Writing with George Elliot

As I attempted to draft posts about Silas Marner this quarter, I routinely struggled with finding a way, not necessarily to make an argument relating the novel and the critical texts—but to make an argument I actually believed in or thought I could find enough evidence for that I could persuade others to believe in it.  I stated at the beginning of the quarter that I picked Silas Marner as my primary text in part because it is unusually simpler than the rest of Elliot’s work, and I found that intriguing.  Well, I also found it immensely frustrating.

By the end of November, I had become somewhat used to not really knowing what to write and wishing I had picked another book (One I had actually studied before!  Or even one I loved, despite all warnings against such a choice!)  I was thus pleasantly surprised to discover I had a lot to say about Silas Marnerand toxicity—enough that I could imagine making a basic lesson plan focused on it.  Toxicity, to my knowledge, is not something people generally see in Silas Marner.  Everyone is so busy talking about how dream-like the story is, how it has a warm and fuzzy ending, not it is just so nice.  The idea that toxicity is lurking just beneath the surface, never the main point of the novel or even of a scene where it appears, but still present, is intriguing to me and something I might like to explore further in the future.

The fact that it took me so long, several weeks and lots of thought, to get just the spark of an idea for something I might like to explore more is probably not atypical of the way I work, however.  I go through a lot of ideas that I eventually discard whenever I think about what I would like to say about a text.  This class was particularly useful for my style of work because the blog posts were challenging, but informal enough I didn’t feel as if were somehow failing to fulfill the expectations of the assignment if I did not have “the world’s most brilliant idea” every week.  I appreciate that I was able to put some ideas out without feeling overwhelming pressure and get useful feedback on them.  I think that this is a model I would like to incorporate into classes I teach in the future, perhaps through a blog like this or a discussion forum.

Writing, and sharing, things I am not necessarily happy with has also made me more open to the idea of sharing concepts and works that are still in progress.  Normally, I like to keep my work close to me and not let anyone see it until it is “finished.”  Clearly, that is not a great approach if one would like help refining or adding nuance to ideas.  It is much more useful to have someone say, “Have you thought of X thing?” early in the process of drafting, than to have them say it after a paper is finished.  So, even if I have not had major revelations about Silas Marner (yet!), I did learn a lot about my writing process!