In George Elliot's novel, Silas Marner, the author illustrates three different types .
There is Nancy Lameter-Cass, who concentrates on her.
role as a dutiful wife and on her husband's happiness, her sister Priscilla, unmarried and .
managing her father's farm she has the unconventional role and is an outcast in Ravloe, .
and Dolly Winthrop, who plays a good mother figure not only in her own family and to .
Eppie but in the community as well.
Nancy Lameter concentrated on Godfrey Cass even before they were married. .
Although Nancy tells Priscilla that she never means to be married, she thinks of being the .
Squire's wife, and treasures the dried flowers Godfrey gave her. Now that they are .
married she occupies herself with thoughts of Godfrey and his state of mind. Nancy had .
one child, but after the infant died, she decided that having no children was harder on .
Godfrey than her, "It was very different-it was much harder for a man to be disappointed .
in that way: a woman could always be satisfied with devoting herself to her husband, but .
a man wanted something that would make him look forward more-and sitting by the fire .
was so much duller to him than to a woman"(158). In this novel the character of Nancy .
depicts the dependent and dutiful wife. .
.
Priscilla is the opposite of her sister Nancy. Priscilla Lameter remains unmarried .
and runs her fathers farm, being as independent as a woman could be in the time period.
Priscilla "likes to see the men mastered"(98), and is often referred to as an Old Maid. .
Priscilla's being unmarried makes her the outcast in Ravloe. She never regrets her choices .
in life, only her sister's.
Dolly Winthrop is not only a mother figure in her own family but throughout the .
town; after Silas found Molly Dr. Kimble addresses Godfrey " Let somebody run to .
Winthrop's and get Dolly, she's the best woman to get."(120). Dolly was among the .
hoards of mothers trying to advise Silas on the raising of Eppie and hers was the only .