George Eliot - Silas Marner

Silas Marner spends his days weaving for the village-folk of Raveloe, weaving and saving, hiding his money in leather bags in the floor of his home. At nights, he counts the money, tinkling it between his hands, memorising the increasing total. He spends little, and has no friends or family. His life consists of waiting to leave his life, an endless weave that seems to have no beginning and no end.

But Silas was not always a weaver. As a young man, he was engaged, and living in another town. But his best friend, William Dane, who was jealous of his good fortune and hopeful prospects, engendered a plan to strip Silas of everything he held dear. His hometown, convinced he was involved with the robbery of a senior deacon, accused him of theft and he was forced to leave. He stumbles upon Raveloe and begins to weave, and fifteen years past.

It is to George Eliot's credit that a story with such fairy tale qualities is so successful. From the very beginning we are made aware of character-types and ideas, with Silas being an innocent man wrongly accused, and then, as a weaver, a giant metaphor of toil and struggle in an unfair world. The townsfolk of Raveloe, as they are outlined, remain simply that - a thick line that purports to show the broad details of a person, but in no way offers the subtle shading that makes a character come to life and become a person. But this is to the story's credit, for we are not interested so much in depth of character and complexity of situation, as we are in the constant weaving, the endless sadness, of Silas Marner's self-imposed exile.

While we learn of Marner's new life as a hoarder, a miser, a weaver, we come to see other characters and situations. There is a young man, Godfrey, who is running out of money and seeks a desperate measure to fix his worries. There is his father, who disapproves of his life and choices. One New Year's, the two stories intersect, and after Silas is robbed of all his money, a young girl, blonde and innocent and nameless, is found on his doorstep. Her mother, an opium addict, is discovered nearby, frozen to death. A father, if there is one, does not step forward.

Here, Eliot allows us to know the secret well before Silas or Eppie, his newly christened adopted daughter. Godfrey is the father, and it is a secret he carries with him well past necessary. His duplicitous action is flagged at a very early stage, which sets in our mind the idea that a comeuppance, or a truth revealing set piece, is somewhere along the line. Because this is known - for what fairy tale does not, in the end, end in goodness and retribution and justice for those who deserve it? - we are able to enjoy the experience of Silas as he becomes a good father, and learns how to love.

In a sense, the themes surrounding Silas are trite and over-used. The idea of a sad, lonely man discovering the beauty of the world again through love, is nothing new. Yet Eliot's mastery of character and evocation of place allow us to sail along with Silas as he sheds the hard carapace of armour that he has placed around himself. He becomes, as we do, devoted to Eppie. She is a caricature, a purely good and ultimately pure girl who, through the tutelage of her father, understands the meaning of love even where Godfrey, her real father, does not.

Eliot makes heavy use of dialect in Silas Marner. As a personal taste, I distinctly dislike dialect, because I find I spend more time translating what is being said than enjoying and understanding the character as they are presented. Yes, it can aid in characterisation and 'realism', but at what cost? Much like Wuthering Heights, several characters in Silas Marner were ruined for me, purely because I had to work so hard at what they were saying. And of course, upon figuring out their obscure words, I realised that they were saying nothing meaningful at all. A great disappointment, that.

Throughout, various characters are introduced and then pushed to the background, as needed by the story. When Silas is in difficulties concerning the raising of a child, a goodwife is found, Dolly Winthrop, who provides him with advice and stresses that the child must be christened. Later, a love interest is given to Eppie, because what happy ending does not finish with a wedding?

But these are minor quibbles. As a fairy tale, Silas Marner excels. There are good people done wrong, and bad people who come right in the end. There is a happy - or mostly happy - ending for everyone who deserves it, and a few that don't. But more than that, there is the construction of a wholly sympathetic man, and that is Silas Marner himself. Eliot does not stray down an easy route with him - when he becomes a miser, there is sadness, not avarice, in our minds as we sympathise.

This novel is considered minor Eliot; it is not hard to fault that estimation. Middlemarch is a towering literary achievement, whereas Silas Marner is merely a single flower in a garden of like experiments with words. But what flower does not deserve to be smelled, at least once?

See Also

The list of British authors under review

Links

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