1. Silas Marner
Chapter Twelve
By Precious & Shanna

2. Narrative POV & Style In the third person
The author incorporates the characters’ thoughts into the narrator’s own narration
There is sympathy for Molly at times
The reader is made to feel sympathetic for Eppie throughout the chapter
Rhetorical questions reflect the characters’ thoughts

3. Characterisation
Eliot withdraws sympathy from Molly by making her degradation her own responsibility
Silas is instantly tender toward the girl and he remembers his sister, he feels that the child he finds in his home must be a message sent from a distant memory of his dead sister
Eppie's appearance at Christmastime is a sort of new beginning. It is also a spiritual rebirth for Marner

4. Imagery, Symbolism & Language
Use of metaphor of comparing opium to a demon alludes and underlines that Molly is in a battle between the drug and her child
Irony is seen when Molly passes out and dies so close to Silas’ house; greater irony is followed as the door is standing wide open during a blizzard so that the child can come inside
Molly dies on New Year's Eve, the end of the year and a time of new beginnings, and that life starts over again for Silas as a result of her death

5. Imagery, Symbolism & Language
The motif of light is seen through the character of Eppie. She is attracted to light, motion and life- “that bright living thing must be caught.”
Silas mistakes Eppie’s hair as his gold- foreshadows the replacement of his treasure

6. Setting “The snow covered Raveloe lanes”
A connection can be seen through the change of environment: Eppie is outside with her mother on a cold, winter night but relocates herself into Silas’ warm cottage

7. Relevance
For the first time in the book, Silas himself recalls his Lantern Yard days
The novel's themes begin to reach fulfilment in Chapter 12
Silas finally recalls the feeling of trusting a power greater than himself- this is the start of his redemption and revival of faith