The Three Fathers in Silas Mamer

Compare and contrast the three fathers in Silas Mamer. What does and

examination of their roles reveal to us about nineteenth century society

and has it any relevance to us today?

Silas Marner was an awe-inspiring book, which broadened my mind into

the wonders of the nineteenth century, including the ups and downs of

family life in the village and still being fairy tale story. Although

it was difficult to read and it had a vast vocabulary of nineteenth

century language I still understood the plot and gained a lot from it.

It taught me about how people's lives then compared to ours, and how

they coped with ordinary dilemmas.

It is interesting to study how the three fathers in this book compare

to each other as fathers, by their characteristics, and also how

nineteenth century life differs from life today.

The first father that is introduced to us is Squire Cass. He is the

father of four sons, one whose name isn't mentioned, Bob, Dunsten an4

Godfrey. As their mother had died a long time ago he had to perform

the motlj.efiy role as well as the fathers. This proved to be a hard

job for him, as he didn't r ally want anything to do with them. The

beginning of chapter three starts of by saying:

"...who lived in the large red house, with handsome flight of stone

steps..."

This says that he was a grand and of a higher classed person. In this

book the local pub is a place where class is shown greatly. Just alone

this name is symbolic in itself. A rainbow has many different colours,

this relates to this pub in the fact that people f~m all parts of the

class system go into it.

This bOok also shows very clearly that the village has high

expectations of his role in soyi~ty and he tries to keep them. The...

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...t is Eliot's point of view in the

novel that evil and sin will be revenged, and morality and

virtuousness will be rewarded. Godfrey displays one instance of this

when he deceives Nancy and hides the truth about his previous marriage

and the child that he fathered. He wishes nothing more than to be free

of his responsibilities of fathering his juvenile mistake. In the end

of the novel Godfrey and his wife are unable to conceive a child and

he is doomed to never take on the role of father again. Even though he

is a generally good person, Godfrey is rightfully punished for his

sinful and deceitful ways.

This novel talks about many aspects of village life in the nineteenth

century. It showed how different people coped with everyday situations

in their own ways. We in the twenty-first century can also relate to

this because how human beings act never change.