Nancy Flashcards
Perfect Victorian woman
daughter of Mr Lammeter, second largest landowner in Raveloe. Her perfect Victorian virtues are portrayed by Godfrey in ch3, when he dotes on her despite being unreachable.
- “would make home lovely to him” “made him think of the future with joy” - domestic goddess
- “strong silken rope” - metaphor - purity, grace, moral strength
- “tender permanent affection” - complimentary adjectives
- “neatness, purity, liberal orderliness” - tricolon - angelic embodiment of Victorian virtues
- “bright-winged prize” - angel imagery - holy prize
Doesn’t want to marry G
In ch11, we realise she doesn’t want to marry G due to his inconsistent treatment of her and questionably moral behaviour. Yet, there is an implication he will mend his ways and propose.
- “love once, love always” - motto - Christian woman - marriage is forever
- “determined not to marry him” - verb - sense of trying to deny her love
ch11 Nancy confirmed
When the reader meets Nancy in ch11, her beauty, primness, and principles are confirmed.
- “everything belonging to Nancy was of delicate purity and nattiness” - reaffirms her high standards
- “everything smelt of lavender and rose-leaves” - equating her beauty to a flower
- “her pretty lips met each other with such quiet firmness” - typical of Eliot to use facial features to portray personality, compare to Miss Gunns “hard featured” “smiled stiffly”
- “perfect unvarying neatness as the body of a little bird” - simile - nature - Romanticism
- “her hands, which bore the traces of butter-making, cheese-crushing, and even still coarser work” - list of domestic duties - hard working
16 years later - marriage, children
16 years later she is married to G and has retained her immaculate appearance and her presence in the Red House added familial warmth, yet there is an underlying sadness at the heart of their marriage due to the lack of children.
- “the lovely bloom that used to be on her cheek now comes but fitfully” - facial features - rough 15 years
- “the clear veracious glance of the brown eyes now speak of a nature that has been tested” - eye motif
- “Nancy’s beauty had a heightened interest” “the years had not been so cruel to nancy”
- “neatly swept garden walks” “bright turf” “no yesterday’s dust is ever allowed to settle” - reflecting personality - too perfect - used to be “walls decorated with guns. whips. and foxes’ brushes”
- “the habit of filial reverence” - family
Nancy pt 2 sadness
she becomes isolated in an infinite loop of domestic duties, becoming trapped in her sadness of not having a child. She lives to serve her husband.
- “noble-hearted childless woman” - emotive - sympathy
- “unalterable little code” - shouldn’t adopt - God’s providence - slight criticism - too strict
- “finding sufficient exercise in domestic duties” - implicit criticism of role of women
- “a morbid habit inevitable to a mind of much moral sensitivity when shut off from its fair share of activity” - authorial comment - the roe expected of upper class women turns in on them in an unhealthy way
- “scrutinise her past actions and feelings with self-questioning solicitude” - always criticising her past actions
- “when you can once see your face in the table there’s nothing else to look for” - priscilla
Nancy - forgiveness, good morals
when g confesses to N in ch18 that Eppie is his child from a previous marriage, demonstrates her Christian values of forgiveness, as she thinks selflessly
- “pale and quiet as a meditative statue” - simile - dealing with the conflict of her strict moral code
- “the wrong is to me but little” “it’s another you did the wrong to” - moment of marital felicity
- “it’s your duty to acknowledge her […] and I’ll do my part” “I’ll do my part by her, and pray to God almighty to make her love me” - loving figure, but Casses become antagonists as they plan to split Eppie and Silas
- “that quiet mutual gaze of a trusting husband and wife is like the moment of rest or refuge from a quiet weariness” - the loss of losing hope in having Eppie brings them closer
nancy SHC
- before 1857, marriage was unjust for women because men could take all earnings and inheritance
- ## Victorian attitudes influenced by Romanticism. Women were expected to be the angels of the house, as devoted wives and mothers
