Tackling exam questions

Silas Marner by George Eliot

Examination questions will be based on an extract from the novel. However, you will be
asked to write about the extract and make links to other relevant parts of the novel. A
typical question might be worded like this:

Explore how Eliot presents the different effects of the gold and
Eppie on Silass life. Refer to this extract from Chapter 14 and
the novel as a whole.

Unlike the gold which needed nothing, and must be worshipped in close-locked
solitudewhich was hidden away from the daylight, was deaf to the song of birds, and
started to no human tonesEppie was a creature of endless claims and ever-growing
desires, seeking and loving sunshine, and living sounds, and living movements; making
trial of everything, with trust in new joy, and stirring the human kindness in all eyes
that looked on her. The gold had kept his thoughts in an ever-repeated circle, leading
to nothing beyond itself; but Eppie was an object compacted of changes and hopes that
forced his thoughts onward, and carried them far away from their old eager pacing
towards the same blank limitcarried them away to the new things that would come
with the coming years, when Eppie would have learned to understand how her father
Silas cared for her; and made him look for images of that time in the ties and charities
that bound together the families of his neighbours. The gold had asked that he should
sit weaving longer and longer, deafened and blinded more and more to all things except
the monotony of his loom and the repetition of his web; but Eppie called him away
from his weaving, and made him think all its pauses a holiday, reawakening his senses
with her fresh life, even to the old winter-flies that came crawling forth in the early
spring sunshine, and warming him into joy because she had joy.

And when the sunshine grew strong and lasting, so that the buttercups were thick in the
meadows, Silas might be seen in the sunny midday, or in the late afternoon when the
shadows were lengthening under the hedgerows, strolling out with uncovered head to
carry Eppie beyond the Stone-pits to where the flowers grew, till they reached some
favourite bank where he could sit down, while Eppie toddled to pluck the flowers, and
make remarks to the winged things that murmured happily above the bright petals,
calling "Dad-dad's" attention continually by bringing him the flowers Sitting on the
banks in this way, Silas began to look for the once familiar herbs again; and as the
leaves, with their unchanged outline and markings, lay on his palm, there was a sense
of crowding remembrances from which he turned away timidly, taking refuge in Eppie's
little world, that lay lightly on his enfeebled spirit.

As the child's mind was growing into knowledge, his mind was growing into memory: as
her life unfolded, his soul, long stupefied in a cold narrow prison, was unfolding too,
and trembling gradually into full consciousness.

In the novel Silass gold coins and golden-haired Eppie are symbolically linked and yet
there is a marked difference in the way in which Silas is affected by them. This question
is essentially asking you to consider this difference.

Here is a suggested approach to tackling the question above:

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 Tackling exam questions
Silas Marner by George Eliot
Quotations from the extract
1. Read the extract carefully and, using two colours (one for the gold and one for Eppie), highlight relevant quotations. One
example for each has been highlighted for you.
2. Add your quotations to the planning grid below. You might want to consider:
Silass actions
Silass thoughts and feelings
Silass attitudes towards others, and the attitude of others towards him.

The gold Eppie

The gold must be worshipped in close-locked solitude. Eppie was a creature of endless claims and ever-growing desires,
seeking and loving sunshine, and living sounds, and living
movements.

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 Tackling exam questions
Silas Marner by George Eliot
3. Choose at least five of the following quotations taken from elsewhere in the
novel. Add them to the relevant section of the grid below. Chapter references
are in brackets.

a) He handled them, he counted them, till their form and colour were like the
satisfaction of a thirst to him (2)

b) His life had reduced itself to the mere functions of weaving and hoarding
(2)

c) He spread them out in heaps and bathed his hands in them (2)

d) [He] thought fondly of the guineas as if they had been unborn children
(2)

e) [He] gave a wild ringing scream, the cry of desolation. (5, upon finding that
he had been robbed)

f) The repulsion Marner had created in his neighbours was partly dissipated by
the new light in which this misfortune had shown him. (10, of the robbery)

g) the kindness fell on him as sunshine falls on the wretched (10)

h) Formerly, his heart had been as a locked casket with its treasure inside; but
now the casket was empty, and the lock was broken. (10)

i) Gold! his own gold brought back to him as mysteriously as it had been
taken away! (12, upon Eppies arrival in the cottage)

j) [] now Silas met with open smiling faces and cheerful questioning. (14)

k) There was love between him and the child that blent them into one. (14)

l) Something had come to replace his hoard drawing his hope and joy
continually onward beyond the money. (14)

m) He was regarded as an exceptional person, whose claims on neighbourly help

were not to be matched in Raveloe. (16)

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 Tackling exam questions
Silas Marner by George Eliot
Quotations from the whole novel

The gold Eppie

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 Tackling exam questions
Silas Marner by George Eliot
4. Use your grid to help you to answer the question:

Explore how Eliot presents the different effects of the

gold and Eppie on Silass life. Refer to this extract from
Chapter 14 and the novel as a whole.

Your first paragraph might be about the effect of the gold on Silas, using the first
quotation from the example above. There are some sentence starts below that might
help you explore the way that Silas is presented in the extract and link to a relevant
episode from elsewhere in the novel.

George Eliot presents Silas as a character who is

She describes how he

The phrase close-locked suggests

George Eliot also presents this in Chapter 2 of the novel

She writes that

The word functions suggests

Here are some words you might find useful when completing the first paragraph:

lonely prison-like cell cut-off

isolated worshipped faith

exhausting repetitive lifestyle working for 16 hours a day

functions lacks enjoyment or purpose monotonous

Now write a paragraph about the effects of Eppie on Silas, using a quotation from your
grid. Link this to a relevant episode from the novel as a whole.

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