Silas Marner

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Silas Marner

George Eliot the pseudonym of Mary Anne Evans was born in

Warwickshire, England in 1819. Eliot was one of the finest realists of

Victorian fiction and produced a remarkable range of intellectual

novels throughout her life, including the moral fable of Silas Marner.

The 19th Century was an extremely patriarchal period, which Mary Anne

Evans had to pen her name as George Eliot, otherwise her novels would

not be published. George Eliot was a critic of the Victorian society

in which she lived, and which she felt remarkably hypocritical in its

treatment of her, as an intelligent, freethinking woman, who lived

with a man to whom she was not married. She wrote in numerous ways

affectionately but realistically of rural life, which she frequently

compared positively to the life of the town. The Industrial Revolution

seemed to Eliot and to many other social critics to threaten the

natural human and community ties which were the basis of a happy life

and this underlies the action of Silas Marner despite seldom being

seen or directly referred to. Eliot is a more severe novelist of

organized religion, particularly in Lantern Yard. She brings many

themes into the novel such as religion, custom, social change and

superstition.

The effect of the Napolenic war meant that landowners could earn

significant amounts of money from farming, since prices for crops

remained high and so it is clear to see why there were none to keen

for the war to terminate.

Silas Marner is the protagonist of the tale, when ostracised from

Lantern Yard and church after being falsely accused of embezzlement.

Silas Marner is a fable, a story with a mor...

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... make up for the wrong his

brother had done to the weaver in stealing his gold. Mr Macey

explained how right he always had been about Silas, and the return of

his money. The villagers while waiting for the feast consider the

blessings that Silas had brought on himself by taking Eppie in. His

patience had been rewarded, his gold restored, his daughter preferring

him to her blood father and now Silas had son to help care for him in

his retirement. The once outcast weaver was now a respected and

well-loved family man:

The garden was fenced with stones on two sides, but in front there was

an open fence, through which the flowers shone with answering

gladness, as the four united people came within sight of them. ' O

father', said Eppie, 'what a pretty home ours is! I think nobody could

be happier than we are´. (p.237)

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