Silas Marner

“He loved the guineas best, but he would not change the silver—the crowns and the half-crowns that were his own earnings, begotten by his labor: he loved them all.”

Silas loves his money on a metaphorical level. He does not need the money to survive, as he barely spends anything on his own pleasure. He has no family and no financial responsibilities. The money functions as a symbolic validation of his desire to remain isolated. As he counts the coins, he feels justified for living on the periphery of the community. The money becomes a replacement for companionship, one that is easier to understand for a loner like Silas.

“And the poor thoughts that the rich were entirely in the right of it to lead a jolly life.”

The town of Raveloe is bountiful and thriving, but the social order is staid and beginning to fester. While the poor, working-class residents do not currently resent the rich elite of the town because they respect Squire Cass, the Squire’s unimpressive sons are set to remind the populace that there is an innate unfairness to the social hierarchy of Raveloe. The “jolly life” is a way for an immoral man like Dunsey to do as he pleases while exploiting the working-class people (26). With radical social change on the horizon during this time, the novel sets the stage for the challenge of contemporary social hierarchies by illustrating the burgeoning resentment toward generational wealth and power.

“He knocked loudly, rather enjoying the idea that the old fellow would be frightened at the sudden noises.”

Already thinking about Silas’s gold, Dunsey’s aggressive knock takes on a subtly nefarious meaning. Dunsey hopes to scare and intimidate the weaver, just as he is about to cajole him into loaning a large sum of money in an unfair arrangement. He takes pleasure in causing pain to other people, particularly those who are beneath him in the social order. Dunsey delights in his loud knock because he can intimidate a poor person and take pleasure in their fear.

“His loom, as he wrought in it without ceasing, had in its turn wrought on him, and confirmed more and more the monotonous craving for its monotonous response.”

The more Silas works on his loom, the more the loom works on him. The work becomes addictive, giving his life a purpose that he does not find in social interactions. As such, the time he spends weaving compounds. The more Silas feels alone, the more he uses his loom. The more he uses his loom, the more he feels alone, and so the cycle continues.

“Here Mr. Macey paused: he always gave his narrative in installments, expecting to be questioned as according to precedent.”

Mr. Macey is a key figure in the local community and, as one of the eldest, he is accorded a certain amount of respect as per his status. This respect is part of an elaborate and repeated performance. Each time the same story is told, he pauses to accept the familiar questions. The cadence of the conversation is the same, a recurrence of a time-honored event that venerates the status quo as much as it entertains.

“The slight suspicion with which his hearers at first listened to him gradually melted away before the convincing simplicity of his distress.”

Silas has spent most of his time in Raveloe as an outsider. Compared to many other working-class residents, he is considered wealthy. This wealth and his outsider status have made him an unsympathetic figure to others. When he tells a story about losing his gold, however, he elicits their sympathy. Suffering endears Silas to his neighbors far more than his attempts to reach out in a positive manner. A negative experience seems more likely to bind together social ties than a positive experience.

“Moreover, he had a swarthy foreignness of complexion which boded little honesty.”

Silas was a pariah in Raveloe, largely because he was from Northern England. However, his loss has endeared him to the local residents. The irony of this endearment is that, in seeking to recontextualize Silas as a familiar resident, the people of Raveloe search for another foreign person to blame. The crime was committed by a person from Raveloe, but the village residents are keen to blame all negative behavior on someone from outside the village. This concerted effort to blame an unfamiliar foreign “other” for a crime binds together the people and validates their community bonds in opposition to whatever is outside the village.

“There’s been a cursed piece of ill luck with Wildfire.”

Godfrey’s meek confession to his father is incomplete and submissive. He uses the passive voice, attributing the death of his prized horse to the machinations of fate rather than the direct result of his own behavior. Godfrey and Dunsey have worked together to bring about their misfortune, even if Godfrey was often cajoled by his brother. Godfrey’s inability to take responsibility for his actions is evident in the evasive and pathetic nature of his confession, which is half-hearted at best.

“Not if I turned a good fellow and gave up everything you didn’t like?”

Godfrey’s plea to Nancy demonstrates an insistence that he can become a man who she could love. Contained within the plea, however, is a confession. By insisting that he can one day be a “good fellow,” Godfrey is admitting that he does not currently consider himself to be good (120). His guilty conscience slips out through his words, subtly proclaiming to the world that he believes himself to be morally compromised.

“While Godfrey Cass was taking draughts of forgetfulness from the sweet presence of Nancy […] Godfrey’s wife was walking with slow uncertain steps through the snowcovered Raveloe lanes, carrying her child in her arms.”

The actions of Godfrey and Molly operate in opposition. While he wants to forget about his secret marriage, she wants to remind him of it. While she walks toward the dance, he is already there. While he is warm and indoors, she is stuck in the cold outside. While Molly is burdened by her addiction and her child, Godfrey wants to shed himself of all responsibilities. The juxtaposition between Godfrey and Molly illustrates the unsuitability and the tragedy of their marriage.

“Gold!—his own gold—brought back to him as mysteriously as it had been taken away!”

Through his blurred vision, Silas believes that his gold has mysteriously returned to him. He spots the golden shape before him and hopes that this is his treasure. In a figurative sense, he is correct, even if he does not yet know it. Eppie will prove more valuable to Silas than any amount of gold he could ever learn. His first impression of her is therefore metaphorically correct, as she is a treasure that has been mysteriously ushered into his life by forces he cannot comprehend.

“Godfrey felt a great throb; there was one terror in his mind at that moment; it was that the woman might not be dead.”

Godfrey may believe that he is the victim in his marriage, but his thoughts immediately after learning that his wife is dead suggest otherwise. The only fear he feels is the fear that Molly may survive. He benefits from her death to the point where he subconsciously hopes that she will not live so that he can escape an awkward situation and marry another woman. He prefers his own convenience over the life of his wife and the mother of his child. Godfrey is convinced that he is a victim but he only ever has his own self-interest at heart.

“It’s a lone thing—and I’m a lone thing.”

The way in which Silas immediately identifies with the orphaned girl is illustrated by his choice of words. He refers to the child as “it” rather than a girl or boy (134). He dehumanizes the child, but only because he sees so much of himself in her situation. They are both lone things, discarded pieces of social detritus that have little value to the community. Silas views the child as he views himself, which is his best argument as to why the child should remain with him rather than going to anyone else.

“He was quite unable, by means of anything he heard or saw, to identify the Raveloe religion with his old faith.”

The regional differences in the practice of religion in Victorian England emphasize the differences between Silas and the people of Raveloe. To him, the local religion seems alien and absurd. To Silas, religion is an oppressive necessity that demands large portions of his wages and rules his life through guilt and fear. He sees none of this in the local Raveloe religion, yet he struggles to shed the pain of his past experiences and bring himself to attend the local church. His “old faith” is a burning issue in his past (141).

“As the child’s mind was growing into knowledge, his mind was growing into memory.”

As he sees Eppie grow up, Silas is forced to reckon with his past. The presence of a growing child is a reminder of the passage of time and an indication of how much has changed in his life since he left Lantern Yard. To Silas, Eppie is a living catalyst for his reflection. Whereas his work allowed him to distract himself, Eppie prompts him to willingly look backwards, comfortable in the knowledge that his present situation is much more tolerable. Only a happy Silas could examine the pain of his past, and only Eppie could make him happy enough to do this.

“Godfrey had ceased to see the shadow of Dunsey across his path.”

Dunsey may be gone in a physical sense, but he leaves behind a legacy of shame for his brother. Godfrey is free to indulge his desires; he can marry Nancy and inherit his father’s fortune without his brother’s scheming. Every time he sees Eppie in the village, however, he is forced to reckon with his shameful actions and Dunsey’s role in those actions. Godfrey may be able to do as he pleases, but he will not truly be free of Dunsey until the truth of his past is known.

“Nobody was jealous of the weaver, for he was regarded as an exceptional person, whose claims on neighborly help were not to be matched in Raveloe.”

The novel charts the progress of Silas’s social integration into the Raveloe community. By this time, he is highly regarded and esteemed by the local people. Importantly, this esteem has not been achieved through social outreach or fraternizing so much as it has been achieved by hard work, suffering, and sacrifice. Losing his money and then raising an orphaned girl has shown a willingness to endure for others that has raised Silas’s character in the eyes of his neighbors. He has benefited from his own sacrifice, turning the novel into an instructive tale on the importance of hard work, dedication, and penance.

“Dolly was too useful a woman not to have many opportunities of illumination of the kind she alluded to, and she was not long before she recurred to the subject.”

Dolly has an important utility in Silas’s life. She is not an educated woman, but her hard-earned rural wisdom is a foundation on which Silas can build his redemption. She provides him with common sense and calmness at difficult times. When he admits to struggling with his past, she offers her support in this fashion and allows him to eventually build up the courage to examine his trauma in greater detail. Dolly helps Silas in her unique and quiet way.

“Her mind not being courted by a great variety of subjects, she filled the vacant moments by living inwardly, again and again, through all her remembered experience.”

Nancy has married Godfrey, and she is now a wealthy woman. The irony of her wealth is that it affords her more time to reflect on her sadness. While characters like Silas are able to distract themselves from their pain with hard work, Nancy has nothing else to do but sit and think about her own pain. The lives of the wealthy are not idealized; their status and privilege forces them to look inwards more often and reckon with their mistakes and regrets.

“To adopt a child, because children of your own had been denied you, was to try and choose your lot in spite of providence.”

Nancy does not want to interfere in the divine machinations of fate. To her, adoption is an arrogant act of defiance, choosing to spite God’s will out of a selfish desire to have a child. She believes this until she learns about her husband’s immoral past, which demonstrates to her how little she understands of the moral complexity of the world around her. Her religious views are rigid and sincere, but she is eventually willing to recognize her own limitations.

“Everything comes to light, Nancy, sooner or later.”

The discovery of Dunsey’s skeleton has symbolic meaning for Godfrey. Just as the skeleton is revealed to the world, he fears that his own mistakes will inevitably be revealed. Despite this apparent fear, he does not tell the world about what he has done. Godfrey talks loudly about his concern for his actions but regularly backtracks from taking any meaningful action.

“She doesn’t look like a strapping girl come of working parents.”

In his confession to Eppie, Godfrey reveals his belief that social class is somehow innate. Eppie was raised by an opium-addict mother and an inexperienced weaver; at no time has she believed that she is somehow related to the upper classes. Godfrey has convinced himself that his daughter has an air of superiority, however. He is desperate to believe this, as it would mean that he has a meaningful connection with the girl that he has abandoned. Eppie’s rejection of Godfrey is not just a rejection of his status as her father, but as her fellow member of the elite.

“I shall put it in my will—I think I shall put it in my will.”

Godfrey went to Eppie because he was concerned that the truth about her parentage might one day be revealed. This fear was short-lived. After an initial failure, he abandons all his plans to take responsibility for his actions. Instead, he delegates this responsibility to anyone who outlives him. Godfrey will confess in his will, meaning that the truth will only be revealed when there is nothing that he will have to do about it. He confesses in the most meaningless way, ensuring that he will face no consequences for his actions.