Set in rural England in the early nineteenth century, Silas Marner covers a time span of some thirty years during which Silas undergoes a process of spiritual-emotional death and rebirth. The secondary plot revolving around Godfrey Cass is of nearly equal importance, and the intersections of the two plots create the primary energies of the novel. In both stories, moreover, suffering is created by men but redeemed by women.

Silas has grown up within the fundamentalist religious community of Lantern Yard—an ironic name, because there is more spiritual darkness than illumination there. Falsely accused by his best friend William Dane of stealing the church’s meager funds, and with his guilt “proven” by the drawing of lots, Silas abandons his trust in God and humankind. He takes up residence far to the south in the village of Raveloe, where he makes an adequate living by his weaving. Silas is shunned by the villagers, however, partly because of his reclusive habits and partly because Raveloe is a closed, insular community. With no sense of purpose or human connectedness, Silas becomes a solitary miser whose accumulating hoard of gold coins is his sole comfort.

In contrast, Godfrey Cass, the eldest son of the principal landowner of Raveloe, would seem to be favored by fortune. In fact, however, he lives in dread that his secret and sordid marriage to a woman in a neighboring town will be revealed by his brother Dunstan and that his hopes of marrying Nancy Lammeter thus will be destroyed. To buy Dunstan’s silence, Godfrey gives Dunstan his prize horse Wildfire to sell, but Dunstan recklessly rides the horse onto a stake, mortally wounding the animal. Passing Silas’ cottage on his way home from the accident, Dunstan sees that Silas is out, enters and finds the gold, and disappears mysteriously into the night.

Silas’ dismayed announcement to the community of the theft cracks his shell of solitude, but the breakthrough comes with the providential arrival of Eppie a few months later. Determined to confront Godfrey with his child, Molly trudges through the snow to Raveloe but dies of exposure a few yards from Silas’ cottage. Seeking the light, Eppie crawls in. For a moment, Silas, in his extreme nearsightedness, takes her golden curls for his gold coins, miraculously restored. Yet Eppie proves to be a greater treasure than the lost gold: In becoming a father to her, Silas becomes a human being once again.

Dolly Winthrop is an invaluable mentor to Silas in his parenting. She provides maternal advice and presence as well as much-needed spiritual support for Silas. In a comparable way, Nancy—now married to Godfrey—provides an emotional and spiritual center to Godfrey’s life. Though childless, they are happy in each other, and Godfrey is resigned to a background role in the life of his unacknowledged daughter.

After the passage of some sixteen years, however, the discovery of Dunstan’s skeleton (and Silas’ gold) in a recently drained quarry brings the novel to a climax. Godfrey confesses to Nancy that Eppie is his child, expecting a severe rebuke, but Nancy, “ripened into fuller goodness” by maturity, forgives him and agrees to adopt Eppie. Neither has counted on the strength of the affection between Silas and Eppie or is aware that Eppie intends to marry Aaron Winthrop. When Eppie chooses to remain where she is, Godfrey and Nancy sadly accept her decision. Silas’ journey in the final chapter to the town of his youth proves to be a fruitless quest; Lantern Yard is gone, replaced by a factory. Thus, the door is closed on Silas’ past, with his understanding of its events “dark to the last,” although he now has “light enough to trusten by.”

Raveloe

Raveloe. Village in central England to which Marner moves after his best friend’s false accusations of dishonesty force him to leave an unnamed industrial city in northern England. During his first fifteen years in Raveloe, he lives an almost wholly solitary life; his work is all that he has; he virtually lives within his loom, reduced to the stooped and malformed life of a spinning insect. After he takes a foster child into his home, he finally begins to connect with the community.

Marner’s cottage

Marner’s cottage. Former home of a stone cutter in which Silas Marner lives in Raveloe. The cottage is located at the edge of an abandoned quarry. Within his cottage, Marner quietly amasses a hoard of gold coins, which he earns through years of painstaking weaving work. After his gold is stolen, his literal and figurative myopia—accentuated by his cataleptic trances—causes him to mistake for his returned coins the golden hair of an orphaned infant girl, Eppie, who wanders into his cottage on a dark, cold night, seeking light and warmth. Marner’s loving care of Eppie for sixteen years, shored up by the kindness of the villagers, awakens in him an imaginative sympathy that renews and expands his formerly dead sensibilities. Through the influence of the child, Eppie, the bare, stone cottage and its surroundings are transformed into a place of a growing garden that promises to keep flowering at the end of the story, with the help of the young man whom Eppie marries.

Rainbow Inn

Rainbow Inn. Village gathering place in which the character of the community is revealed through the vivid dialogue of those who come to socialize. Marner comes to the inn to seek help after he discovers his gold has been stolen because it is the place where important village decisions are made, such as what to do about the robbery. The narrator reveals that the unaccustomed human interaction that Marner experiences here precipitates his growth of social consciousness. The suggestion of hopeful promise connoted by the inn’s name culminates with its serving as the location of Eppie and Aaron’s wedding feast.

Red House

Red House. Home of Squire Cass, the village landlord, which provides a background for developing the character of his two sons, Godfrey, who refuses for sixteen years to acknowledge that he is Eppie’s natural father, and Dunstan, whose thievery of Marner’s gold goes undiscovered through the same period. The motherless home is seen as loveless until Godfrey marries Nancy, when feminine touches begin to add warmth.

Lantern Yard

Lantern Yard. Gathering place for Dissenters of a narrow religious sect with whom Marner attended chapel when he lived in an unnamed northern industrial city before moving to Raveloe. The Lantern Yard is associated with impersonal and mechanical ways, represented in part by the drawing of lots to determine guilt or innocence. At the beginning of the novel, Marner is victimized here, falsely accused by William Dane, whom he has regarded as his best friend. Although he is innocent, the drawing of lots makes him appear guilty. After being cast out by his Calvinist-influenced religious group, he arrives in Raveloe feeling abandoned and betrayed by God and man.

Through the influence of Dolly Winthrop, Marner becomes open to fellowship through the traditional church of Raveloe. At the end of the novel, he and Eppie go in search of Lantern Yard because Marner hopes to find explanations for the earlier events in his life. However, they find only a factory where the chapel stood before. Eppie’s repulsion at the crowded and dirty scene reinforces Eliot’s presentation of place as all-important to the nurturing of community fellow-feeling.

Although she was the most influential woman writing in English until the twentieth century, George Eliot has not been thought of as a women’s writer. Drawn by temperament and talent to the central issues of her times, whether political, religious, social, or artistic, she made a commanding place for herself (under her real name of Mary Ann or Marian Evans) as a writer in a male-dominated intellectual world long before she wrote her first novel. Her novels were published under the masculine pseudonym in order to avoid being thought of as “feminine,” and indeed for a time they were thought to be the work of a retired clergyman.

Nevertheless, in both her life and the novels on which her reputation rests, there are women’s issues of significance. Her unconventional union with fellow intellectual George Henry Lewes, prevented from being a marriage because of Lewes’ inability to obtain a divorce under archaic Victorian divorce laws, scandalized her contemporaries. In her own mind, however, she was right, and eventually society came to accept them as a legitimate couple. Her novels, moreover, are generally centered on problems of choice and vocation for heroines not unlike George Eliot herself. Typically, she focuses on the tension between a woman’s personhhood, with its unexpressed depth of talent or feeling, and the limited social role that is available to her.

Silas Marner has no central heroine and consequently does not deal directly with such issues. If women’s concerns are not at the forefront of the plot, however, they may be seen in the form of a thematic design. Without exception, the wrongdoing that drives the plot is the work of men—William Dane’s betrayal of Silas, Godfrey’s disavowal of Molly and Eppie, and Dunstan’s theft of Silas’ gold. The center of the novel’s value-structure, however, is found in the triad of female characters that consists of Nancy, Dolly, and Eppie. In various ways, they demonstrate a special kind of humanity that offsets the wrongs done around them. The novel tells the reader that there are wrongs that cannot be set right, but just as unmistakably it implies that life goes on nevertheless; wounds must be healed, wrongs forgiven, troubled spirits calmed. The nurturing acts that are the positive expressions of personhood of the female characters on Silas Marner thus substantiate George Eliot’s deepest and most keenly felt moral vision.

Weavers in England

Historian E. P. Thompson, in his book The Making of the English Working Class, outlines four distinct employment scenarios for weavers during the nineteenth century. The first type was the “customer-weaver,” like Silas Marner, an independent artisan in a village or small town who completed orders for individual customers. Although their numbers were dwindling, those who continued this practice earned a good income. In Silas Marner, Mr. Macey speculates that the diligent Marner could make a pound a week from his weaving, which was quite a substantial income during the early nineteenth century. The second type of weaver was self-employed and produced work for various masters. The third category was the journeyman weaver, who typically owned his own loom and worked from home for a single master. This likely describes Silas Marner’s status in his northern England hometown, where he learned his trade. The final group was the farmer who also worked part-time as a weaver. From 1780 to 1830, according to Thompson, these categories began to consolidate into a single group: “the proletarian outworker,” who worked from home, sometimes owning and sometimes renting his loom, and wove yarn according to the specifications of a mill agent or middleman.

Thompson highlights the decline in status and security that accompanied these changes, even though weaving could still be a lucrative occupation.

The industry was evolving, however. The power loom, invented in 1784 and patented the following year, allowed weavers to keep up with spinners, who had previously been able to produce more yarn than weavers could handle. The power loom was first utilized in Manchester in 1791. By 1813, there were 2,400 power looms in England. Nevertheless, weaving remained largely a domestic industry until 1820, when power looms became widely adopted.

Social Change

At the dawn of the nineteenth century, England was predominantly a settled and unchanging society. Villages like the fictional Raveloe in Silas Marner were fairly self-reliant, as residents could produce their own clothing and grow their own food. However, the pace of social transformation quickened throughout the century. Agricultural workers and manufacturers began to seek employment opportunities beyond their villages, often in search of higher wages. This trend involved not just moving from rural areas to nearby towns, but also large-scale migrations. By century's end, workers were relocating to Lancashire, where the cotton industry thrived, at a rate of fifteen thousand annually. For instance, the population of Bolton surged from 5,339 in 1773 to 11,739 by 1789. The advent of new canals allowed for faster and more efficient transport of raw materials, while improved roads facilitated the recruitment of labor. Nonetheless, this economic progress came at a cost: the emergence of a new class of landless agricultural laborers who had lost their independence.

By the start of King George IV's reign in 1820, the rapid expansion of manufacturing towns, which had little to do with the old rural communities, had profoundly transformed England. Social historian G. M. Trevelyan observed in Illustrated English Social History: “The harmonious fabric of old English society suffered a perpendicular cleavage between town and country, as well as expanding the old lateral cleavage between rich and poor.”

Imagery

In becoming a reclusive miser, Silas Marner has almost lost his humanity, a fact highlighted through the imagery associated with him. He is compared to a spider, weaving its web; his existence is reduced to the “unquestioning activity of a spinning insect.” After he loses his money, the imagery shifts to that of an ant. His mind becomes confused like a “plodding ant” that, on its way home, finds the ground has been disturbed.

The imagery undergoes a transformation as Marner begins his journey towards redemption. When he sits with Eppie on a flower-covered bank, listening to the birds, he starts to search for herbs again, just as he did in his youth. As a leaf rests in his hand, memories from the past come rushing back. His mind is “growing into memory,” and his spirit is “unfolding too, and trembling gradually into full consciousness.” Instead of being likened to an insect, Marner is now implicitly compared to a blossoming flower.

Fairy Tale and Realism

The narrative blends elements of fairy tales with realistic settings and characters. Fairy tales often revolve around a person who is unjustly banished from a kingdom or suffers great misfortune. This individual then endures numerous trials and tribulations, feeling that all hope is lost. However, chance events, often involving the supernatural, occur; evil is punished, good is rewarded, a perfect marriage is arranged, and the characters live happily ever after.

The story of Silas Marner shares many similarities with fairy tales. Silas is unjustly expelled from his hometown and finds himself in an unfamiliar environment. As a miser hoarding his gold, he resembles a stock character from folklore and fairy tales. When the miser encounters the child and mistakes her golden curls for his stolen gold, the narrative firmly enters fairy tale territory. Marner’s return to happiness and the joyful conclusion with Eppie marrying Aaron also strongly echo the fairy tale genre.

However, other aspects of the story are rooted in realism. Unlike fairy tales, which are set in unnamed locations and indeterminate times, Silas Marner is set in a specific time and place. It is grounded in rural England at the start of the nineteenth century. Village life and customs are depicted realistically, and the villagers’ dialect further enhances this realism. The story of Godfrey Cass, as opposed to that of the miser, contains no fairy tale elements. Godfrey’s marriages, his family relationships, and the secret he keeps that could ruin him are characteristic of realistic Victorian fiction.

1810s: In this decade, every parish in England establishes a workhouse to shelter and employ the impoverished. The conditions within these workhouses vary greatly; some are relatively decent, while others are extremely harsh. In 1810, George Crabbe describes one such workhouse: “It is a prison, with a milder name, / Which few inhabit without dread or shame.”

1860s: Following the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, hundreds of new workhouses are constructed. These facilities are overseen by a local Board of Guardians. The intentionally harsh and degrading conditions are designed to discourage all but the most desperate individuals. These workhouses mainly house the elderly, infirm, sick, orphaned, and unmarried mothers. The largest of these institutions accommodate over a thousand people.

Today: Workhouses have been abolished since 1930. Those who are poor and also sick, elderly, or mentally ill are now cared for in hospitals and by social welfare organizations. Under the National Health Service, every British citizen is entitled to free healthcare based on their needs. There is no longer any social stigma attached to being an unmarried mother, and women in such circumstances can find employment.

1810s: According to the official census, the population of England and Wales is 10,164,000. The population is growing rapidly, primarily due to a declining death rate, which has fallen from 33.4 per 1,000 in 1730 to 19.98 per 1,000 in 1810. This decrease is attributed to improved living conditions and better diets.

1860s: The population continues to grow, with a notable shift from rural areas to cities. London becomes the largest city in the world, with a population of 2,803,989 in 1861, marking a 19 percent increase over ten years. Manchester also emerges as one of the world's major industrial centers. After 1860, mortality rates decline due to fewer deaths from scarlet fever, typhus, and consumption.

Today: As of mid-2001, the population of the United Kingdom (including England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland) stands at 58.8 million. Nearly 84 percent of this population resides in England, predominantly in major cities. London is the largest city in Europe, with a population of 7.2 million. The UK population has grown by 10 million between 1950 and 2000, largely due to increased immigration. The death rate has decreased to 10.35 deaths per 1,000 people.

1810s: The Napoleonic Wars conclude in 1815. The conservative British government, fearing social revolution, suppresses civil liberties.

1860s: Britain moves towards greater democracy by expanding the right to vote. In the 1850s, only 900,000 out of 5,300,000 adult males in England and Wales could vote. The Parliamentary Reform Act of 1867 adds another 1,008,000 men to the voter rolls. An amendment to enfranchise women is rejected by 196 to 73 votes in the House of Commons.

Today: In line with other Western democracies, all British citizens who meet the age requirement are eligible to vote. However, voter turnout is declining. In the 2001 general election, only 59.4 percent of the electorate voted, down from 70.9 percent in 1997 and 76.7 percent in 1992. Despite this decline, voter participation remains higher than in the United States.

The 1985 film Silas Marner, directed by Giles Foster, featured Ben Kingsley in the role of Marner. The cast also included Jenny Agutter, Freddie Jones, and Angela Pleasence.

Sources

Dallas, E. S., Review of Silas Marner, in The Critical Response to George Eliot, edited by Karen L. Pangallo, Greenwood Press, 1994, pp. 94–96. Originally published in The Times on April 29, 1861.

Eliot, George, Silas Marner, edited and introduced by Q. D. Leavis, Penguin, 1985.

Ermath, Elizabeth Deeds, George Eliot, Twayne’s English Authors Series, No. 414, Twayne Publishers, 1985, pp. 97–102.

Leavis, Q. D., “Introduction,” in Silas Marner by George Eliot, edited by Q. D. Leavis, Penguin, 1985.

Thompson, E. P., The Making of the English Working Class, Penguin, 1968, pp. 297–346.

Trevelyan, G. M., Illustrated English Social History, Vol. 3, The Eighteenth Century, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 1968, p. 139.

Further Reading

Beer, Gillian, George Eliot, Indiana University Press, 1986, pp. 108–46. In this feminist analysis, Beer examines Silas Marner, Romola, and Felix Holt, focusing on the theme of conflict between biological and nurturing parents.

Johnstone, Peggy Fitzburgh, The Transformation of Rage: Mourning and Creativity in George Eliot’s Fiction, New York University Press, 1994, pp. 68–94. This Freudian interpretation of the novel explores themes such as obsessive-compulsive disorder (repetitive actions and thoughts) and its resolution.

McCormack, Kathleen, George Eliot and Intoxication: Dangerous Drugs for the Condition of England, St. Martin’s Press, 2000, pp. 91–109. McCormack analyzes the novel as a metaphor for addiction and recovery within her broader study of Eliot’s drug metaphors.

Speaight, Robert, Review of Silas Marner, in George Eliot, 2nd ed., Arthur Barker, 1968, pp. 61–67. This brief review highlights the novel's exceptional qualities, including its characterization, absence of excessive moralism, and realistic portrayal enriched with symbolic elements.