Chapter 20 and 21

1. Chapter 20 and 21 Silas Marner by George Eliot

2. Summary Find 2 – 3 quotes to support each point below. • Nancy and Godfrey agree to keep secret his true relationship to Eppie. –”You won’t make it known then about Eppie’s being your daughter..” • Nancy is pleased that Eppie will marry Aaron –”sober and industrious” (about Aaron) • She is sorry for her husband but feels that he deserved Eppie’s rejection – “her spirit of rectitude would not let her try to soften the edge of what she felt to be a just compunction”. • She encourages him to accept what has happened.

3. Analysis and commentary • We return home with Nancy and Godfrey. They realise Eppie will never be their daughter. In the circumstances they agree to continue hiding that Godfrey is Eppie’s birth father. He decides to reveal it in his will. He has had enough of hidden crimes like Dunstan’s. Nancy is relieved that her relations will only know of Dunstan robbing Silas

4. Analysis and commentary • Godfrey guesses that Eppie will marry Aaron Winthrop. Nancy feels Aaron is a good choice because he is serious and hard-working. They discuss Eppie’s character and her resemblance to Godfrey. He feels that his punishment for rejecting her is that she dislikes and will misjudge him. Nancy feels it is right that Godfrey suffers. She tries to cheer him up by telling him he has always been a good husband. She encourages him to try to accept what has happened and the position he is in.

5. Analysis and commentary • Godfrey’s character has at last grown as he realises that some wrongs cannot be put right and that money cannot solve everything. • He comments on the irony of his situation – he once wanted to appear to have no children, now he is forced to seem childless.

6. Questions Provide supporting evidence from the text in every answer • Godfrey’s last test has been his attempt to reclaim Eppie – what does he realise about the nature of human contacts? • How is the contrast between Eppie and the gold furthered in this chapter? • How is the image of Eppie as a blessing renewed? • Is Godfrey’s childlessness gratuitous poetic justice? (What is he being punished for? How is this linked to his past error?) • Godfrey thinks his punishment is divine retribution. Does Eliot share this view? • How does Eliot soften the readers impressions of Godfrey – especially in light of the previous chapter? • Describe Godfrey and Nancy’s marriage. • Godfrey goes against his desire, he decides to do what? How is this different from the Godfrey we have come to understand?

7. Chapter 21 - Summary Find 2 – 3 quotes to support each point below. • Silas decides to revisit the scene of his former humiliation at Lantern Yard • He is unable to recognise anywhere except the jail where he had once been imprisoned. • Where Lantern Yard stood, a factory has been built. • He returns now to Raveloe, the place he can finally call home. • He has regained his faith and a true family

8. Significance Silas emerges from darkness – gather evidence for the points below: • The rapid changes of the Industrial Revolution have completely transformed the town. • Silas and Eppie are both appalled by the conditions and noise. • Prison Street and the jail are images of the misery of factory workers’ lives. • Light and dark are images of faith. The town is dark and the streets narrow. The narrow religion of Lantern Yard has disappeared – the light Silas once lived by. Dolly told Silas she would be glad of any light he could bring back from his visit and comfortingly accepts the truth is in the dark unknown when he returns. Silas realises he himself received light (or faith) when Eppie came. It will be enough, now she has promised to stay with him.

9. Conclusion The loose ends are tied up. • Eppie and Aaron are married. • Godfrey has paid for the happy couple’s reception but feels unable to attend the wedding itself. • The villagers welcome the couple as full members of their community. • They return to Silas’s cottage which has been extended and improved by its owner, Mr Godfrey Cass.

10. Significance Justice is done! Gather evidence for the points below: • Godfrey has generously provided the wedding feast but has absented himself for the day. • It is Silas who appears as Eppie’s father. • The villagers feel Godfrey’s action is right, considering the hurt Dunsey did to Silas. Ironically, Godfrey’s secret wrong to Eppie was greater. • Eliot ends the book with conventional happiness which reflects the moral code, that the good are rewarded while the evil are punished.

11. Essay question “At the end of Silas Marner, there is a feeling that justice has been done, that the bad have been punished and the good rewarded.” To what extent is this statement true.