“Silas Marner holds a higher place then any of the authors works. It is more nearly a masterpiece”. (Henry James)
“Silas marner” has been written by George Eliot a great female novelist of the Victorian age. She got her name and fame in writing novels as Emily Bronte achieved. Her novels are rich in the high quality of humour. It is neither farcical like that of Dickens nor bitter like that of Thackeray but is racy and realistic. Her other great novels are scenes from Clerical life, “Silas Marner”, Romola, Middle March, Daniel Deronda etc. She has also written some narrative verses and a collection of essays.
In ‘Silas Marner‘ George Eliot recalls the memories of her early life and surroundings. She described herself the story as both legendary and realistic. The theme of this novel has been presented in a narrative way. Author narrates about a character who is by nature a good man but has been subjected to disillusionment and such a man is Silas. At one time he had been one of the most pious man in the Methodist Chapel at Lantern yard. He was a poor cloth weaver. He was a member of a small religious community and resided in the shoe lane at Lantern yard. He also gained from his mother The knowledge of medicinal herbs. One day in Lantern yard his friend William Dane steals the arch-deacon’s money and he passes the blame on Silas. Falsely accused of stealing and confirming his guilt, he loses his faith in God and man and leaves for Raveloe.
Now Silas lives in Reveloe and he starts the profession Weaving. He did not even mingle with the villagers of Raveloe. Once Mrs. Osgood paid him five gold coins for her table cloth. The five bright gold coins brought him excessive joy. He removed some bricks of the floor and hid the coin in a iron pot and covered the place with bricks and sand and used to derive immense joy in handling the coins after his supper. It means after his supper he was counting it daily with the passage of time he garnered a lot of gold coins whom he used to hid under the surface.
One day, it was evening time. Silas had gone out and his cottage was empty. it was quite easy for Dunstan we steal the gold of Silas kept in the leather bags. Dustan decamped with his loot into the darkness of night. Silas returned to his cottage and finished his supper, applied himself to his routine of fondling his treasure. He was stunned to find the hole empty, where he kept his gold. He had his suspicion on Jem Rodney who was a poacher and used to move around his cottage but Jem protested his innocence. The theft of gold coins remained a mystery.
Suddenly, a new chapter begins in the life of Silas when he saw a child having golden hair. He took the child in his arms. He called the child Eppie in memory of his dead sister. Now he is able to recover his faith in the goodness in the world and become a happy citizen of Reveloe. Eppie’s love regenerates him. As Salas says to Eppie:
“Eh, my precious child, the blessing was mine. If you had not been sent to me, I should have gone to the grave in misery”.
Here, we can quote Dickens’s famous line it was the best of times.
To sum up we can say that it was George Eliot who by the strength of her skill and acumen could bring unity to the structure of their novel. Silas Marner had been pumped up with praise for its unified structure and for inter locking of the two stories. The action of the stories is defined by two narrative thread, the miserly weaver and the story of Cass family and their eldest son Godfrey. These two stories one of the Marner and other of Godfrey have not been closely woven. However, they seem to be compact and interlocking and the stories have been proved effective in unleashing the dominant theme of the novel. The novelist has not jumbled the two stories, rather the two stories are so nicely narrated that they seem to be one. What is more, the novelist has tried to use different symbols in this novel. The most obvious of the symbol is ‘gold’. Silas’ gold, guineas are important to him in the miserly and solitary phase of his life but unfortunately her gold is stolen. Later, he finds Eppie, the child with golden curls of hair. Symbolically Eppic replaces the gold and more.
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