Character Sketch of Dunstan Cass in Silas Marner
Character Sketch of Dunstan Cass: The Squire’s younger son, Dunstan Cass, more commonly called by the nickname Dunsey, is a sneering and unpleasant young man with a taste for gambling and drinking. He is a reckless and manipulative man who will do anything or say anything to get what he wants. He is attracted to greed and wealth, and has no conscience whatsoever.
Dunstan Cass is shown as a contrast to Godfrey. While Godfrey is merely weak, Dunstan Cass is literally a bad man. He is yainraffogant, and selfish as well as dishonest. Like Godfrey, he is primarily interested in what he himself wants, but he lacks any virtues. He refuses to pay the debt money, tells Godfrey to arrange the money on his own and blackmails him with the secret of Godfrey’s marriage to the opium addict Molly Farren. He even suggests and offers to sell Godfrey’s prized horse, Wildfire. However, he accidentally kills the horse while jumping a fence at the hunt.
Dunstan Cass is a cruel, lazy, manipulative and greedy person, ready to do or say anything to get what he wants. He blackmails his brother, Godfrey, by threatening to spill the beans about the latter’s secret marriage. He convinces his brother to sell off his favourite horse, Wildfire. Dunstan Cass strikes a good bargain for the animal with Bryce, but his foolish greed gets the animal killed. While returning home, he stops by at Silas’s cottage and steals his money. He disappears after the act and his dead body is found years later when Stone-pits is drained.
He steals poor Silas Marner’s money. He is thought to have disappeared somewhere, but his dead body’s skeleton is found in the stone-pits when they were drained after sixteen years. Dunsey is found with Silas’ money. He, thus, serves as a contrast to Godfrey, as a means of relieving Silas of his gold, and as a reminder to Godfrey that truth will eventually reveal itself.
Dunstan Cass, the squire’s younger son, is an evil man with a taste for gambling and drinking. He is a reckless and manipulative man who will do anything or say anything to get what he wants. He is attracted to greed and wealth, and has no conscience whatsoever. He refuses to pay the debt money and tells Godfrey to arrange the money on his own. simultaneously blackmailing him with the secret of Godfrey’s marriage to the drunken opium addict Molly Farren. He even suggests and offers to sell Godfrey’s prized horse, Wildfire. However, he inadvertently kills the horse by jumping one fence too many at the hunt. Later on. he steals Silas Marner’s gold, but drowns in the stone pit by falling into it in the darkness. Thus he meets a just end.
Godfrey, is looked upon by the people of Raveloe as a decent, serious and potentially prosperous young man. Dunstan on the other hand, is a sneering and unpleasant young man with a taste for gambling and drinking. He is a reckless and manipulative man who gets Godfrey to do just about anything he wants, through whatever means are convenient.
Dunstan is a direct contrast to Godfrey. Where Godfrey is merely weak, Dunstan is completely evil He is vain, arrogant and selfish, as well as dishonest. Godfrey is weak-willed and usually unable to think much beyond his immediate material comfort.
In other words, Godfrey was no different than his brother in terms of immorality; he had indeed married the low-life woman, he was in debt, he was drinking more and more in the company of Dunstan, and he was too weak of character to face up to his mistakes.
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