Compare the style and sentiment expressed in Cider with Rosie and Silas Marner. What are their distinguishing features?

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Compare the style and sentiment expressed in Cider with Rosie and Silas Marner. What are their distinguishing features?

The texts that I will be comparing, Cider with Rosie and Silas Marner, are very different in both style and content, however they do have some key similarities.

Laurie Lee wrote Cider with Rosie in 1959. As it is an autobiography, it was written in the period it happened, this being 1917 to the late 1920s. It was set in Slad, as this is where he was bought up. This is the more modern of the two books.

Silas Marner on the other hand, was written at a much earlier time. It was published in 1861; the middle of the Victorian period, but the story takes place between 1795 and 1825. This book was set at an earlier date than it was written like Cider with Rosie, but for a different reason. The events in Silas Marner could not have happened at the time when the book was actually written. For example, when Silas Marner is wrongly accused of theft, his innocence is decided by the drawing of lots.

The lots declared that Silas Marner was guilty.’ Page 11

 If the book had been set at a more recent date when it was evident that the practice was no longer used, for example in George Eliot’s lifetime, there would be an anachronism. Therefore it was necessary for George Eliot to have set this book at an earlier date than it was written.

Cider with Rosie is an autobiography and is therefore written in the first person about something that really happened, although ‘some facts maybe distorted by time’. His life is told in a fragmentary way. For example, there is a chapter purely about his mother, and then one on what he remembers about winter and summer. After that, he recalls an incident when he was taken ill and writes a chapter called ‘Sick Boy’. There is no real continuation or solid story line. It is written in episodes and so you get an overall outlook on what his life was like.

In contrast, Silas Marner is a novel written in the third person and is fictional. The story of Silas Marner unfolds chronologically. There is a definite story line, which gives the book direction. We learn less about the main character’s background and past and there are more characters playing substantial roles with deeper, more detailed characters.

Cider with Rosie is based around a young boy called Laurie Lee. He is bought up in Slad, a country village, and this is his home unlike Silas, who was forced to move to a village which is not his home at first. He lives in a big family, although the father does not live at home, and is very much accepted as part of the community. This book vividly describes events that happened during Laurie Lee’s childhood. Cider with Rosie doesn’t have a climax or any ironies. There isn’t a main climax as the story is so fragmented. There are however, climaxes evident in individual sections of the book. For example, in the chapter ‘Sick Boy’ the climax is when the Negress thinks that Laurie is dead and prepares him for the coffin. His mother has none of it and goes mad when she finds out from Dorothy. She goes to revive him.

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‘ “Poor boy, he’s gone,crooned the Negress. Gone fled to the angels-thought I’d wash him for the box-just didn’t want to bother you, mum. ‘ Page 157

On the contrariety, Silas Marner is about a middle-aged weaver, Silas, who is wrongly accused of a robbery. He is suspended from the church and forced to leave his fiancée and Lantern Yard. He goes to live a new life in a village called Raveloe where for many years he is thought of as an outcast. He no longer has trust in his religion and so doesn’t go to the church.

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