George Eliots Silas Marner Essay -- George Eliot Silas Marner essays

George Eliot's ‘Silas Marner’ The novel, ‘Silas Marner,’ is considered to be a moral fable. The author, George Eliot placed parental responsibility as one of the book’s main themes. She writes of two different parenting styles, along with the happiness and responsibilities that come with this through two characters, Silas Marner and Godfrey Cass. At the beginning of the narrative the character, Silas Marner, is a completely different person from the one he was later to become. The book starts by explaining how Silas Marner left his original home- ‘Marner had departed from the town,’ because of a false accusation that his best friend had made about him. The church deacon was extremely ill, and whilst looking after him Silas was accused of stealing the church’s money. The religious sect that he belonged to, a strict Calvinistic sect, drew lots to decide whether Silas was innocent or guilty. ‘The lots declared that Silas Marner was guilty.’ The lots where superstitious and one of the supertitions was that they believed that their results where God’s will. Marner is over come by a sense of betrayal, as it was his best friend who has committed such a cruel, untrustworthy deed, Marner looses all his faith in God. Marner leaves ‘Lantern Yard’ and moves to a small place named, ‘Raveloe.’ This new place is a completely new environment for Marner; it was as if he had travelled abroad in comparison to our day and age, we can tell this because in the text it states, ‘ he left his own country and people and came to settle in Ravaloe.’ Sadly Marner looses all his trust in people, he moves into a cottage in the forest, isolating himself from human contact. He works his loom producing linen, when he sells this li... ...that where to special to be destroyed by finance and inanamte objects. This shows that Godfrey was too selfish and self centered to realize what a strong relationship Silas and Eppie had. ‘ it had never occurred to him that Silas would rather part his with life then with Eppie.’ Godfrey finally suffers for all his years worth of mistakes, realizing that he cannot separate them, they have the same bond as all GOOD fathers have with their children, with deep compassion. The novel shows the need to love and feel compassion, with out it life appears to have no meaning. What we understand by the term ‘Parental Duty,’ is to support a child, not just financially but emotionally and to bring up the child in a kind and understanding manner, making sure that the child has respect for other people also, growing up to be a considerate and gracious person.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein Essay

In Chapter 23, however we do feel for Frankenstein, as he discovers his newly-wedded wife, Elizabeth, strangled by the Creature, after refusing to make a female being. He describes her as being â€Å"thrown†, â€Å"hanging† and â€Å"distorted†. This emotive language, I believe, reflects his anger and hatred towards the Creature. These words are incredibly violent and destructive. The word â€Å"hanging†, one may argue, is a flashback to Justine’s execution. Both of Victor’s female companions’ lives have been dashed at the hands of the Creature. The word â€Å"hanging† is also another way of killing a being by applying pressure to the neck/throat. Although Elizabeth has been strangled, that descriptive word could be interpreted as Victor’s ‘execution’ of her. If he had either made the female Creature, or stayed with her on their wedding night, Elizabeth might not have been killed. It is down to Frankenstein’s overwhelming arrogance that she died. In Chapter 11, the Creature has his first encounter with the De Lacey family. He is â€Å"unable to bear the emotions† when he sees the elderly man with the little girl. The Creature demonstrates he has more respect for humanity than Frankenstein, whose goal is to replace it. â€Å"I longed to join them, but dared not†¦ † this is due to his maltreatment by society. Mary Shelley wrote this around 50 years after Jean Jacques Rousseau produced his theory that â€Å"Evil is entirely due to society – man is born innocent and corrupted by society. † In her novel, I believe that she supports this theory. She has turned the Creature into a compassionate, articulate being. Frankenstein’s parental skills are irresponsible and reckless. In Chapter 11, at the start of the Creature’s narrative, he describes how he was frightened and scared in the wood; â€Å"It was dark when I awoke, I felt cold also, and half-frightened, as it were instinctively finding myself so desolate. † Darkness is a feature of the Gothic, and is also an example of pathetic fallacy, a predominantly Gothic technique, used for great effect many times in the novel. The Creature being frightened shows to us once again, his nai veti early on after his birth. This is another device used to make the reader feel huge sympathy towards the Creature. After the creature is first born Victor realises the consequences of his actions. He flees Ingolstadt, and returns to Geneva. However, although he has been a terrible father figure to the Creature, you cannot excuse the actions of revenge that the Creature undertook. The murder of William Frankenstein is out of anger towards his creator. Personally, I disagree with David Hartley’s philosophy in 1749 that: â€Å"Morality is not something you were born with, but is the result of an individual’s experience. † Perhaps you disagree. There is no scientific proof either way to say this philosophy is right or wrong. It is a matter of belief. The Creature most definitely did not have a positive experience of mankind, but he does know the difference between right and wrong, and knows that it was wrong to kill. He expresses his guilt towards the end of the novel, before his suicide; â€Å".. it is true I am a wretch. I have murdered the lovely and the helpless, I have strangled the innocent as they slept.. † He calls himself a â€Å"wretch†, therefore he is not proud or pleased with his actions. This proves that the Creature does have a developed sense and understanding of right and wrong. When answering the set question, there are a number of determining factors that have to be taken into close consideration. Both Frankenstein and the Creature shared personality traits, for example determination, and the right they thought they had to play God with innocent lives. There are, however, extenuating circumstances that you need to consider before laying blame at the feet of either character. Frankenstein’s narrative to Walton is in the past tense. His hatred for the Creature has manifested since the death of his wife, therefore he may have elaborated on his suffering somewhat. Also, the Creature may be false when he said he regretted murdering Elizabeth, William, and being responsible for the execution of Justine. However, in my opinion, I believe that the Creature was honest, and he was truly remorseful for his actions. He was prepared to burn himself so that his body would not be discovered, and that others like him would not be made. I support Dr Siv Jansson’s conclusion that at the climax of the novel, the reader’s sympathy goes out to the Creature more than it does to Frankenstein, however, I believe that some sympathy lies with Frankenstein too.

Titanosaurs - The Last of the Sauropods

By the beginning of the Cretaceous period, about 145 million years ago, gigantic, plant-eating dinosaurs like Diplodocus and Brachiosaurus were on the evolutionary decline. However, this didnt mean that sauropods as a whole were destined for early extinction; an evolutionary offshoot of these huge, four-footed plant-eaters, known as titanosaurs, continued to prosper right up until the K/T Extinction 65 million years ago. The problem with titanosaurs--from a paleontologists point of view--is that their fossils tend to be scattered and incomplete, much more so than for any other family of dinosaurs. Very few articulated skeletons of titanosaurs have been discovered, and virtually no intact skulls, so reconstructing what these beasts looked like has necessitated a lot of guesswork. Fortunately, the close similarity of titanosaurs to their sauropod predecessors, their wide geographic distribution (titanosaur fossils have been discovered on every continent on earth, including Australia), and their huge diversity (as many as 100 separate genera) has made it possible to hazard some reasonable guesses. Titanosaur Characteristics As stated above, titanosaurs were very similar in build to the sauropods of the late Jurassic period: quadrupedal, long-necked and long-tailed, and tending toward enormous sizes (one of the biggest titanosaurs, Argentinosaurus, may have reached lengths of over 100 feet, though more typical genera like Saltasaurus were considerably smaller). What set titanosaurs apart from sauropods were some subtle anatomical differences involving their skulls and bones, and, most famously, their rudimentary armor: its believed that most, if not all, titanosaurs had tough, bony, but not very thick plates covering at least parts of their bodies. This last feature raises an interesting question: could it be that the sauropod predecessors of the titanosaurs perished at the end of the Jurassic period because their hatchlings and juveniles were preyed on by large theropods like Allosaurus? If so, the light armor of titanosaurs (even though it wasnt nearly as ornate or dangerous as the thick, knobby armor found on contemporaneous ankylosaurs) might have been the key evolutionary adaptation that allowed these gentle herbivores to survive tens of millions of years longer than they would have otherwise; on the other hand, some other factor may have been involved of which we are not yet aware. Titanosaur Habitats and Behavior Despite their limited fossil remains, titanosaurs were clearly some of the most successful dinosaurs ever to thunder across the earth. During the Cretaceous period, most other families of dinosaurs were restricted to certain geographic areas--the bone-headed  pachycephalosaurs of North America and Asia, for example--but titanosaurs attained a worldwide distribution. There may, however, have been stretches of millions of years when titanosaurs were clustered on the southern supercontinent of Gondwana (which is where Gondwanatitan gets its name); more titanosaurs have been discovered in South America than on any other continent, including huge members of the breed like Bruhathkayosaurus and Futalognkosaurus. Paleontologists know as much about the everyday behavior of titanosaurs as they do about the everyday behavior of sauropods in general--which is to say, not a whole lot. Theres evidence that some titanosaurs may have roamed in herds of dozens or hundreds of adults and juveniles, and the discovery of scattered nesting grounds (complete with fossilized eggs) hints that females may have laid their 10 or 15 eggs at a time in groups, the better to protect their young. Theres still a lot thats being worked out, though, such as how quickly these dinosaurs grew and how, given their extreme sizes, they managed to mate with one another. Titanosaur Classification More so than with other types of dinosaurs, the classification of titanosaurs is a matter of ongoing dispute: some paleontologists think titanosaur isnt a very useful designation, and prefer to refer to smaller, anatomically similar, and more manageable groups like saltasauridae or nemegtosauridae. The doubtful status of the titanosaurs is best exemplified by their eponymous representative, Titanosaurus: over the years, Titanosaurus has become a kind of wastebasket genus to which poorly understood fossil remains have been assigned (meaning that many of the species attributed to this genus may not actually belong there). One final note about titanosaurs: whenever you read a headline claiming that the biggest ever dinosaur has been discovered in South America, take the news with a big grain of salt. The media tends to be especially credulous when it comes to the size and weight of dinosaurs, and the figures touted are often at the extreme end of the probability spectrum (if theyre not completely made up out of thin air). Practically every year witnesses the announcement of a new biggest titanosaur, and the claims usually dont match up with the evidence; sometimes the new titanosaur that has been announced turns out to be a specimen of an already-named genus!