George Eliot’s Silas Marner

Gold completely consumes Silas’ life, but the spell is broken once Eppie enters his life. What is keeping him in isolation is his gold, “His gold, as he hung over it and saw it grow, gathered his power of loving together into a hard isolation like its own” (Eliot 40).21 Hoarding, counting, and loving his money restricts his heart to love. The following quote describes Silas’ metamorphosis from having a cold heart filled with gold to a heart dependent on human interaction, “Formerly, his heart had been as a locked casket with its treasure inside; but now the casket was empty, and the lock was broke. …And there was a slight stirring of expectation at the sight of his fellow men, a faint consciousness of dependence on their good will” (Eliot 81).22 Dunsey stealing Silas’ gold is the biggest blessing in disguise. Silas’ heart does not have room for both his treasures: gold and Eppie. Silas’ change of heart “…also reveals that the human spirit within him is not quite dead” (Milne and Sisler).23 Silas permitting that “human spirit” to fill his heart again is the reason for his happiness in the end.

The wandering child Eppie who Silas first mistakes her glowing blonde locks as his stolen gold becomes Silas’ true source of happiness, “Eppie, of course, functions as the catalyst for the release of Silas’ energy” (Shuttleworth 90).24 The community of Raveloe helps Silas raise Eppie; in doing so, Silas “Under the influence of Eppie Silas moves beyond the “ever-repeated circle” of thought established by his gold to look for links and ties with his neighbours” (Shuttleworth 88).25 His first treasure, gold, never does not allow Silas to live a happy, fulfilled life as Eliot describes in the following quote,“… had asked that he should sit weavi...

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Holloway, John. “George Eliot.” The Victorian Sage Studies in Argument. New York: Norton, 1953. 111-153. Print.

Milne, Ira Mark and Sisler, Timothy, ed. “Silas Marner.” Novels for Students. Vol. 20. Detroit: Gale, 2005. 166-182. Print.

Shakespeare, William. Ed. Gayle Holste. Othello. New York: Barron’s, 2002. Print.

Shuttleworth, Sally. “Silas Marner: A dividend Eden.” George Eliot and Nineteenth-Century Science The Make-Believe of a Beginning. London: Cambridge UP, 1984. 78-95. Print.

“Silas Marner.” 1,300 Critical Evaluation of Selected Novels and Plays: Offprints of All the New Material from the 12-volume Revised Edition of Masterplots. Ed. Frank N. Magil. Vol. Four. Englewood Cliffs: Salem, 1978. 2073-074. Print.

Thale, Jerome. “George Eliot’s Fable for Her Times: Silas Marner.” The Novels of George Eliot. New York: Columbia UP, 1959. 58-69. Print.