Dunsten, or Dunsey, as he is called is all bad and is a completely vicious, evil, dark villain. Like the rest of his family, which is bad as a whole, he neglects duty. He drinks, gambles and he takes pleasure in making other people unhappy. He also never allows anyone to behave freely at his or her own will. The villagers have a low opinion of him: ‘a spiteful jeering fellow’. Dunsey never shows kindness to anyone or any good virtue, and he hates his brother. There is even a suggestion that he may be jealous of his brother Godfrey: ‘You’re my elders and betters, you know; I was obliged to come when you sent for me.’ Dunsey neglects his duty to his family, and he neglects his duty towards other people in the community as well. Dunsey is selfish and he deceives people, and he robs Silas in the novel. He borrows and spends money recklessly, and he blackmails his brother into ‘borrowing’ money from his father. He never has a care for others, and he cares for no one but himself. He never listens to or obeys his father. He is a very overconfident person, and he thinks that he is a lucky person: ‘whenever I fall, ………… land on my legs.’ Dunsey also neglects his duty towards living creatures, and the fact that he is not a caring person is proven when he kills Godfrey’s horse Wildfire through his careless riding.
The community at Lantern Yard, and especially William Dane are amongst the people that neglect duty in this novel. William Dane is a person who completely neglects duty. He neglects his duty as a friend to Silas and he neglects duty in general. William Dane neglects his duty as a friend to Silas by betraying him. Silas lives alone because; his so-called best friend accused him of theft, when church money had been stolen: ‘The search was made, and it ended- in William Dane’s findings the well known bag, empty, tucked behind the chest of drawers in Silas’s chamber! On this William exhorted his friend to confess…’ Also he neglects his duty towards friendship, when he fails to alert others when Silas has a fit and when the deacon is dying. He’s able to betray Silas and neglect his duty towards friendship, as he is as wicked as Silas is honest and trusting. The Lantern Yard community all accuse Silas of theft, when really he is an innocent person.
The other half of this novel involves people that respect their duty and do not neglect it. There are several characters that respect duty in this novel by George Eliot. These people respecting duty are generally good, kind and loving people. The people that honour duty include the Lammeter family, consisting of Nancy and Priscilla, the Winthrop family, consisting Dolly and Aaron, Silas and finally Eppie, who is a model daughter in this novel. All these people mentioned are the good and dutiful people of his novel.
The Lammeter family is a very dutiful family. Nancy, like many other characters in this novel is a very dutiful person and does not neglect duty at all. Nancy is quite dutiful throughout the whole of the book. Everyone in this novel admires Nancy, she is described as ‘thoroughly bewitching’ and she is beautiful. Nancy is a morally good person and she is well respected. She is someone who is an excellent, outstanding and hardworking housewife, she is a model wife, and never neglects any kind of duty at all. In this novel, she always seems to be careful about showing and respecting duty. In this book, particularly in the beginning of the book she shows a lot of duty towards her family. She especially shows a lot of duty towards her sister, Pricilla. She loves her family and although she is minimally educated, she has ‘the essential attributes of a lady.’ Nancy shows duty towards her sister by making her wear the same clothes as her, as she wants the two of them to look the same, so that other people don’t look at them differently. Nancy makes her sister wear the same clothes as hers when they go to a party in chapter eleven, and she refuses to call her sister ugly, despite it being obvious when she says, “ No, Priscy, don’t say so. I begged and prayed for you not to let us have this silk if you’d like another better. I was willing to have your choice, you know I was.’ Nancy’s dutiful character is shown throughout the entire book. Towards the end of the book, Godfrey’s mind was in a state of depression because he doesn’t have any children. Nancy supports him, to prevent things getting worse for him, and in the end she agrees to adopt Godfrey’s daughter Eppie. She gives the go-ahead for the adoption when she says, “But it’s your duty to acknowledge her and provide for her, and I’ll do my part by her, and pray to God Almighty to make her love me.” Priscilla, like her sister is also a dutiful person. She shows duty towards her family. Priscilla is a ‘cheerful looking lady’. She is cheerfully blunt about her looks and doesn’t care about being ugly: “I am ugly… the pretty uns do for fly-catchers- they keep the men off us.” She doesn’t criticise her sister, even though she is made to wear a dress that makes her, ‘yallow’, and unattractive. Priscilla doesn’t marry and shows duty by caring for her aged father and by managing and running her father’s farm. She is an example of a single, practical, competent woman whose ‘father’s a sober man and likely to live’ so ‘the business needn’t be broken up.’
The Winthrop family is another dutiful family. The Winthrop family as a whole is the most dutiful family in the novel Dolly is a person in this novel that symbolises ‘duty towards humanity.’ Dolly is a ‘comfortable’ woman. She is a very important character in this novel, and she is very dutiful. She is one of the most, if not the most dutiful person in the book. She doesn’t only show duty towards her family but also towards whole of man kind. While she is honouring duty, she also encourages others not to neglect it. She preaches and teaches duty and she is an example to follow. In this novel, like Nancy, she is widely admired as a good woman and an excellent housewife, but Dolly Winthrop ‘was the person always first thought of in Raveloe when there was an illness or death.’ Dolly has a strong Christian faith and she is a non-judgemental person. She is unable to read but she is practical and competent. She shows immense duty towards Silas, when he needs it the most. When Silas is robbed she comforts him and bakes him cakes. She also makes Aaron sing a carol, as she believes it will do Silas good and will encourage him to go to church. In this book, Silas is quite influenced by her sense of duty. Dolly teaches Silas how to take care of a child and she helps him have a stronger religious faith. In a way, she manages to even revive Silas’s religious beliefs. Dolly even forces Silas to come out in the community and she takes him to church to get the child christened. Her kindness is clearly shown through the entire book. The cakes that she gives to Silas, and later the baby clothes ‘Patched and darned, but clean and neat’, are examples of her sensitive generosity and kindness. Aaron shows respect to duty when he goes with Dolly to cheer up Silas, by singing carols.
Silas Marner himself is another person in the novel that respects and honours duty. Silas has an immense sense of duty. He is an honest and hardworking individual, and I the model of duty in Lantern Yard. His simple religious faith was lived out through his hardworking and self-denying life. Both of these were much admired by the narrow-minded evangelical sect to whom he belonged and generously contributed most of his earnings. Silas Marner, the skilled hand-loom linen weaver, of ‘exemplary life and ardent faith’, is the hero of this novel by George Eliot. Although Silas has great faith, everything is changed when he is accused of theft of stealing the money. He is essentially a loving person but this changes, when he is accused of theft. His naïve faith is so strong and sincere that his betrayal, by his friend William Dane and also by God failing to clear him: ‘The lots declared that Silas Marner was guilty’, it results in his total loss of faith in people and in God. His personality dramatically changes when this happens. However, although his personality is changed and he loses all his faith, he regains it when Eppie comes into his life, which he had not planned on at all. When Eppie enters Silas’s life she is just a little girl aged three, when Silas goes out Eppie enters his cottage with him totally unaware. When Silas returns, he finds he lying in front of the fire and mistakes her golden hair for his gold that had been taken. Finding Eppie leads to Silas getting his sense of duty back, and he regains the capacity to love and care for others again. The first thing that he does, when he finds Eppie is that he offers her some porridge. When Silas is told that someone will be sent to fetch the child (Eppie), Silas’s sense of duty arouses itself and Silas says, “NO-NO-I can’t part with it, I can’t let it go.” Silas simply can’t let go of her, even when he doesn’t really know her: ‘The proposition to take the child from him had come to Silas as unexpectedly as his speech…. distinct intentions about the child.’ Silas completely fulfils his duty as a father towards Eppie, even though he isn’t her natural father. He takes complete care for her and brings her up with great love. In the book it is mentioned on how Silas’s life has changed since the arrival of Eppie; in the village he is now viewed as an ‘exceptional person’. Towards the end of the book when Godfrey wants to adopt Eppie, Silas can’t bare it and is upset, but he decides to let Eppie choose what she wants, which shows that Silas really love Eppie.
Eppie is another character in this novel that fulfils her duties, and doesn’t neglect them. As soon as she enters Silas’s life, she completely revives him and changed his personality back to how it was before everyone had accused him of theft. It is because of Eppie that Silas gets his sense of love, care and duty towards others back. When she is young she loves the world and everything around her, and of course she loves Silas. Eppie is very important to the plot of this novel, and she is the means by which Silas recovers emotionally and becomes part of the community. Eppie completely fulfils and honours all her duty towards Silas and she is a model or ideal daughter. Throughout the book, it is shown that Eppie is a loving and caring person as she cares for Silas tremendously. She never goes away from Silas, and she shows a great sense of duty towards him, by forcing him to do whatever is good for him. She is a good housekeeper in the happy home where she devotedly cares for her aging father. Towards the end of the book when she learns that her real father is Godfrey, who wants to adopt her, she is shocked. However she chooses to stay with Silas and remain faithful to her upbringing. Eppie rejects the chance of going with Godfrey by saying. “Thank you ma’am – thank you sir. But I can’t leave my father own anybody nearer than him. And I don’t want to be a lady – thank you all the same.” This shows her loyalty to Silas; even after she gets married she refuses to leave Silas, as she loves him so dearly.
In the end, those that neglect duty are punished and do not get the happiness that they want and need. All those that neglect duty include the Cass family (Squire, Godfrey, and Dunstan), and the community at Lantern Yard, especially William Dane are punished. Godfrey is punished as Eppie refuses to be adopted by him and he never has a child. This is punishment for not taking her in when he had the chance. Dunstan, who also neglected duty, just disappears, and dies after falling in a pond. The Squire is punished as his sons turn out to be bad or weak and his sons don’t end up being like wants them to be. William Dane and the rest of the Lantern Yard community all disappear without a trace.
Those that honour and respect duty, are all rewarded and they get the happiness that they want and need. This is because they did not neglect their duties throughout the book, but honoured them. All those that honour duty in this novel include Silas, Eppie, the Lammeter family (Pricilla), and the Winthrop family (Dolly and Aaron). In the end Pricilla gets to manage and run the farm, and that is the reward for caring for her father. Silas is rewarded by getting his gold back and by Eppie being loyal to him and not leaving him, and also he regains his trust in God. Eppie, who stays with Silas, is rewarded by her marriage to Aaron Winthrop. Finally Dolly is rewarded when her son marries Eppie, and she gets true gratification for making Silas who is.
‘Duty’ is a major theme of Silas Marner. It is one of the ‘practical aspects’ of Christianity, favoured by Eliot. The novel could be said to be a ‘fable’. But realistically in that, Nancy follows duty but is still punished.
