What thoughts and feelings do you have as you read this extract? Give reasons for what you say, and remember to support your answer with words and phrases from the extract.

My main feelings when reading this extract were happiness, because Silas has stopped his unhealthy obsession with accumulating gold coins and instead, has a healthy interest in his adopted child, Eppie. Silas’ determination and dedication to Eppie is emphasized strongly in the extract.

As I read that “no child was afraid of approaching Silas” and that “no repulsion was around him now”, I feel happy for Silas because I can see that he has stopped obsessing over hoarding gold and interacts with other villagers in the community, including children, which he previously thought of silly nuisances who constantly disrupted his work. Not only has Silas’ outlook on children transformed after adopting Eppie but their impression of him has also improved. “For the little child had come to link him once more with the whole world” shows me that Silas is no more alone and isolated from the villagers of Raveloe and instead, becomes a part of it because he needs help and support from parents who have raised children before in order to raise Eppie to be the best she can be.

Eliot tells us that Silas thinks of Eppie as a pure and innocent angel with nothing negative about her. From here, I feel that the story is becoming increasingly fairylike as we know in reality, no one is completely perfect. This fairytale element is further emphasized by the commonly used weather metaphor for good and bad. Now when Silas is raising Eppie, there is “rain and sunshine”, which we see as positive things as opposed to the cold, dark blizzard through which Eppie’s biological mother dies in and Eppie arrives at and enters Silas’ home.

Eppie is described as like a “precious plant”, which is a relation to nature, causing the description to be more fairytale-like, since fairytales often have many references to nature. In this part of the extract, Eppie seems delicate, fragile and helpless, which she is since she is but a mere child, while Silas is the “gardener” who hopes for the plant to grow safely and to “guard” it from “invading harm”. He achieves this by asking other villagers for advice and suggestions and they do willingly give him the help and support he needs to raise Eppie, causing her to become the fine young woman whose loyalty remains firm even when Godfrey tells her that he is her biological father later on in the story. I feel that Silas’ life completely revolves around raising Eppie and that he is in no danger of reverting to his old habits of weaving all day and earning gold coins, most of which he does not use.

In this extract, George Eliot shows us Silas’ absolute determination and unconditional love for Eppie, which makes us feel that he has changed for the better and has ended his days of loneliness and isolation from the rest of the village. A fairytale-like element is also strongly implied in this extract through weather, nature and the perfection of Eppie. This extract makes us feel positive and joyous about the changes in Silas Marner.