Eppie's childish behavior and development into maturity appear as a motif as soon as she joins Silas's storyline. Her innocent good nature foreshadows other characters' development into better people, particularly Silas, for whom she initially acts as a foil. In Chapter 14 when Silas's love for Eppie begins to awaken and he remembers his own better qualities, the narrator makes the following comparative claim:
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.
When discussions of Eppie's innocent nature occur, they're usually aligned with a different character's equal or opposite nature. As Eppie gains "knowledge" here, Silas recalls his previous life, "growing into memory." The warmth of Eppie's character and the untainted nature of her personality act as a foil for Silas's coldness, eventually freeing his real character from the "cold narrow prison" of his miserly existence.
In the same chapter Eliot writes that Eppie gives Silas "fresh and fresh" links into his "lives" before his self-imposed isolation. She is a God-sent remedy for the betterment of men like Silas who need love to be reawakened, and a counter-example for selfishness and self-interest.
In Chapter 13, just before this, Marner watches Eppie sit with enraptured stillness and feels "awe," as other characters do when they encounter sublime natural beauty. Eliot uses the same pastoral imagery to describe Eppie's heavenly innocence here as she does Silas's "blooming" and "budding" into Christian kindness in later chapters. This foreshadows their eventual alignment:
She was perfectly quiet now, but not asleep—only soothed by sweet porridge and warmth into that wide-gazing calm which makes us older human beings, with our inward turmoil, feel a certain awe in the presence of a little child, such as we feel before some quiet majesty or beauty in the earth or sky—before a steady glowing planet, or a full-flowered eglantine, or the bending trees over a silent pathway.
The enormous images Eliot invokes seem too large to be associated with a baby, but speak strongly to the magnitude of Eppie's influence on Silas: to him, she is a "planet," a "full-flowered" plant, and sheltering trees. Eliot invokes a Victorian trope here of the "wise child," common to a lot of 19th century fiction. Eppie's relationship to the divine is still present, as she has only recently come into the world. The "inner turmoil" this divine innocence exposes in adults makes them feel a sense of awe before the "quiet majesty" of her demeanor and presence. Unlike the gold Silas loses, Eppie's value is in her vivaciousness and receptiveness, and her childlike approach to love and togetherness.
Eppie's childish behavior and development into maturity appear as a motif as soon as she joins Silas's storyline. Her innocent good nature foreshadows other characters' development into better people, particularly Silas, for whom she initially acts as a foil. In Chapter 14 when Silas's love for Eppie begins to awaken and he remembers his own better qualities, the narrator makes the following comparative claim:
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.
When discussions of Eppie's innocent nature occur, they're usually aligned with a different character's equal or opposite nature. As Eppie gains "knowledge" here, Silas recalls his previous life, "growing into memory." The warmth of Eppie's character and the untainted nature of her personality act as a foil for Silas's coldness, eventually freeing his real character from the "cold narrow prison" of his miserly existence.
In the same chapter Eliot writes that Eppie gives Silas "fresh and fresh" links into his "lives" before his self-imposed isolation. She is a God-sent remedy for the betterment of men like Silas who need love to be reawakened, and a counter-example for selfishness and self-interest.
In Chapter 13, just before this, Marner watches Eppie sit with enraptured stillness and feels "awe," as other characters do when they encounter sublime natural beauty. Eliot uses the same pastoral imagery to describe Eppie's heavenly innocence here as she does Silas's "blooming" and "budding" into Christian kindness in later chapters. This foreshadows their eventual alignment:
She was perfectly quiet now, but not asleep—only soothed by sweet porridge and warmth into that wide-gazing calm which makes us older human beings, with our inward turmoil, feel a certain awe in the presence of a little child, such as we feel before some quiet majesty or beauty in the earth or sky—before a steady glowing planet, or a full-flowered eglantine, or the bending trees over a silent pathway.
The enormous images Eliot invokes seem too large to be associated with a baby, but speak strongly to the magnitude of Eppie's influence on Silas: to him, she is a "planet," a "full-flowered" plant, and sheltering trees. Eliot invokes a Victorian trope here of the "wise child," common to a lot of 19th century fiction. Eppie's relationship to the divine is still present, as she has only recently come into the world. The "inner turmoil" this divine innocence exposes in adults makes them feel a sense of awe before the "quiet majesty" of her demeanor and presence. Unlike the gold Silas loses, Eppie's value is in her vivaciousness and receptiveness, and her childlike approach to love and togetherness.
