“Silas Marner” By George Elliot Analysis Essay

“Silas Marner” By George Elliot Analysis Essay

George Elliot’s most famous novel is that of “Silas Marner.” in this novel a weaver named Silas Marner is shunned from the town he lived in called Lantern Yard, after being set up by his childhood friend named William Dane, and moves to the town of Ravelo. There he becomes a hermit and does nothing but work for 15 year. While the book is named after Silas and he is the main character, there are side plots of the local lord’s two children, Godfrey and Dunstan. Dustan, the younger brother, is always blackmailing Godfrey of his secret wife and threatens to tell their father about her. The blackmail boils over to Godfrey having to sell his prize horse, Wildfire, to pay back rent on one of their father’s houses. Dunstan goes to sell the horse but before he can finalize the deal, the horse dies. Dustan ends up near Silas’ house and knows that he holds great amounts of wealth and goes to intimidate Silas into lending Dunstan the money. Dunstan finds that Silas is not home and just steals Silas’ money saying that he will pay it back with interest. Dustan is not seen again and Silas does not know what happened to all his gold. Gold being the only thing he loved, Silas goes out to find who stole his money. Eventually the town lands on the conclusion that a traveling salesman stole it and leaves it to that. The story jumps to New Years where there is a big party at Godfrey’s house, The Red House. At this party Godfrey attempts to court the beautiful Nancy Lattimer, although she had made up her mind as to not fall in love with Godfrey for she does not think he is good enough to marry. But to the knowledge of no one, Godfrey’s secret wife, Molly is walking across town to interrupt the party with the knowledge of their marriage and their baby. Molly stops walking to take some Opium, which she is addicted to, and dies on the road near Silas’ house. Silas is not home when this happens and comes home to find the baby lying in his house. Silas mistakes the child’s golden, blond hair as that of his lost gold. After realizing it is a child he goes to the Red House to see if anyone knows who the baby belongs to. After Godfrey realizes that the baby is his, he is relieved that his secret marriage will remain a secret. After no one claims the baby Silas adopts her as his own. We jump another 15 years where the baby is now a 16 year old woman named Eppie, after Silas’ mother and sister. Godfrey and Nancy are married but are unable to have a child and Nancy refuses to adopt. After Dustan’s decomposed body is found in the water tank behind Silas’ house, Godfrey realizes that eventually everything will come to light, and tells Nancy about his secret wife and how Eppie is his child. Nancy is desperate to have a child and wishes Godfrey would have told her sooner because she would have been fine with adopting this child. Godfrey and Nancy go to Silas’ house and try to convince Eppie to come live with them. Silas leaves the decision up to Eppie. Eppie chooses Silas. The next day Eppie and Silas go back to Lantern Yard to see if anyone remembers what he did. The whole town is new and the church where Silas was banned had been torn down to make room for a factory. Eppie decides to marry Aaron Winthrop, Godfrey pays for the wedding. (Elliot)

The key parts in this story are that of the pain Silas feels, the returning theme of redemption, and the symbolism used in the story.

The first key part of this story is that of the pain Silas deals with. Silas starts out in this story with constant tragedy. First he was kicked out of his hometown, Lantern Yard, for something he did not do, by his best friend, who at the same time stole his fiance. The crime that Silas is blamed for is that of all of the church’s money being stolen on the night that the leader of the church died, while he was under the watch of Silas. His best friend, William Dane is the most likely candidate for who really stole the money and was the first to blame Silas. After this SIlas’ reputation is put up to a game of chance that he loses. On top of his best friend basically being responsible for Silas being kicked out, he also steals his soon to be wife. Silas moves away after this and starts a new life in the town of Raveloe.

After Silas moves to Raveloe he does nothing but work because the gold he makes keeps him happy. The gold is something that will not turn its back on him like William Dane did. Silas does not make friends or try to get another girlfriend because all he remembers from his past friendships is how they ended and he does not want that to happen again. And even the gold ends up hurting him after it is all stolen by Dusntan. We see Silas fall and then rise again and then fall again multiple times in the story. The only time that we do not see Silas fall is when Eppie is given the choice to stay with him or to go live with her real father Godfrey, and she chooses to stay with Silas. (Favaretto)

The second key part of the story is the recurring theme of redemption. The first example of redemption is that of Lantern Yard. After Silas is kicked out of the town, he comes back almost 30 years later and no one remembers him or why they kicked him out. In fact the church where he lived had been torn down.

The second example of redemption is that of Godfrey. After years of hiding his secret child, he realizes that eventually someone will find out, and comes clean about his child. While Godfrey lives most of his life without repercussions for his actions, this action of coming clean with his past wrongdoings shows how he is trying to be a better man and fix his past mistakes.

The third example of redemption is that of Silas’ life outside of work. Before Eppie all that Silas really cared about was the money earned from his work, until he adopted Eppie. After this change, he cared more about other people and started doing things with her like going to church.

This theme of redemption is important to the story because without it many characters would not show much human emotion. Elliot uses the redemption to make the characters feel more realistic. (Farhood) For example Godfrey felt awful about what he did to Eppie but knew that he could not adopt her in fear of losing his wife.

The third key part to the story is the symbolism used in the story. The first example of symbolism is Eppie's blonde hair. This is obviously a symbol for Silas’ lost gold, but there is another symbol it stands for. Eppie’s golden hair also symbolizes Silas’ golden opportunity to rejoin society as a normal person. (Dupeyron-Lafay)

Another symbol is that of Dunsten’s fall into the stone pit, this symbolizes Dunsten’s fall. While he literally fell into a stone pit, figuratively he fell into obscurity and nobody in Raveloe really missed him very much.

The third symbol is that of Silas’ new life started at the new years party. The New Years party started Silas’ new life by being the place where he really first took over control of Eppie and started caring for her, instead of only working and caring about gold. (Davis)     

While the story of Silas Marner is a rollercoaster of emotions with many turns and dips and surprises, it holds more than just a story, but shows character development, deep emotional pain that readers can relate to, and shows symbols that hold underlying meanings. The story of Silas Marner would be very bland and tasteless without these real life experiences that many of us experience in our lifetimes.