What moral philosophy does Silas Marner present in George Eliot's novel Silas Marner?

Overall, the character of Silas demonstrates, through his vicissitudes, a series of moral philosophies.

First, life is never certain. No matter how well we do unto others, or how righteous our paths may be, we will forever be at the mercy of wrongdoers and evil. Our actions alone cannot save us. We need to be mentally, spiritually, and morally ready to withstand the circumstances that come our way.

Silas was a very naive man. His daily existence was at the mercy of outside influences: his church, friends, reputation in Lantern Yard, and relationship with his former fiancée. When his supposed best friend frames Silas and ruins his life, Silas is left a broken man. Rather than having the internal strength, the moral power, to lift himself up and go beyond his circumstances, Silas moves to Raveloe only to do the same thing: depend on outside factors for his happiness. This time, his work and his gold are his safety net. Yet, once again we see Silas falling apart when this, too, is taken from him.

His second fall was significant, however, in that he learned to connect with others. For the first time in years, he had to let go of his neurotic self-control and let the charity and care of outsiders enter his heart. It was his only way to survive the fall.

This leads to a second moral philosophy, which is that we need to experience love and companionship to learn to be better humans. As human beings, we have the responsibility of communicating and being open to interact positively with others. While meditation and solitude are ways to achieve self-love, the total isolation Silas maintained in Raveloe took away a lot of his humanity. People told rumors about him, he was misunderstood, and he always had an aura of unnecessary enigma.

Notice that, after the theft of the gold, Silas surrounds himself by those he shunned once and, for once, he allowed their compassion toward his pain to touch his heart. What the townspeople discovered was a very normal, loving man living behind his unique looks and quirky behavior. They learned to tolerate and accept Silas while he learned to open himself to others. He even became a loving parent to Eppie!

Therefore, had Silas not accepted love and companionship first, he likely would have never learned to give it. It is arguable that Silas felt love and companionship once in Lantern Yard; however, his life was more of a routine, and not a personal discovery, than it should be. Perhaps Silas had to endure those events in order to bring the true human out of him. That is the biggest moral philosophy in the entire novel.

In Silas Marner, how does Eliot explore morality and just deserts?

Just deserts is a phrase that has come to mean getting what a character deserves based on their morality and their actions. It is a particular theme in this novel, as nearly all the characters can be shown to get what they deserve based on their actions. Dunstan Cass, for example, is a prime model of this. A spendthift profligate with no morality whatsoever, he gets the early death that he deserves after blackmailing his brother and stealing the accumulated wealth of Silas. Godfrey Cass in a sense is also "rewarded" for his actions: his abandonment of his daughter is something that earns him a childless marriage, and the fitting nature of this consquence is recognised by Silas when Godfrey tries to reason with Silas to get Eppie back:

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.

Just deserts is therefore apparent in the way that Godfrey is not able to have children. Having had one child, and disowned both her mother and the child itself, it is just that he is unable to have children himself or to take back Eppie. Eliot creates a world in this novel therefore where morality is rewarded and bad actions bring with them bad consequences. Even Silas receives a punishment, which turns into a blessing in disguise, when he loses his wealth, and is rewarded instead with something of far greater value.

In Silas Marner, how does Eliot use symbolism to illustrate morals?

Certainly, in Eliot's work, there is a life-likeness to the tale of Silas Marner that is not mitigated by the symbols; rather, as in real life, they underscore the true values in life.

• Lantern Yard

As a symbol of Marner's stringent and unforgiving past, Lantern Yard--ironically named as it symbolizes darkness--creates a pall over the life of the lonely weaver. For, he has been scarred by the superstitious and cruel rejection of the community where he worked and felt that he belonged. In the second part of the narrative in which Marner finally analyzes what has occurred in Lantern Yard, the weaver experiences "a spiritual thaw."  His return to his former home marks his break with the past as he views an industrialized community in which tradition and its remembrances have been erased, symbolized by razing of the chapel and the subsequent erection of a factory.

When Silas realizes that he will never know "whether they got at the truth o' the robbery...," he tells Dolly as they depart,

Since the time the child was sent to me and I've come to lover her as myself, I've had light enough to trusten by....

• the loom

Symbolic of the detrimental effects of machinery over nature, the loom becomes the center of Silas Marner's life. As he becomes more bent and myopic, Marner's character, too, becomes deformed both physically and spiritually, absorbing his very soul as his life remains static and alienated from community.  

However, in the second part of the novel, the loom changes in its significance as it begins to symbolize the interweaving of threads of life as little Eppie enters Marner's life and he begins to interact with the community of Raveloe, and he becomes accepted and loved by the people.

• gold

When Marner becomes obsessed with the accumulation of gold, the money symbolizes the material as opposed to the spiritual. This obsession with gold is the death of Marner's soul as he desires nothing else. On the other hand, the golden hair of the baby connects Marner to the natural world and enriches his soul as she brings Marner back into the community of men and nature.

The gold had kept his thoughts in an ever-repeated circle, tending to nothing beyond itself; but Effie was an object compacted of changes and hopes that forced his thoughts onward and carried them far away from their old eager facing towards the same blank limit. . . . The gold had asked that he should sit weaving longer and longer...but Effie called him away from his weaving and made him think all its pauses a holiday— re-awakening all his senses with her fresh life....

• the hearth

As in many a narrative set in before industrialized times, the hearth is the center of the home, symbolizing warmth, life, comfort, and love. At the Rainbow Inn, the residents sit around the hearth and the more prestigious members of the community are seated closer to the fire, indicating their importance to the life of Raveloe.

When Godfrey contemplates being able to marry Nancy, he visualizes happiness around the image of the hearth:

with all his happiness centred on his own hearth, while Nancy would smile on him as he played with the children.

And, whereas Marner's hearth has been empty, it is the glow of it that attracts the orphaned baby who crawls into the cottage seeking this light and warmth. Previously, Dunsey Cass has been attracted to the hearth's inviting life, so Silas's hearth has brought him both misfortune and fortune and its accompanying redemption.