Silas Marner

[sawyl]

As part of my on-going journey through the works of George Eliot, I've just read Silas Marner, which skillfully blends a near-mythical plot with a strongly realist portrayal of peasant life in rural Warwickshire at the start of the 19th century. The novel, though short, is extremely affecting and deeply concerned with morality, religion and what it means to live a good life. Since these themes characterise Eliot's output as a whole, I suspect that Marner probably marks an ideal starting point for anyone coming to her books for the first time.

Silas Marner, a protestant weaver, has left the north and settled in the Midland village of Raveloe after being falsely accused of theft. His faith in God broken by the accusation, Marner lives alone and delights in nothing save the counting of the gold come to him through the exercise of his trade. When his gold is stolen one Christmas, Silas feels as though he has lost everything. But on New Year's Eve, good fortune provides him with a replacement: a foundling child, whom Silas feels obliged to raise as his own, with the gold of the child's hair replacing the literal gold of the lost money.

These two events transform Marner's position in the community. Prior to the robbery he is an outcast, feared by the local community who believe his knowledge of traditional herbal remedies and his cataleptic tendencies to be indicative of supernatural powers. However his responses in the face of his adversities allow his humanity to shine through, making him an object of pity. Thus, when the object of Silas' initial suspicion protests his innocence, Silas remembers his own experience of being falsely accused and recants, realising that there is no evidence to back his reflexive claim.

But it is Silas' compassion and believe in Providence when confronted with the abandoned child that truly redeem him. He finds himself drawn into village life for the first time, relying on the assistance of his neighbours and going to church in his determination to do the best for his adopted daughter. And in doing so, he discovers an ability to love and to be loved that completely transforms him; the scene in which Eppie, knowingly encountering her biological father for the first time, rejects him in favour of Silas Marner as her true father, is wonderfully touching.

Despite its brevity, Silas Marner shows many of the touches that distinguish Eliot's longer novels, although it lacks the intense and extended detail work of, say, Daniel Deronda. As ever, Eliot focuses on making her characters seem real and believable, rather than ideal and idealist. Thus the peasantry are gritty and course rather than pastoral and incipidly good natured, while the gentry, such a they are in Raveloe, aren't terribly refined and are shown as either too vacilating or too imperious in their conducts. As in Eliot's other works, much of the harm that is done occurs not because of evil intent but because of the weak nature of one or two of the characters. For although Dunsey is an out and out bad sort who causes direct harm, his actions — or at least his ability to act as he does — owe a great deal to his elder brother's lack of moral courage and inability to hold to an unpleasant course of action. Which means that when Godfrey does finally confront his past and make a full confession, it provides concrete proof of his moral growth.