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GCSE English Literature · key term
Bringing up a child who is not one’s biological child. In Silas Marner, Silas’s adoption of Eppie is presented through his everyday care rather than a modern legal process.
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Paper 2
Revise: Parents and childrenAdoption is described as less familiar to the society of the story than to the narrator’s readers. Nancy’s distrust rests partly on one story of an adopted child who later became a criminal. She distinguishes Silas’s situation because Eppie came to him without his seeking her.
Component 2
Bringing up a child who is not one’s biological child as a member of the family. Silas’s adoption of Eppie is presented through his care for her, rather than a modern legal adoption procedure.
Neither novel part assesses AO3. Use context only when it helps explain a reading, such as Nancy’s resistance to adoption or her belief in a birth father’s superior claim.
Distinguish the narrator’s judgement from a character’s belief: Nancy’s view of adoption and Godfrey’s claim to Eppie are not automatically Eliot’s views.
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This detail makes Nancy’s resistance to adoption more painful and complex than simple coldness. She longs for a child but believes she must accept God’s will. The narrator expresses her principle: “To adopt a child, because children of your own had been denied you, was to try and choose your lot in spite of Providence” (Chapter 17).
