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How does Eliot characterize the figures in Silas Marner?
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Eliot characterizes figures in "Silas Marner" using a blend of fairy-tale techniques, Dutch realism, and detailed narrative. Silas is portrayed as an outsider in Raveloe, misunderstood by villagers due to his mysterious background and occupation. Eliot employs vivid descriptions of village life and characters, presenting Silas as a complex figure affected by past traumas. The narrative follows a fairy-tale structure, with clear character arcs, emphasizing themes of trust and redemption.
Eliot uses some of the same techniques that the writers of fairy tales used, but she also uses a few other techniques. One of her techniques is Dutch realism. She uses this when she goes into great detail about village life and the lives of the townspeople.
Silas Marner is considered to be an outsider in Raveloe, despite the fact that he has been living there for fifteen years. Eliot describes what he does for a living and how the villagers don’t understand it. He is accosted and teased by the children, which makes him feel even more like an outsider.
Eliot uses the descriptive technique when painstakingly describing the town, the people, and Silas. One example of this is on page 11: “And Raveloe was a village where many of the old echoes lingered, undrowned by new voices.” On page 13, Eliot describes Silas Marner as
simply a...
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pallid young man, with prominent, short-sighted brown eyes, whose appearance would have nothing strange for people of average culture and experience, but for the villagers near whom he had come to settle it had mysterious peculiarities which corresponded with the exceptional nature of his occupation, and his advent from an unknown region called “North-’ard.”
The villagers know that Silas is an outsider, and they are suspicious about exactly where he is from.
The last technique that Eliot uses is narrative. Her main purpose is to tell the story of Silas Marner. Of course, in order to do that, she also must tell the story of some of the villagers.
All of these techniques are used by Eliot in the book Silas Marner.
The style of the narrative in Silas Marner is very similar to that employed by the narrator of a fairy tale. You have a clear beginning, middle, and end of each of the character's stories, and you can see how each has a direct effect in the storyline of the main character. Silas is portrayed like the banished, innocent victim turned cruel and angry over a series of events that are directly connected to special people in his life. His abrasive and selfish ways are realistic and yet semi-exaggerated ways to expose his main problem of trusting people and sharing what he had earned.
The ways that other characters are portrayed are also realistic but with characteristics almost too fairy-talish, such as, for example, the treason of William Dane, the shunning of Sarah, and all the other things people did to him unfairly. This is how Eliot employs her style to describe characters.