Nancy

• Fastidious


  Very concerned with her appearance and the orderliness of her possessions, not through vanity, but in her conviction that she should appear in the 'proper' way
• Eliot repeatedly mentions Nancy's 'amiable primness' and that 'Everything belonging to Miss Nancy was of delicate purity and nattiness'
• Eliot describes Nancy's "perfect unvarying neatness as the body of a little bird"
• Eliot connects Nancy's concern with outward appearance to her inner psychology, perhaps implying that, just as she is overly fastidious and rigid in matters of appearances, she is psychologically inflexible
• We cannot help but agree with Godfrey that 'she was not indifferent to him yet'
• Nancy


  • Daughter of Mr Lammeter, the second largest landowner in Raveloe
  • Early in the novel, it is widely thought in the village that she and Godfrey Cass will be married
  • We don't meet Nancy until the New Year's party in Chapter 11
  • Eliot's initial descriptions of her emphasise that she is beautiful, fastidious and modest
  • In Chapters 11 & 12, Eliot captures Nancy's conflicted feelings about Godfrey
• Nancy


  • When the Squire clumsily steps on Nancy's dress, she and Godfrey are left to speak alone
  • Nancy attempts to haughtily dismiss Godfrey's suggestions that, with her help, he could mend his ways and be a moral man
  • We next meet Nancy sixteen years later, at the start of Part 2, as she leaves church with her husband
  • Nancy muses on her fifteen years of marriage, which has been childless
• Nancy


  • Godfrey returns, having witnessed the discovery of Dunstan's body, and finally tells Nancy the truth about Molly
  • Nancy is not angry, but expresses her profound sadness that Godfrey had not done the right thing and told the truth earlier
  • Godfrey and Nancy visit Silas's cottage together to offer to adopt Eppie
  • Nancy sympathises with Eppie's love for Silas, but cannot understand her wish to stay with him
• Stubborn


  Both in her attitude to Godfrey before their marriage, and in her 'difficult resistance to her husband's wish to adopt a child', Eliot suggests that Nancy's highly principled outlook means she is fundamentally inflexible in her attitudes
• Mournful


  Nancy has become a deeply introverted character 'living inwardly, again and again, through all her remembered experience' due to her childlessness and the death of at least one baby in infancy
• Forgiving


  Despite the rigidity of her moral code, Nancy is able to forgive Godfrey for failing to tell the truth about Molly and Eppie
• Pious


  From the start Eliot emphasises Nancy's strict moral code, which has developed into a strong sense of personal religious conviction and belief in divine providence
• Devoted to her family


  Nancy demonstrates great affection, generosity and care towards members of her family, including her father, sister Priscilla, and her husband Godfrey
• Nancy's appearance


  • Eliot often suggests Nancy's personality in her description of her appearance, emphasising her beauty but also lack of sophistication
  • The change in Nancy's appearance in Part 2 embodies both what has changed and what has remained consistent in her character
• The Red House

  • Nancy's fastidious character and sense of domestic duty is embodied in the changes she makes to The Red House, turning it into somewhere of 'purity and order'
• Clothing & Accessories


  • Eliot uses Nancy's clothes and possessions to reveal much about her character, often gently mocking her inflexible attachment to 'rigid principles'
• Over the course of the Nineteenth Century, the orthodox Anglican Christianity that had been dominant in England was increasingly questioned, notably by George Eliot herself
• George Eliot, both in her own life and in her writing, questioned the very narrowly defined definition of a woman's role
• George Eliot, and the Victorians in general, were very interested in the question of nature vs nurture (whether character is fixed, or shaped by upbringing)
• Nancy's fastidious nature

  "everything belonging to Miss Nancy was of delicate purity and nattiness"

  "perfect unvarying neatness as the body of a little bird"

  the pins on her pincushion were in "a pattern from which she would allow no aberration"
• Nancy's conflicted feelings of Godfrey

  she is "determined not to marry him"

  tells Priscilla that she doesn't "mean ever to be married"

  speaks to Godfrey in "a cold tone"

  she feels an "inward flutter" when she sees him

  "she was not indifferent to him yet"
• Nancy's stubbornness

  "difficult resistance to her husband's wish to adopt a child"

  "rigid principles"

  "unalterable little code"

  "constant in her affection towards a baseless opinion as towards an erring lover"
• Nancy's mourning and hurt

  she beings to start "living inwardly, again and again"

  her "deepest wounds" come from hurting Godfrey

  "regretful affection" in her eyes

  feels she has done "so little with her life"
• Nancy's forgiveness at the end of the novel

  after Godfrey's confession, there is "no indignation in her voice - only deep regret"

  "the wrong to me is but little"

  "bent to kiss him" after his confession

  "it wouldn't be right for force her to come to us"
• Nancy's deep religious faith

  she sees that she is not "to be won by any man ... who led a bad life"

  her "delicate honour"

  believes in "the will of Providence"

  is against adoption because it is to "try and choose your lot in spite of Providence"
• Nancy's devotion to her family

  calls her father "the soberest and best man in the country-side"

  fusses about "her anxiety about sister Priscilla"

  tells Godfrey "they must wait for father and sister Priscilla"

  defines her happiness through Godfrey's "it is only what he cares for that ever makes me low"