Before I begin, I've got a few notes:
Silas Marner is free to read on Project Gutenberg! If you haven't read it yet (which I strongly encourage you to do) check it out at this link.
Like the other reviews, I cannot cover everything. So I'll be discussing themes I thought were most important.
If you're not familiar with George Eliot, I'd like to make a few notes on her. That's right, George is a girl. George Eliot is a pen name for Mary Ann Evans, which she chose for two reasons. First, female writers weren't uncommon during her time (mid-1800s) but most wrote light-hearted romances. Mary wanted to leave that stereotype and write something without people assuming it would be a romance. Second, she already had some fame as a translator, editor, and critic. Thus, she wanted her fiction to be judged separate from that persona. And while she is human, with her own flaws, she's a pretty remarkable person. Check out this link if you're interested in reading more about her.
This month’s book, George Eliot’s Silas Marner, differs vastly from last month’s The House of the Seven Gables. Though both are very old books (Hawthorne’s being older by 10 years) their form of storytelling, as well as their technique, differ. Hawthorne wrote with heavy prose and long descriptions, whereas Eliot paints scenes with a few words and spent much less time on philosophical prose aimed directly at the reader. Both are wonderful books and classics in their own way, although I would have to say that Silas Marner is a much easier read. It is also much less difficult to acquire meaning from Eliot’s novel. If you read my review of The House of the Seven Gables, you’ll know that a lot of the meaning I took away required research on Hawthorne’s life and ancestry. Further, it took a lot of speculation regarding his symbolism and imagery. Eliot’s novel isn’t quite as personally connected to herself, nor does it rely so heavily on symbolism. It’s a pretty straightforward story, and its meaning is portrayed visibly through the characters and the decisions they each make. It’s refreshing after reading Hawthorne, and I’m excited to get into some of what I consider the most important parts of the novel.
Overview
As charming and vivid as the world Eliot paints is, the characters are her most powerful assets. She spends a great deal of time establishing them—almost a full half of the book is dedicated to acquainting them with the reader before the main plot takes place. I don’t believe there is any novel perfectly balanced when it comes to the necessary parts of a story, and whether it’s world-building, character history, or scenery descriptions, every author focuses more heavily on one aspect than the others. For Eliot, at least in this novel (I haven’t read her others), the characters take that place. Therefore, rather than giving you an overview of the story, I’ll give an overview of Silas. Through him, I think the story will unfold naturally, as it did through Eliot’s writing of his life.
Silas is—during the present time of the main narrative—a mysterious weaver, living alone and having nothing to do with the town of Raveloe. We learn that he had been accused of stealing from a church he used to attend by his best friend (William) and the congregation. This causes him to leave Lantern Yard, his original home, isolate himself and give up his faith.
He also has these trances, which are pretty much him staring off into the distance for a moment, and retaining no memory of it. For a large portion of the book, he does very little apart from weave, which—due in part to his scrupulous nature—provides him with a very decent stash of gold. Seeing as he has no loved ones or even any acquaintances, this gold becomes Silas’ obsession:
“But at night came his revelry: at night he closed his shutters, and made fast his doors, and drew out his gold. Long ago the heaps of coins had become too large for the iron pot to hold them, and he made for them two thick leather bags, which wasted no room in their resting-place, but lent themselves flexibly to every corner. How the guineas shone as they came pouring out of the dark leather mouths!… He spread them out in heaps and bathed his hands in them; then he counted them and set them up in regular piles, and felt their rounded outline between his thumb and fingers, and thought fondly of the guineas that were only half-earned by the work in his loom, as if they had been unborn children—thought of the guineas that were coming slowly through the coming years, through all his life, which spread far away before him, the end quite hidden by countless days of weaving.”
Silas’ life and money counting routine is disrupted when Dunsey Cass—brother to Godfrey Cass, another pivotal character—steals his gold. Silas is disturbed almost beyond sanity by the sudden loss of his only solace in life. He makes an effort to recover the gold, going to the law for justice, but Dunsey cannot be located. And so, he lives in misery, waiting for his lost gold.
But Eliot disrupts Silas’ life again when a child enters his life. This is the child of Godfrey and a woman he once married and then rejected, and is unwanted by either, although Godfrey knows very little of it until it begins to grow. The mother, having been cast away by Godfrey, who is the son of the Squire (in other words, very weathy and respectable), intended to make a dramatic reappearance and force the child upon Godfrey in public. She dies before reaching him, however, while carrying her child just past Silas’ home. The child crawls toward the light of Silas’ door, and enters as Silas is having one of his trances at the open door. Rather than give her up to an orphanage, Silas begins to care for her with the aid of Dolly Winthrop, a kindly mother in the town. As the child—whom Silas names Eppie—grows, Silas begins to change. He gradually loses interest in the prospect of his gold returning to him, and takes joy in the daughter given to him.
Now that you know the basic plot of the story we can delve a little deeper into Eliot’s themes.
Religion & Redemption
Throughout the novel, the characters—Silas in particular—return to discussions of religion. These never take over the story, but add diversity to the characters. Silas’ problems began in his involvement within a Calvinistic church, where he’s accused of stealing the congregation’s funds. At the time, Silas was a relatively normal young man, he had friends, community, and was engaged to be married. After he’s pronounced guilty (framed by his best friend no less) he leaves Lantern Yard.
This event does several things to Silas. First, it isolates him. Being betrayed by his best friend, he finds it difficult to trust and engage with people closely. Also, his fiance broke off their engagement after the accusations, which discouraged any hopes he had for love. But the most devastating product of the accusation is that Silas loses faith. After leaving Lantern Yard and traveling to Raveloe, Silas lives a life void of emotion or personal reflection. He works, and that’s about it. Eliot is painting a picture of importance here, communicating what happens when these three aspects of life are stripped away. Without community or love, Silas is a lonely man, but having left God, he’s a purposeless man.
But, Eliot doesn’t close the book on Silas’ spirituality or give him a material purpose. Instead, she gives him a gradual return to faith that’s intertwined with the other two aspects he lost. It’s a beautiful picture of redemption that remains open to all.
Silas regains love first, coming in the form of his adopted child. At first—like most new parents—he’s not entirely sure about her. He's used to living alone and it's difficult to take care of a child. But eventually, she becomes his world. Every thought circles Eppie and how it will affect her. And while this isn’t quite a substitute for a wife, that part of Silas’ heart—once broken and emptied—is filled.
As Eppie grows, Silas regains community. Many of the townsfolk become invested in the child, and therefore come to visit him, thus developing friendships. The most notable of these is Dolly Winthrop, a middle-aged woman with several children of her own. She reaches out to Silas and helps him raise Eppie, instructing him on what she needs and how to teach her.
It’s through Dolly (as well as Eppie) then that Silas begins to take steps toward returning to faith. Silas’ departure from faith stems partly from the fact that the ones who betrayed him, who wronged him, were people of faith. They were people who were versed in scripture and should have done right. What’s more, he told his accusers that God would clear him, fully trusting that God would see his innocence and deliver him. I think some part of Silas wondered if God hadn’t wronged him, if William and the others weren’t serving an unjust God. He actually states to William:
“You stole the money, and you have woven a plot to lay the sin at my door. But you may prosper, for all that: there is no just God that governs the earth righteously, but a God of lies, that bears witness against the innocent.”
This is communicated to Dolly, and she puzzles over it for some time. It’s the age-old question: “why do bad things happen to good people?” but she finally comes to a conclusion that changes Silas’ perspective:
“And so, while I was thinking o’ that, you come into my mind, Master Marner, and it all come pouring in:—if I felt i’ my inside what was the right and just thing by you, and them as prayed and drawed the lots, all but that wicked un, if they’d ha’ done the right thing by you if they could, isn’t there Them as was at the making on us, and knows better and has a better will? And that’s all as ever I can be sure on, and everything else is a big puzzle to me when I think on it. For there was the fever come and took off them as were full-growed, and left the helpless children; and there’s the breaking o’ limbs; and them as ’ud do right and be sober have to suffer by them as are contrairy—eh, there’s trouble i’ this world, and there’s things as we can niver make out the rights on. And all as we’ve got to do is to trusten, Master Marner—to do the right thing as fur as we know, and to trusten. For if us as knows so little can see a bit o’ good and rights, we may be sure as there’s a good and a rights bigger nor what we can know—I feel it i’ my own inside as it must be so. And if you could but ha’ gone on trustening, Master Marner, you wouldn’t ha’ run away from your fellow-creaturs and been so lone.”
She gives an answer that doesn’t necessarily solve the why, but encouraged Silas to do two things. First, she encouraged him to make a distinction between man and God. Just because William and the ones who turned Silas out were men of the church doesn’t mean they were in line with God’s will. Second, she encourages him to trust God despite the difficulties. She says that if there’s one thing to be sure of, it’s that God knows the why and that He is good. We get a statement from Silas later on that confirms he has accepted this:
“No,” said Silas, “no; that doesn’t hinder. Since the time the child was sent to me and I’ve come to love her as myself, I’ve had light enough to trusten by; and now she says she’ll never leave me, I think I shall trusten till I die.”
So even though Silas was never cleared of his accusation, he regained faith and trust. Sadly in today’s entertainment, even the idea of writing such a full and perfect redemption—one that doesn’t end in everything being cleared up—is unheard of.
The Rewards of Greed
Eliot also gives a very poetic lesson on what an obsession with money can end in. I stated earlier Silas’ fixation on his gold. It was his only companion until Eppie came along, and drove him further away from people and deeper into himself. There’s another character with a similar love of money, whom Eliot uses to conclude the penalty of greed. Dunsey Cass, who I mentioned earlier, dies shortly after stealing from Silas. Only, his body isn’t discovered until nearly the end of the book, a good sixteen years after the fact. It’s important to know that Dunsey knew of Godfrey’s wife, and held it over him. Through his leverage, he was able to get from his brother whatever he wanted, whether it was money, his horse, or anything else. The reader doesn’t know he’s dead until the characters find out, meaning that we assume he made it away and never got punished.
There are several very important details in his death, one being that he died on Silas’ property by falling into what’s called a stone pit (sort of like a quarry). The stone pit is filled with water usually but begins to drain during one farming season, which is when they find Dunsey. This is important because it keeps Dunsey close to Silas, meaning that the gold never left Silas’ property. It fell with Dunsey into the pit, dragging him down as he was determined to hold onto it. I think Eliot may be saying that Silas’ wealth did indeed still lay open to him. He could have given Eppie up for adoption or placed her in an orphanage and worked to regain his gold, but he didn’t. Instead, he found something much worthier of his time, something that eventually brought him healing. His grip on money softened, whereas Dunsey’s tightened and led him to death. After the gold is restored, Silas states:
“It takes no hold of me now,” he said, ponderingly—“the money doesn’t. I wonder if it ever could again—I doubt it might, if I lost you, Eppie. I might come to think I was forsaken again, and lose the feeling that God was good to me.”
The Penalty for Lies & a Villain's Redemption
Godfrey Cass is the only other perspective Eliot writes from and starts at a different point than Silas’. We don’t get full details on him at the beginning, and at first, believe him to be a decent gentleman. But we soon discover that he was married to a woman in secret, impregnated her, and then left her and the child. This quickly taints him in the reader's eyes, as I believe was Eliot's intention.
Godfrey has kept his secret for years, fearing shame and disgrace as well as the disapproval of Nancy, the woman he intends to marry. After learning his secret, Godfrey was one of the characters you desperately wanted to get caught. He was so carefully avoiding his sin, lying to Nancy, and deserved to be punished. But Eliot had a more creative ending when she wrote Godfrey.
The book takes a sixteen-year leap between its two parts, and Godfrey is quite different than we’d expected or hoped he’d be. He married Nancy and is living quite pleasantly in Raveloe. Everything seems to be going well for him despite what he’s done and kept secret. But he does receive his punishment, and it’s worse than being caught.
You see, he and Nancy couldn’t have kids. And while they both wanted kids, Nancy didn’t want to adopt. She said it was providence that she couldn’t and that providence made it so they weren’t supposed to adopt either. Godfrey is more disgruntled by this than she is, as he knows that Eppie is his lawful child and had a bit of a change of heart. Now that he's married, he believed he could adopt her to atone for his sins. But seeing as Nancy is against adoption, he can't do much without confessing-which he is still reluctant to do. Eppie being now eighteen he sees what a treasure he gave up. Eventually, he confesses his secret to Nancy and tells her that Eppie is his child. Surprisingly, Nancy takes it quite well, and they both agree that the best thing to do is care for Eppie. They are very wealthy and could give Eppie a prosperous life in Raveloe. Take note that Eppie has been raised by Silas for sixteen years now.
Thus the two go to Silas and Eppie, confident that all will be restored. Godfrey announces his fatherhood, admits his shame, and then asks to bring Eppie into his care. Silas gives this response, which is the most fired up we see him since Lanter Yard:
“then, sir, why didn’t you say so sixteen year ago, and claim her before I’d come to love her, i’stead o’ coming to take her from me now, when you might as well take the heart out o’ my body? God gave her to me because you turned your back upon her, and He looks upon her as mine: you’ve no right to her! When a man turns a blessing from his door, it falls to them as take it in.”
But, after Godfrey and Nancy imply that he is being selfish by refusing Eppie such an opportunity, he ultimately allows Eppie to choose whether to go with her biological father or stay with him. At this point, I was on the edge of my seat, desperately hoping Eppie would refuse and denounce Godfrey. I haven't a climax quite this powerful in some time, and it is certainly memorable. Eppie gives an answer that both warms the heart of the reader as well as concludes Godfrey's punishment:
“I can’t feel as I’ve got any father but one,” said Eppie, impetuously, while the tears gathered. “I’ve always thought of a little home where he’d sit i’ the corner, and I should fend and do everything for him: I can’t think o’ no other home.”
And thus, Godfrey fully feels the weight of his decisions. It is the most joyful moment in the novel for Silas, and a moment of painful realization for Godfrey. But, Eliot is much more generous than I expected her to be, and gives him redemption as well. He doesn’t end a villain, but rather a changed man. He’s felt the consequences of his choices, but has learned and repented. And although it took him sixteen years, he opened up to the truth and released the hold his secrecy had over him. After Eppie's answer, he says to Nancy:
“No,” said Godfrey, with a keen decisiveness of tone, in contrast with his usually careless and unemphatic speech—“there’s debts we can’t pay like money debts, by paying extra for the years that have slipped by. While I’ve been putting off and putting off, the trees have been growing—it’s too late now. Marner was in the right in what he said about a man’s turning away a blessing from his door: it falls to somebody else. I wanted to pass for childless once, Nancy—I shall pass for childless now against my wish.”
From that point forward, Godfrey cares for Eppie in other ways. He provides little things when they’re needed, and does what he can to make her and Silas comfortable. In the end, everyone has their own redemption, and it makes the novel all the better.
Too often we get stories that have somewhat stale conclusions: heroes are rewarded, villains are punished, and those between don’t get much. In short, Eliot gives us a story of people. There aren’t really any villains (although William could be seen as one), only people. Yes, Godfrey made bad choices and lied, but even he gained redemption in the end. That is the opportunity that awaits everyone, no matter what they've done. Redemption is offered freely to those who need it most.
Conclusion
Under the guise of a simple narrative, Silas Marner is many things. It’s an image of redemption and restoration, an answer to a heavy spiritual question, and a wholesome story mixed with real-world suffering. These are things heavily lacking in modern literature and I think they should make a comeback.
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