Great Classics: Silas Marner

Silas Marner (1861) is George Eliot's shortest novel. It tells the story of a lonely weaver in the town of Raveloe in the early 1800s.

Silas is a foreigner in the community. In his home town of Lantern Yarn, he had been a prominent member of a dissenting church until he is set up by a friend and falsely accused of stealing. When he settles in the village of Raveloe he leads a lonely existence until one night Dunstan Cass, son of a squire, steals his gold thus unleashing a series of events that will change his life.

When Silas announces that someone has stolen his life's savings, the village people rally around him and everyone starts seeing him in a different, more positive light. Soon after the theft, while all the prominent people, including Dunstan's brother Godfrey, are at a New Year's party, a stranger woman who is on her way to the village with her baby girl dies in the snow. The woman, called Molly, who we learn is addicted to opium is Godfrey's secret wife and the baby is his daughter. Silas finds them both and takes the baby to the party in search of a doctor. Even when he recognises the baby as his daughter and Molly as his wife, Godfrey does not own up to this and keeps it a secret for years while Silas raises the baby girl as his own. He names her Eppie (short for Hephzibah, his deceased sister's name).

16 years later, Dunstan is found dead and Silas gold is retrieved and return to its owner. Dunstan had died on the night he stole it. This discovery prompts Godfrey to confess his secret to his wife Nancy. The couple decide to go and see Silas and Eppie to reveal the truth and to propose they adopt the girl. Eppie is shocked to hear this and refuses to be adopted as she feels Silas to be her rightful father and does not want that to change. The novel ends with Eppie marrying Arron Winthrop.

This is a moral tale or rather an educating tale where love, loyalty and roots are important values. The reader will noticed that Silas is not a Christian, he does not celebrate Christmas or recognise Jesus. He will remain unconverted throughout the book. In fact, he changes very little, it is rather others' perceptions of him that gradually change after his gold is stolen and fatefully 'replaced' by an orphaned child.