern. By nature a conciliatory person, Mr. Snell always tries to settle arguments.

 

The peddler -  An anonymous peddler who comes through Raveloe some time before the theft of Silas's gold. The peddler is a suspect in the theft because of his gypsylike appearance—and for lack of a better candidate.

 

Bryce -  A friend of both Godfrey and Dunsey. Bryce arranges to buy Wildfire, Dunsey's horse.

 

Miss Gunns -  Sisters from a larger nearby town who come to the Squire's New Year's dance. The Misses Gunn are disdainful of Raveloe's rustic ways, but are nonetheless impressed by Nancy Lammeter's beauty.

 

Sally Oates -  Silas's neighbor and the wheelwright's wife. Silas eases the pain of Sally's heart disease and dropsy with a concoction he makes out of foxglove.

,,,,,,,,,,

Analysis of Major Characters

 

Silas Marner

 

The title character, Silas is a solitary weaver who, at the time we meet him, is about thirty-nine years old and has been living in the English countryside village of Raveloe for fifteen years. Silas is reclusive and his neighbors in Raveloe regard him with a mixture of suspicion and curiosity. He spends all day working at his loom and has never made an effort to get to know any of the villagers. Silas's physical appearance is odd: he is bent from his work at the loom, has strange and frightening eyes, and generally looks much older than his years. Because Silas has knowledge of medicinal herbs and is subject to occasional cataleptic fits, many of his neighbors speculate that he has otherworldly powers.

 

Despite his antisocial behavior, however, Silas is at heart a deeply kind and honest person. At no point in the novel does Silas do or say anything remotely malicious and, strangely for a miser, he is not even particularly selfish. Silas's love of money is merely the product of spiritual desolation, and his hidden capacity for love and sacrifice manifests itself when he takes in and raises Eppie.

 

Silas's outsider status makes him the focal point for the themes of community, religion, and family that Eliot explores in the novel. As an outcast who eventually becomes Raveloe's most exemplary citizen, Silas serves as a study in the relationship between the individual and the community. His loss and subsequent rediscovery of faith demonstrate both the difficulty and the solace that religious belief can bring. Additionally, the unlikely domestic life that Silas creates with Eppie presents an unconventional but powerful portrait of family and the home.

 

Though he is the title character of the novel, Silas is by and large passive, acted upon rather than acting on others. Almost all of the major events in the novel demonstrate this passivity. Silas is framed for theft in his old town and, instead of proclaiming his innocence, puts his trust in God to clear his name. Similarly, Dunsey's theft of Silas's gold and Eppie's appearance on Silas's doorstep—rather than any actions Silas takes of his own accord—are the major events that drive the narrative forward. Silas significantly diverges from this pattern of passivity when he decides to keep Eppie, thereby becoming an agent of his eventual salvation.

 

 

Godfrey Cass

 

Godfrey is the eldest son of Squire Cass and the heir to the Cass estate. He is a good-natured young man, but weak-willed and usually unable to think of much beyond his immediate material comfort. As a young man he married an opium addict, Molly Farren, with whom he had a daughter. This secret marriage and Godfrey's handling of it demonstrate the mixture of guilt and moral cowardice that keep him paralyzed for much of the novel. Godfrey consented to the marriage largely out of guilt and keeps the marriage secret because he knows his father will disown him if it ever comes to light.

 

Despite his physically powerful and graceful presence, Godfrey is generally passive. In this respect he is similar to Silas. However, Godfrey's passivity is different from Silas's, as his endless waffling and indecisiveness stem entirely from selfishness. Godfrey is subject to constant blackmail from Dunsey, who knows of Godfrey's secret marriage, and Godfrey is finally freed of his malicious brother simply by an accident. He is delivered from Molly in a similarly fortuitous way, when Molly freezes to death while en route to Raveloe to expose their marriage to Godfrey's family. Even Godfrey's eventual confession to Nancy is motivated simply by his fright after the discovery of Dunsey's remains. This confession comes years too late—by the time Godfrey is finally ready to take responsibility for Eppie, she has already accepted Silas as her father and does not want to replace him in her life.

 

 

Nancy Lammeter

 

 

Nancy is the pretty, caring, and stubborn young lady whom Godfrey pursues and then marries. Like Godfrey, Nancy comes from a family that is wealthy by Raveloe standards. However, her father, unlike Squire Cass, is a man who values moral rectitude, thrift, and hard work. Nancy has inherited these strict values and looks disapprovingly on what she sees as Godfrey's weakness of character. She is, however, exhilarated by Godfrey's attention, in part because of the status he embodies.

 

Nancy lives her life according to an inflexible code of behavior and belief. She seems to have already decided how she feels about every question that might come up in her life, not necessarily on the basis of any reason or thought, but simply because anything else would represent a sort of weakness in her own eyes. When Nancy is younger, this “code” of hers demands that she and her sister dress alike on formal occasions. When she is older, Nancy's code forbids her to adopt a child, as in her mind such an action represents a defiance of God's plan. Nancy is neither well educated nor particularly curious, and her code marks her as just as much a product of Raveloe's isolation and rusticity as Dolly Winthrop. Nancy is, however, a genuinely kind and caring person, as evidenced by her forgiveness of Godfrey after his confession.

 

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Themes

 

Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.

The Individual Versus the Community

 

Silas Marner is in one sense the story of the title character, but it is also very much about the community of Raveloe in which he lives. Much of the novel's dramatic force is generated by the tension between Silas and the society of Raveloe. Silas, who goes from being a member of a tight-knit community to utterly alone and then back again, is a perfect vehicle for Eliot to explore the relationship between the individual and the surrounding community.

 

In the early nineteenth century, a person's village or town was all-important, providing the sole source of material and emotional support. The notion of interconnectedness and support within a village runs through the novel, in such examples as the parish's charitable allowance for the crippled, the donation of leftovers from the Squire's feasts to the village's poor, and the villagers who drop by Silas's cottage after he is robbed.

 

The community also provides its members with a structured sense of identity. We see this sense of identity play out in Raveloe's public gatherings. At both the Rainbow and the Squire's dance, interaction is ritualized through a shared understanding of each person's social class and place in the community. As an outsider, living apart from this social structure, Silas initially lacks any sense of this identity. Not able to understand Silas in the context of their community, the villagers see him as strange, regarding him with a mixture of fear and curiosity. Silas is compared to an apparition both when he shows up at the Rainbow and the Red House. To be outside the community is to be something unnatural, even otherworldly.

 

Though it takes fifteen years, the influence of the community of Raveloe does eventually seep into Silas's life. It does so via Godfrey's problems, which find their way into Silas's cottage first in the form of Dunsey, then again in Eppie. Eliot suggests that the interconnectedness of community is not something one necessarily enters into voluntarily, nor something one can even avoid. In terms of social standing, Silas and Godfrey are quite far from each other: whereas Silas is a distrusted outsider, Godfrey is the village's golden boy, the heir of its most prominent family. By braiding together the fates of these two characters and showing how the rest of the village becomes implicated as well, Eliot portrays the bonds of community at their most inescapable and pervasive.

 

Character as Destiny

 

The plot of Silas Marner seems mechanistic at times, as Eliot takes care to give each character his or her just deserts. Dunsey dies, the Squire's lands are divided Godfrey wins Nancy but ends up childless, and Silas lives happily ever after with Eppie as the most admired man in Raveloe. The tidiness of the novel's resolution may or may not be entirely believable, but it is a central part of Eliot's goal to present the universe as morally ordered. Fate, in the sense of a higher power rewarding and punishing each character's actions, is a central theme of the novel. For Eliot, who we are determines not only what we do, but also what is done to us.

 

Nearly any character in the novel could serve as an example of this moral order, but perhaps the best illustration is Godfrey. Godfrey usually means well, but is unwilling to make sacrifices for what he knows to be right. At one point Godfrey finds himself actually hoping that Molly will die, as his constant hemming and hawing have backed him into so tight a corner that his thoughts have become truly horrible and cruel. However, throughout the novel Eliot maintains that Godfrey is not a bad person—he has simply been compromised by his inaction. Fittingly, Godfrey ends up with a similarly compromised destiny: in his marriage to Nancy he gets what he wants, only to eventually reach the dissatisfied conclusion that it is not what he wanted after all. Godfrey ends up in this ironic situation not simply because he is deserving, but because compromised thoughts and actions cannot, in the moral universe of Eliot's novel, have anything but compromised results.

 

 

 

The Interdependence of Faith and Community

 

In one sense Silas Marner can be seen simply as the story of Silas's loss and regaining of his faith. But one could just as easily describe the novel as the story of Silas's rejection and subsequent embrace of his community. In the novel, these notions of faith and community are closely linked. They are both human necessities, and they both feed off of each other. The community of Lantern Yard is united by religious faith, and Raveloe is likewise introduced as a place in which people share the same set of superstitious beliefs. In the typical English village, the church functioned as the predominant social organization. Thus, when Silas loses his faith, he is isolated from any sort of larger community.

 

The connection between faith and community lies in Eliot's close association of faith in a higher authority with faith in one's fellow man. Silas's regained faith differs from his former Lantern Yard faith in significant ways. His former faith was based first and foremost on the idea of God. When he is unjustly charged with murder, he does nothing to defend himself, trusting in a just God to clear his name. The faith Silas regains through Eppie is different in that it is not even explicitly Christian. Silas does not mention God in the same way he did in Lantern Yard, but bases his faith on the strength of his and Eppie's commitment to each other. In his words, “since . . . I've come to love her . . . I've had light enough to trusten by; and now she says she'll never leave me, I think I shall trusten till I die.”

 

Silas's new faith is a religion that one might imagine Eliot herself espousing after her own break with formalized Christianity. It is a more personal faith than that of Lantern Yard, in which people zealously and superstitiously ascribe supernatural causes to events with straightforward causes, such as Silas's fits. In a sense, Silas's new belief is the opposite of his earlier, simplistic world view in that it preserves the place of mystery and ambiguity. Rather than functioning merely as a supernatural scapegoat, Silas's faith comforts him in the face of the things that do not make sense to him. Additionally, as Dolly points out, Silas's is a faith based on helping others and trusting others to do the same. Both Dolly's and especially Silas's faith consists of a belief in the goodness of other people as much as an idea of the divine. Such a faith is thus inextricably linked to the bonds of community.

 

 

 

 

Symbols

 

Symbols are objects, characters, figures, or colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.

Silas's Loom

 

Silas's loom embodies many of the novel's major themes. On a literal level, the loom is Silas's livelihood and source of income. The extent to which Silas's obsession with money deforms his character is physically embodied by the bent frame and limited eyesight he develops due to so many hours at the loom. The loom also foreshadows the coming of industrialization—the loom is a machine in a time and place when most labor was nonmechanical, related to farming and animal husbandry. Additionally, the loom, constantly in motion but never going anywhere, embodies the unceasing but unchanging nature of Silas's work and life. Finally, the process of weaving functions as a metaphor for the creation of a community, with its many interwoven threads, and presages the way in which Silas will bring together the village of Raveloe.

 

Lantern Yard

 

The place where Silas was raised in a tight-knit religious sect, Lantern Yard is a community of faith, held together by a narrow religious belief that Eliot suggests is based more on superstition than any sort of rational thought. Lantern Yard is the only community Silas knows, and after he is excommunicated, he is unable to find any similar community in Raveloe. Throughout the novel Lantern Yard functions as a symbol of Silas's past, and his gradual coming to grips with what happened there signals his spiritual thaw. When Silas finally goes back to visit Lantern Yard, he finds that the entire neighborhood has disappeared, and no one remembers anything of it. A large factory stands in the spot where the chapel once stood. This disappearance demonstrates the disruptive power of industrialization, which destroys tradition and erases memory. Likewise, this break with the past signals that Silas has finally been able to move beyond his own embittering history, and that his earlier loss of faith has been replaced with newfound purpose.

 

The Hearth

 

The hearth represents the physical center of the household and symbolizes all of the comforts of home and family. When Godfrey dreams of a life with Nancy, he sees himself “with all his happiness centred on his own hearth, while Nancy would smile on him as he played with the children.” Even in a public place such as the Rainbow, one's importance is measured by how close one sits to the fire. Initially, Silas shares his hearth with no one, at least not intentionally. However, the two intruders who forever change Silas's life, first Dunsey and then Eppie, are drawn out of inclement weather by the inviting light of Silas's fire. Silas's cottage can never be entirely separate from the outside world, and the light of Silas's fire attracts both misfortune and redemption. In the end, it is Silas's hearth that feels the warmth of family, while Godfrey's is childless.

 

 

Motifs

 

Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text's major themes.

The Natural World

 

Throughout the novel, Eliot draws on the natural world for many images and metaphors. Silas in particular is often compared to plants or animals, and these images are used to trace his progression from isolated loner to well-loved father figure. As he sits alone weaving near the start of the novel, Silas is likened to a spider, solitary and slightly ominous. Just after he is robbed, Silas is compared to an ant that finds its usual path blocked—an image of limitation and confusion, but also of searching for a solution. Later, as Silas begins to reach out to the rest of the village, his soul is likened to a plant, not yet budding but with its sap beginning to circulate. Finally, as he raises Eppie, Silas is described as “unfolding” and “trembling into full consciousness,” imagery evoking both the metamorphosis of an insect and the blooming of a flower. This nature imagery also emphasizes the preindustrial setting of the novel, reminding us of a time in England when the natural world was a bigger part of daily life than it was after the Industrial Revolution.

 

Domesticity

 

For the most part, the events of Silas Marner take place in two homes, Silas's cottage and the Cass household. The novel's two key events are intrusions into Silas's domestic space, first by Dunsey and then by Eppie. Eliot uses the home as a marker of the state of its owner. When Silas is isolated and without faith, his cottage is bleak and closed off from the outside world. As Silas opens himself up to the community, we see that his door is more frequently open and he has a steady stream of visitors. Finally, as Silas and Eppie become a family, the cottage is brightened and filled with new life, both figuratively and in the form of literal improvements and refurbishments to the house and yard. Likewise, the Cass household moves from slovenly and “wifeless” under the Squire to clean and inviting under Nancy.

 

 

Class

 

Raveloe, like most of nineteenth-century English society, is organized along strict lines of social class. This social hierarchy is encoded in many ways: the forms characters use to address one another, their habits, even where they sit at social events. While the Casses are not nobility, as landowners they sit atop Raveloe's social pecking order, while Silas, an outsider, is at its base. Nonetheless, Silas proves himself to be the better man than his social superiors. Similarly, in Eppie's view, the simple life of the working class is preferable to that of the landed class. Eliot is skilled in showing how class influences the thinking of her characters, from Dunsey's idea of Silas as simply a source of easy money to Godfrey and Nancy's idea that, as higher-class landowners, their claim to Eppie is stronger than Silas's.