Student Question
Are the Lammeters alike in Silas Marner?
Quick answer:
In "Silas Marner," the Lammeters, particularly the sisters Nancy and Priscilla, are distinct in personality and appearance. Nancy is beautiful, graceful, and adheres to a strict moral code, though she lacks deep insight and education. Priscilla, in contrast, is plain and clumsy but possesses practical skills and common sense. Despite their wealth, the Lammeters remain somewhat unsophisticated, reflecting a blend of virtue and country manners without much refinement or city influence.
The Lammeters are a very interesting lot, especially the two Lammeter sisters. One of the interesting features of the Lammeters is the fact that all their money has not been able to buy them much class nor education. They were virtuous, but had a lot of "country" in them.
Nancy Lammeter is apparently beautiful. She moves with lots of graceful movements, and lives completely up to the standards expected of a lady. She walks upright and up straight, has nice and candid manners, but she is not the smartest woman in the world. She also does not have the insightful personality one would expect from the heroine of a story. She is ambitious and understands her position in society well enough to aspire to higher places. However, the striking feature of Nancy Lammeter is her beauty, her height, her straight posture, and her moral code of ethics which she refused to detour from.
Priscilla is like Nancy's alter ego. She is plain, and certainly the uglier but smarter version of Nancy. She is described as "square-shouldered", "clumsy", and "high-featured". However, she is also skilled in many trades, is no-nonsense, and actually has more common sense than Nancy in many ways. She is older than Nancy and understands that she is "the ugly one" yet that does not impede her from being self confident and saying what's on her mind.
Either way, the Lammeters lack a lot of brush with the city folk and that is what is most awkward about them.
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