ContentsAssignment One - A Critical Comparison of language and its effects in two short passages.....................................................................................................................2

Appendix.....................................................................................................................7

Extract from “Silas Marner” by George Eliot (1861).................................................7

Extract from “The Turn of the Screw” by Henry James (1898)................................8

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Assignment One - A Critical Comparison of language and its effects in two short passages.

This essay will examine the ways in which George Eliot, in an extract from “Silas

Marner” and Henry James, in an extract from “The Turn of the Screw”, use different

narrative styles, literary devices and sentence structure and to create an emotional

response toward the protagonists which leads to the reader determining the reliability

of the characters and the feelings of empathy or otherwise that are evoked as a

result.

The extracts chosen demonstrate episodes within the story of internal dialogue,

revolving around a crisis that the characters experience. In the extract from “Silas

Marner”, the protagonist is shown considering the theft of his gold and the course of

action which he should take. The extract from “The Turn of the Screw” shows the

reader the inner turmoil faced by the character of the governess as she ponders her

desire to confront her charge, Miles, and the perceived consequences of such a

confrontation.

James, by using first person narrative, gives the reader access to the thoughts of the

governess. The inner dialogue of this character from this narrative viewpoint gives

insight into her opinions as well as raising questions about her reliability. Although

the governess begins her interior dialogue with the assertion that ‘it would tax his

invention’ and asks the question ‘how the deuce would he get out of it?’, she quickly

changes from triumphalism to despair as she deduces that ‘he must know ... how he

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“had” me’ and that it was ‘useless to attempt to convey to Mrs. Grose’. This

vacillation indicates the underlying unreliability of the character and forces the reader

to consider her wavering viewpoint with a little less certainty. Her gloating tone as the

governess describes her feeling of ‘a curious thrill of triumph’ over his ‘real

embarrassment’ creates a negative reaction from the reader’s perspective; her

crowing makes it difficult to feel sympathy for her plight, even after her later

revelation that ‘He “had” me indeed, and in a cleft stick’.

Eliot, on the other hand, uses a 3rd person omniscient narrative perspective. Whilst

this does not allow for the direct presentation of the protagonist’s thoughts, Eliot

instead uses the detached viewpoint to describe to the reader the emotions that

Silas Marner is experiencing. The use of poetic language in describing the gold

which had ‘gone from him, and left his soul like a forlorn traveller on an unknown

desert’ and the possibility that it was ‘a cruel power that no hands could reach’

evokes a sympathetic response from the reader, as Silas Marner’s confusion and

loss are described in emotional terms. Silas Marner’s realisation that ‘false hopes

had vanished’ begins the description of his deductive processes and shows him

following logical steps to reach a conclusion After taking the rational decision to ‘fix

his effort on the robber with hands’, Silas Marner then makes, without the benefit of

the narrative viewpoint enjoyed by the reader, a reasonable guess at the identity of

the culprit and decides to follow the sensible course of reporting the crime to the

‘great people in the village’. This element of the plot shows that Silas Marner is

acting in a sensible, if slightly erroneous, way. This further reinforces the empathy

felt by the reader for the character, as they can identify with his plight and his course

of action.

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The reliability of the governess is further undermined by the way in which James

uses repetition to make her exclamations seem manic. The phrases ‘I had wondered

– oh, HOW I had wondered!’, ‘No, no’ and ‘never, never’ all serve to give the

impression of a character who is almost breathless in her desire to reinforce her own

decisions. The nature of these comments may also be read as a type of verbal tic

and impart a manic tone to her statements. Eliot uses repetition for the same

purpose as Marner considers ‘There were no footsteps to be tracked on such a night

– footsteps?’. This gives the reader the impression that Silas Marner has caught up a

thread of thought and is extrapolating a question from the statement. This gives a

stream of consciousness feel to the text, which allows the reader to feel that they are

experiencing his thoughts in a more direct manner than the narrative viewpoint would

normally allow. Because of the insight this gives the reader, it allows the reader to

feel closer to the plight of Silas Marner. In comparison, Eliot’s other use of repetition

in describing the rain as ‘falling more and more heavily’, is merely descriptive and is

not used in association with the character Silas Marner.

Eliot makes use of loose alliteration in the first sentence when Silas Marner

considers the idea of a thief as ‘he entertained it eagerly, because a thief might be

made to restore the gold’. This lends the sentence a poetic feel which serves to

engage the reader and gives what is a relatively long sentence a rhythmic feel. This

makes the sentence more palatable to the reader. James also employs alliteration in

the first sentence of the extract, although in a more direct form as the governess

describes the location where Quint had ‘hungrily hovered’. The use of this alliteration

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by James lends the character of Quint a malevolent air, forcing the reader to view

the apparition, from the perspective of the governess, as a malicious presence.

Sentence structure and length is an area in which the author’s styles differ. The

average sentence length in the extract from “The Turn of the Screw” is 36.5 words

per sentence, while the “Silas Marner” extract has an average sentence length of

25.1 words per sentence. Further, the longest sentence in the “The Turn of the

Screw” is 63 words long compared to 54 for “Silas Marner”. Although this might

appear to indicate that Eliot’s writing is more readable than James’s, the difference in

sentence length is a direct result of the number of adjectives used by James. In the

extract from “The Turn of the Screw” there are 16 adjectives. Eliot, by comparison,

uses a mere 6 adjectives. Thus, the main issue controlling the pace at which the

reader reads the prose can be seen to be the structure of the sentences, rather than

their length.

The use of sentence structure is more straightforward in the “Silas Marner” extract

and the sentence ‘or was it a cruel power that no hands could reach, which had

delighted in making him a second time desolate’ is the only sentence which could be

considered convoluted. The effect of this sentence on the reader is to create a poetic

feel to the sentence and reminds the reader that this is not the first misfortune to

have befallen Silas Marner. James, on the other hand uses a more convoluted

sentence structure for example:

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No, no: it was useless to attempt to convey to Mrs. Grose, just as it is scarcely

less so to attempt to suggest here, how, in our short, stiff brush in the dark, he

fairly shook me with admiration

The nature of this sentence, with its multiple parenthetical statements forces the

reader to have to pause to unravel the meaning of the sentence. By using this

technique, James reinforces in the reader the impression that the thoughts of the

protagonist are jumbled and somewhat disorganised.

Although the characters from both extracts share a sense of being wronged: Marner

through the theft of his gold and the governess through the perceived perfidious

nature of Miles, the way in which the characters responses are described obliges the

reader to consider more than just their circumstance. By using narrative viewpoint

and literary device, the authors have revealed aspects of the character’s

personalities and as a result have made the reader make judgements based on the

language used: Marner is shown as a sensible, logical character who is a victim of

circumstance, whereas the governess is shown as headstrong, undecided and

almost hysterical. The characters, as a result, evoke different emotions in the

readers: empathy for Marner and distrust for the governess. These responses are

central to the plot of both stories. Additionally, James demonstrates the use of

sentence structure as a pacing device, to control the reader’s comprehension and

impress an opinion of the protagonist upon them. Eliot uses straightforward sentence

structure to reflect the simpler nature of Silas Marner’s character which positions him

as a figure to be empathised with.

Word count: 1415

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Appendix

Extract from “Silas Marner” by George Eliot (1861)

Part 1, Chapter 5, Page 44-45

Penguin Classics Edition, Penguin Books 1997

And now that all the false hopes had vanished, and the first shock of certainty was past, the idea of a thief began to present itself, and he entertained it eagerly, because a thief might be caught and made to restore the gold. The thought brought some new strength with it, and he started from his loom to the door. As he opened it the rain beat in upon him, for it was falling more and more heavily. There were no footsteps to be tracked on such a night -- footsteps? When had the thief come? During Silas's absence in the daytime the door had been locked, and there had been no marks of any inroad on his return by daylight. And in the evening, too, he said to himself, everything was the same as when he had left it. The sand and bricks looked as if they had not been moved. Was it a thief who had taken the bags? or was it a cruel power that no hands could reach, which had delighted in making him a second time desolate? He shrank from this vaguer dread, and fixed his mind with struggling effort on the robber with hands, who could be reached by hands. His thoughts glanced at all the neighbours who had made any remarks, or asked any questions which he might now regard as a ground of suspicion. There was Jem Rodney, a known poacher, and otherwise disreputable: he had often met Marner in his journeys across the fields, and had said something jestingly about the weaver's money; nay, he had once irritated Marner, by lingering at the fire when he called to light his pipe, instead of going about his business. Jem Rodney was the man -- there was ease in the thought. Jem could be found and made to restore the money: Marner did not want to punish him, but only to get back his gold which had gone from him, and left his soul like a forlorn traveller on an unknown desert. The robber must be laid hold of. Marner's ideas of legal authority were confused, but he felt that he must go and proclaim his loss; and the great people in the village -- the clergyman, the constable, and Squire Cass -- would make Jem Rodney, or somebody else, deliver up the stolen money. He rushed out in the rain, under the stimulus of this hope, forgetting to cover his head, not caring to fasten his door; for he felt as if he had nothing left to lose. He ran swiftly, till want of breath compelled him to slacken his pace as he was entering the village at the turning close to the Rainbow

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Extract from “The Turn of the Screw” by Henry James (1898)

Chapter XI

Project Gutenburg edition

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/209/209-h/209-h.htm#2H_4_0004

As soon as I appeared in the moonlight on the terrace, he had come to me as straight as possible; on which I had taken his hand without a word and led him, through the dark spaces, up the staircase where Quint had so hungrily hovered for him, along the lobby where I had listened and trembled, and so to his forsaken room.

Not a sound, on the way, had passed between us, and I had wondered--oh, HOW I had wondered!--if he were groping about in his little mind for something plausible and not too grotesque. It would tax his invention, certainly, and I felt, this time, over his real embarrassment, a curious thrill of triumph. It was a sharp trap for the inscrutable! He couldn't play any longer at innocence; so how the deuce would he get out of it? There beat in me indeed, with the passionate throb of this question an equal dumb appeal as to how the deuce I should. I was confronted at last, as never yet, with all the risk attached even now to sounding my own horrid note. I remember in fact that as we pushed into his little chamber, where the bed had not been slept in at all and the window, uncovered to the moonlight, made the place so clear that there was no need of striking a match--I remember how I suddenly dropped, sank upon the edge of the bed from the force of the idea that he must know how he really, as they say, "had" me. He could do what he liked, with all his cleverness to help him, so long as I should continue to defer to the old tradition of the criminality of those caretakers of the young who minister to superstitions and fears. He "had" me indeed, and in a cleft stick; for who would ever absolve me, who would consent that I should go unhung, if, by the faintest tremor of an overture, I were the first to introduce into our perfect intercourse an element so dire? No, no: it was useless to attempt to convey to Mrs. Grose, just as it is scarcely less so to attempt to suggest here, how, in our short, stiff brush in the dark, he fairly shook me with admiration. I was of course thoroughly kind and merciful; never, never yet had I placed on his little shoulders hands of such tenderness as those with which, while I rested against the bed, I held him there well under fire. I had no alternative but, in form at least, to put it to him.

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