The Representation of Masculinity in George Eliot’s ‘Silas Marner’

Silas Marner, A Tale of Two Cities.

Essay subject: Silas Marner and maleness

1. – Introduction.

This essay is about the building and representation of Silas’s maleness ( including some inquiries proposed in the essay subjects on the practical campus that I found interesting ) . I saw things that can do him look more like a adult female but it is non necessary or required to understand this affair in this manner ; I wanted to happen his good-will non as a failing or a adult female issue but as strong manner of demoing tenderness, because I think there is nil stronger that absolute tenderness and nil more stamp that true strength and I see Silas as a really strong individual – composure but strong.

The chief subjects here are his isolation, the gender issue, and eventually how feasible or non-viable his manhood is. In the decision I have included some facets more related to Silas’s life.

2. – Silas’s isolation.

About his household, it is merely mentioned in the book that he had a female parent and a small sister, both of them named Hepziba, but his sister was called Eppie, which is why he chooses this name for his adoptive girl.

His period of isolation starts in Raveloe when he sends their neighbors off with a turning annoyance ( It started when he helped Sally Oats and after that he became person like the official herbal physician of the vicinity ) . From this minute on he spends his yearss working 16 hours a twenty-four hours and contemplating his gold every dark. He is like a anchorite merely concentrated on gaining money.

It wasn’t ever like this. At first when he lived in Lantern Yard he was a sociable adult male who interacted with society, he lived a normal life, and was engaged to get married a adult female named Sarah. He besides had a friend, William Dane, and so both of them betrayed him. But at the minute he is an entity separated from the community, – self-sufficient.

3. – Silas in gender footings.

What’s incorrect with Silas before the loss of his gold?

This point has a connexion with Silas’s isolation as discussed in the old subdivision. He is considered an castaway by the community: at foremost he is described like a “spider” or a “spinning-insect” . This has no relationship with the issue of maleness but instead with the issue of humanity: through this description he is portrayed more as an insect than as a adult male, – this is a manner of dehumanising him. When he loses his gold he is obligated to travel and pass on it to the governments. At first, when he arrived, people thought he was a shade, is of import to advert that Silas’s visual aspect is a spot unusual, he shows a physical impairment, he has marks of aging and unwellness, and he is described as an old adult male. And as I commented antecedently, he was an stray anchorite obsessed with his gold, look up toing it every dark, and his universe is reduced to his work and his coins. This is the debatable that is established before the loss of his gold.

– Why non allow him weave and bask his money until he’s excessively old to maintain on weaving?

– Why pull this out for so long?

In my sentiment, the thought I get from the book is that Silas earned more money on Raveloe than in Lantern Yard ( where he has to pay some money to the church ) and he saw this fact, after which began his compulsion and he lived like this for 16 old ages. And he could hold lived on this manner until his decease but when Eppie came to his place it brought about a alteration in his whole life.

I think he draws it out because work and money becomes the Centre of his life ; he lives merely for work and to look up to his gold.

4. – Silas’s maleness in a feasible manner.

– Is this one sort of maleness or maleness in general?

I think this is one sort of maleness because non all work forces have a state of affairs like Silas’s. Other male characters like the Cass brothers have a masculine function and are seen more like a work forces than Silas is.

I see this as a feasible manner because I believe that Silas is wholly masculine even if there are things that show him with a deficiency of manhood.

I’ll start with the “negative” points against his maleness. Get downing with his business, it was established that whirling and weaving had a gender division and that it was a female undertaking, in this point, I don’t think that this occupation defines his maleness, – he is a adult male and here the lone of import thing is that he has an business and he is working to back up himself.

In add-on, Silas’s behavior is interesting on a mental degree. I see his capacity for self-denial a masculine accomplishment excessively ; it is a feature of a great adult male. For illustration, when William and Sarah betrayed him, he knew it and acted softly and did nil ; merely travel on with his life. Another manner of demoing self-denial is in his isolation, and his high grade of reason. He has been injured, accused of robbery, abandoned by his fiancee, rejected by the community merely because he did non desire to be an ONG and after that he has the reason to do a determination. After that it is normal that he wishes to be entirely working and gaining money.

And eventually, even if he is portrayed as an insect or a weak adult male, in an effort to decrease his maleness the capacity that he finds for being a male parent, a female parent and a defender of small Eppie is extremely admirable without inquiry. By holding adequate cognition for autonomy, to me he is a unafraid adult male who knows what he wants and merely acquires and achieves it. In add-on I’d like to state that doing his place more comfy for the kid, adorning it, – a “nest” for her- , is the sweetness manner in which a adult male can demo how capable of being stamp is. Fixing his place for Eppie’s demands is something to be expected from a really masculine adult male. In his ain manner, he did what every adult male must make: work, back up a family, have a household and protect his household ( harmonizing to this nineteenth-century period, – presents it is different, as adult females can make this alone excessively ) . And he did it ; he is wholly a adult male.

5. – Decision.

We have seen Silas’s journey, – non a physical journey, but throughout his life. At first he has a normal life, he subsequently becomes an castaway obsessed with gold and after Eppie’s reaching he undergoes a sort of societal rehabilitation into an ordinary member of the community. After run intoing the kid he wholly changes his function inside the vicinity, every topographic point or place he visits for work he must sit and speak with people about the kid. Through her his life alterations and he becomes another adult male. We see his domestic, societal and paternal side and how he achieves the function of maleness in the 19th century ; non precisely as it was imposed, but by in his ain manner.

Through the acceptance of the kid we see Silas carry throughing both – a male and female function, because he is wholly devoted to the small miss, and how he passes from a wholly stray life to happening significance in all the things around him. In Eppie he finds a ground to populate, a household that was denied him ( his female parent and small sister died, and we do non cognize about his male parent ) , the comfort of being love unfeignedly by person, of being needed, and of being a male parent, and there is no minute, in my sentiment, where his maleness could be misunderstood. We can besides see, through the acceptance the morality and duty that Silas is prepared to presume paternity, which is excessively a masculine feature, it is necessary to stress that the responsibilities that Silas accepts are those that Godfrey Cass, Eppie’s biological male parent has no morality or duty to presume. Throughout the book there is no minute when I feel Silas is non accomplishing the function of a adult male. I merely felt esteem even if didn’t have obvious masculine features such as physical visual aspect of a strong and wealth adult male like Godfrey Cass. Even when he grows old he still has this powerful visual aspect that Silas, in contrast does non. Godfrey does non hold to work because he was inherited from his male parent and Silas worked as an independent adult male. This was a paradigm of industrial manhood and a new ideal for work forces.

To complete, another point that I found interesting is that Silas didn’t want to accomplish the ideals of the perfect adult male harmonizing to society but he ended up making so, though his virtuous nature, his generous bosom, his bravery. By following the kid he was non merely taking on a duty but he was taking on the duty of another adult male.

Bibliography.

• Silas Marner, A Tale of Two Cities. George Eliot.
• Silas Marner in Wikipedia the free encyclopedia.
• Silas Marner survey usher and literature.
• Virtual Campus.
• Class hand-outs.