Nancy, Eppie, and George: A Crowd of Feminists in "Silas Marner"? Anonymous College

If one was to read Eliot’s biography but never Silas Marner, the assumption that the author was a feminist could be made. However, the characters of Nancy and Eppie demonstrate that Eliot’s beliefs when it came to feminism were not so clear cut. Many factors appear to have influenced Eliot’s portrayal of these female characters, from her politics to her persona, and all must be considered before it can be determined if Nancy, Eppie and George form a merry crowd of feminists.

Feminists may be disappointed by the lacking feminist qualities of Silas Marner’s principal female characters, Nancy and Eppie. It is important to note however it would “be misguided, in addition to being often disappointing, to assess George Eliot by late twentieth century…feminist standards” (Flint, p163) and perhaps be because feminist readers have assessed Eliot by these standards that her characters engender this disappointment. Instead, we must try to examine these characters based on the polarizing Victorian stereotypes of femininity: the Angel in the House versus the New Woman. Buzwell makes the well-established argument when he claims that “the traditional view of a woman’s role in Victorian society was epitomised by Coventry Patmore’s poem ‘The...