The action in George Eliot’s realistic novel Silas Marner takes place early in the nineteenth century. Protagonist Silas is a linen weaver by trade. He is a simple and religious person. The literary hero is quite trusting by nature but develops into a miser and becomes a recluse in the town of Raveloe, England after his jealous best friend, William Dane, frames him in a theft. Silas loses credibility with the church where he worships as the congregation finds him guilty of the theft of church money that is actually stolen by Dane, and he is ostracized from his religious community. Silas, believing he has lost everything meaningful in his life, loses his faith in God and humanity. Eliot’s story is the protagonist’s journey toward redemption and regeneration.
One of the village women, Dolly Winthrop, is Silas’s neighbor and an uneducated, simple woman with practical common sense. In an act of kindness and Christianity, Dolly makes several attempts to reach out to Silas to encourage him to return to church.
As the plot unfolds, a secret marriage between Godfrey Cass, the heir to the estate of a prominent landowner, and Molly, the mother of a two-year-old daughter Eppie, becomes the catalyst in the protagonist’s redemption and regeneration. When Molly dies of a drug overdose, Godfrey abandons the little girl, and she wanders into Silas’s cottage. Being an innately kind man, Silas grows attached to the child and unofficially adopts her. Dolly, with her intuitive goodness, becomes the girl’s godmother and helps Silas to raise her. This is the beginning of the fulfillment of his journey toward redemption and regeneration. He begins to be acknowledged by the people who have virtually cast him out:
Silas now told his story, under frequent questioning as the mysterious character of the robbery became evident.
This strangely novel situation of opening his trouble to his Raveloe neighbours, of sitting in the warmth of a hearth not his own, and feeling the presence of faces and voices which were his nearest promise of help, had doubtless its influence on Marner, in spite of his passionate preoccupation with his loss. Our consciousness rarely registers the beginning of a growth within us any more than without us: there have been many circulations of the sap before we detect the smallest sign of the bud.
The slight suspicion with which his hearers at first listened to him, gradually melted away before the convincing simplicity of his distress...
Following the injustice done to him, Silas builds a protective wall around himself. He makes no attempt to reveal his feelings and becomes a complete recluse. He has journeyed from a man of good faith to a miserable miser of no faith and makes no attempt to enjoy his life. However, upon Eppie’s arrival, Silas experiences a complete spiritual regeneration, renews his faith in God, and rejoices as he once again becomes an active and loving man.
With respect to the protagonist’s redemption, Silas is never cleared of the underlying theft...
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of the church funds. He suffers undeserved disgrace and withdrawal from society. Nevertheless, because of the love he feels for Eppie, he becomes unselfish on her behalf and begins to alter his self-centered ways. Slowly but surely, the villagers begin to accept him back into their community, and he feels redeemed. The appearance of Eppie in his life symbolically serves as compensation for his personal losses. This is more than satisfactory to the hero, since he learns that love is more important than riches. Godfrey, on the other hand, lives a less-than-fulfilled life. In the author’s vision that God’s will prevails, truth is ultimately rewarded, sins are eventually punished, and justice is finally served.
Further Reading
Do you think that regeneration or redemption is the main theme of Silas Marner?
One could certainly argue that redemption and regeneration are important themes in George Eliot’s Silas Marner.
This applies first to Silas’s journey in the text. A bitter, miserly old weaver, Silas is despondent when Duncey steals all of his precious gold coins. Silas has isolated himself from human relationships and contact after the failure of his first engagement. He was also framed for a crime he never committed. However, when Silas takes in a motherless child and names her Eppie, he finds renewed purpose in life. The closeness he eschewed for so long becomes a rejuvenating force in his life; Eppie becomes his surrogate daughter and companion, and without her, Silas would have easily died a penniless, grouchy old man by choice. This shows that love and human kindness can rejuvenate the soul.
Redemption is also a factor in Godfrey Cass’s story. Because of his embarrassment, Godfrey denies ever having been married to Eppie’s biological mother—even after the discovery of her corpse in the snow. This causes him to neglect Eppie as his child, even though he helps Silas care for her via financial support. However, Godfrey realizes that he was wrong to abandon his only child after Dunsey’s skeleton is found with Silas’s stolen gold. Godfrey’s guilty conscience forces him to confess to Nancy the truth about Molly and his daughter. Even though Eppie does not want to move in with her father and Nancy, Godfrey still redeems himself by remodeling Silas’s house once Eppie gets married. This shows that people who make bad decisions always have the ability to redeem themselves; it is never too late.