Silas Marner, by George Eliot

Silas Marner, while it’s a story written in the 1800’s in a rudimentary society with backward concepts and inverted beliefs, its still is story that readers can relate in a personal part of their lives. Isolation and rejection, salvation and forgiveness, there all themes which occur regardless of time period. Despite that some characters struggle with certain themes more than others its allows the audience to come to the understanding about the authors purpose.

“Silas Marner is not unworthy of the reputation already acquired...” In the following review titled the “Athenaeum” the critic principally evaluates the characterization and setting in the novel Silas Marner. Within the first sentences the critic begins to detonate upon the idea that it is astonishing that Eliot was able to create a novel in which there was an absence of any “exciting or painful interest”, yet the audience still is captivated by the truth of reality expressed by the character actions. They then further expressed this by then discussing how the characters were firmly drawn, and “worked up from within”, instead of the mere semblance being given. Making the exact observations while reading, I thought with similar ideas. Along with being impressed with how Eliot managed to entertain her readers without the classic “conflict-resolution” layout, that can most commonly be used to describe English literature, I also noticed how the characters specifically seemed to make a personal appeal. Such as, characters like Silas and Dolly did in fact seem “firm” and real, obviously seeming to be derived from the very being of the author herself.

Next the critic makes an interesting point, prior to my reading of this, invisible. They state how within the context of the s...

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...fact an almost flawless piece of work. The plot, a human problem involved an influence of a child upon a bitter, isolation, recluse of a man who is seemingly unfortunate to say the least. He is physically weak, intellectually was near nobody as he could near be, and lost a religion that was narrow from the start. All redeemed by this little child, or as Fairley says the under plot.

In my final and concluding source, I used Robert B. Heilman, and American educator and critic who has written extensively on English drama and fiction. He begins by not directly jumping into the criticism, but describing how the book is regarded along with other pieces of Eliot’s. He then makes a gentle transition to into the plot line of Silas Marner. He makes a point that in all of Eliot’s novels there is the presence of ethical problems, “derived from her early evangelical training”.