Values In Silas Marner by George Eliot

Values In Silas Marner by George Eliot

Silas Marner by George Eliot is a novel about a man who loses

everything but gains more than he originally lost. First of all Silas

is accused of stealing church money and murdering the town deacon.

Silas expected God to clear him of the crime, but when the church

members drew lots, Silas was determined guilty and quite naturally

rejected by the Lantern Yard community. He is cast off by Sarah who he

was to marry and all that ends with Silas having no more trust in God;

he has nothing left at Lantern Yard so he leaves.

Silas makes money through weaving at Raveloe, he uses it as a

substitute for respect and friendliness. He hoards money in bags under

the hearth because he has no-one to share it with because he has

isolated himself from the Raveloe people and behaves very strangely

towards them which denies them any access to him.

He regularly takes his collection of gold coins out and has an

obsession with feeling them, counting them, stacking them but doesn't

like silver coins. "He spread them out in heaps and bathed his hands

in them." It is the only thing he has and accordingly he loves the

gold coins almost as if they were part of his family.

Dustan Cass, most of the time referred to as Dunsey, is a spendthrift,

perhaps because he is the son of the Squire. Every conversation Dunsey

has is about money, one of these reasons is because he cannot repay a

loan from his brother Godfrey and he cannot borrow any more from his

father. He blackmails Godfrey with the threat that he will tell of an

earlier marriage.

Dunsey sells Godfrey's horse, but then kills it due to his own

carelessness which is very much typical of his character. Then he

thinks of Silas's money and steals it but after convincing himself

that taking the money didn't matter because the reason that Silas

wasn't there was because he had fallen into the stone pit he