NovelGuide: Silas Marner: Novel Summary: Chapter 17

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Chapter 17

Eliot’s seventeenth chapter views the perspective of Nancy Cass. It seems she is not totally happy with her life as wife of Godfrey. Although she loves him very much and is happy when he is happy, she desperately desires children. Godfrey also feels that he’s missing something in middle age. Apparently the couple has tried to have children but failed, and although Godfrey has thought about adoption, Nancy is opposed to the idea of bringing up a child not one’s own. The child Godfrey suggested that they adopt was Eppie. Yet Nancy rejected this idea, not knowing that Godfrey was her real father.