Ideas the Writer Conveys Through Silas Marner

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Ideas the Writer Conveys Through Silas Marner

The writer of Silas Marner, George Elliot was born Mary Ann Evans in

1819 in Warwickshire. She had two older siblings, Christiana and Isaac

who she got on especially well with. She also had two stepsiblings

from her father's first marriage. She was a precocious child and was

sent to boarding school with her sister where she suffered from

homesickness and nightmares. At the age of nine she began being taught

by a strict evangelical Maria Lewis who greatly influenced Evan's

religious and moral beliefs. She had a very strong moral code.

When Mary was sixteen her mother died, and her father, whom she was

very close to, was left bringing her up. When her father died in 1849

she felt completely alone.

Mary Ann Evans wrote under the pen name George Elliot because of her

status (she was living with a married man) and she thought she

wouldn't get published if she were known to be a women.

She was a very intellectual woman and love and relationships were

important to her.

George Elliot wrote Silas Marner in 1861. It is a moral fable, not an

autobiographical novel but it is influenced by parts of Elliot's life

experience.

For example, in the character Eppie, she has created someone who must

live without a mother, as Elliot did from the age of sixteen.

Elliot was highly inspired by the works of the poet William

Wordsworth, and a quotation from his poem 'Michael', seems to be a

kind of basis to the novel.

In Silas Marner we are asked to take pity on a man who is outcasted by

society. Silas is set up by his friend and wrongly accused of theft

causing him to lose his faith in God and trust in people.

Silas Marner was born and brought up in the large northern industrial

town of Lantern Yard. The people living there are strictly religious

and hard working. It is community based around a church. Silas Marner

was a gentle young man with a pale face and "large brown protuberant

eyes" and a "defenceless, deer-like gaze." His appearance makes him

seem a very likeable and approachable character; he has "the

expression of trusting simplicity". He is a very trusting man and

honest man "Silas was both Sane and honest" and extremely hard working

but he is also naïve and vulnerable and his cataleptic fits make him

even more vulnerable to criticism and accusations. His best friend

William Dane, used in the story as a contract to Silas, on the other

hand is arrogant and conceited. He has 'menacing' "narrow slanting

eyes" and "compressed lips".

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