International Journal of English

and Literature (IJEL)

ISSN(P): 2249-6912; ISSN(E): 2249-8028
Vol. 7, Issue 3, Jun 2017, 17-20
TJPRC Pvt. Ltd.

SILAS MARNER AS A NOVEL OF HUMAN RELATIONS

A. KARTHIKA UNNITHAN
Research Scholar, Thrissur, Kerala, India
ABSTRACT

Silas Marner (1861), is interesting among George Eliot's compositions for its curtness and its evident
symbolic lucidity. The narrative of Marner's ejection from society and his inevitable recovery through the
adoration for a tyke, Eppie, has intense Biblical and mythic resonances. It additionally communicates parts of
Eliot's own life as an innovative craftsman in a few fascinating ways. Moreover, the novel strikes a deal
between the reasonable and the incredible in its delineation of town life and culture in nineteenth-century
England. In spite of the fact that Eliot investigated this mixing of imagination and authenticity somewhere
else in her vocation, she never executed it so completely as in Silas Marner. In Marner Eliot was "push" into
a setting that had demonstrated to a great degree effective for her before: poor town life in country England.
This is an indistinguishable general Midland foundation from in her two past books, Adam Bede (1859) and
The Mill on the Floss (1860), both of which had been runaway successes.

Original Article
KEYWORDS: Eliot, Marner, Life, England, Novel, Religion, Industrialisation, Family, Class & Human-
Relations

Received: Mar 29, 2017; Accepted: Apr 17, 2017; Published: Apr 25, 2017; Paper Id.: IJELJUN20173

INTRODUCTION

An ostensibly basic story of a material weaver, it is prominent for its solid authenticity and its complex
treatment of an assortment of issues going from religion to industrialisation to community. The significant topic of
Silas Marner is the impact of "immaculate, normal human connections," however there are a few others. One of
these topics is the capacity of religion in the public eye. Another is the utilization of custom and convention. There
is a more straightforward thought, concentrated on Nancy, of the degree to which "standard" ought to prevail over
sensitivity in human connections. This is firmly associated with the topic of liberality versus teach in human life, as
exemplified by the home existence of Godfrey and of Nancy. One such in Silas Marner is the impact of
industrialisation on English society in the nineteenth century. Lantern Yard after the production line has been
constructed is a dirty, dull place brimming with unfortunate individuals. There is a sharp difference between the
dismal antagonism of Lantern Yard and the group soul of Raveloe, between Silas' life (compared to that of a
turning creepy crawly) and the natural demeanor of the open fields. In Silas Marner, Eliot consolidates imagery
with a verifiably exact setting to make a story of adoration and expectation. On one level, the book has a solid good
tract: the awful character, Dunstan Cass, gets his appropriate recompense, while the pitiable character, Silas
Marner, is at last luxuriously remunerated, and his stinginess revised. The novel investigates the issues of
redemptive love, the idea of group, the part of religion, the status of the upper class and family, and effects of
industrialisation. While religion and religious commitment have a solid impact in this content, Eliot worries about

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18 A. Karthika Unnithan

matters of morals and association of confidence and community. Silas' loss of religious confidence reviews Eliot's own
particular battle with her confidence, and the novel's setting in the vanishing English farmland mirrors Eliot's worry that
England was quick getting to be noticeably industrialized and generic. The novel's worry with class and family can in like
manner be connected back to Eliot's own particular life. The voice of the novel's storyteller can in this way, to some
degree, be viewed as Eliot's own particular voiceone tinged with slight haughtiness, however attached to the setting and
altogether sympathetic with the characters. In spite of the fact that Silas Marner is it could be said an exceptionally
individual novel for Eliot, its treatment of the topics of confidence, family, and class has regardless given it all inclusive
interest, particularly at the season of distribution, when English society and organizations were experiencing fast change.

Silas Marner is in one sense the tale of the title character, yet it is likewise particularly about the group of Raveloe
in which he lives. A significant part of the novel's emotional compel is produced by the pressure amongst Silas and the
general public of Raveloe. Silas, who goes from being an individual from a tight-weave group to absolutely alone and after
that back once more, is an impeccable vehicle for Eliot to investigate the connection between the individual and the
encompassing community. In the mid nineteenth century, a man's town was immeasurably imperative, giving the sole
wellspring of material and enthusiastic support. The idea of interconnectedness and support inside a town goes through the
novel, in such cases as the area's altruistic recompense for the injured, the gift of scraps from the Squire's banquets to the
town's poor, and the villagers who drop by Silas' cabin after he is ransacked.

The people group likewise furnishes its individuals with an organized feeling of character. We see this feeling of
personality play out in Raveloe's open social occasions. At both the Rainbow and the Squire's move, association is
ritualized through a common comprehension of every individual's social class and place in the group. As an untouchable,
living separated from this social structure, Silas at first does not have any feeling of this character. Not ready to
comprehend Silas with regards to their group, the villagers consider him to be interesting, in regards to him with a blend of
dread and interest. Silas is contrasted with a nebulous vision both when he appears at the Rainbow and the Red House. To
be outside the group is to be something unnatural, even otherworldly. Though it takes fifteen years, the impact of the group
of Raveloe does in the end saturate Silas' life. It does as such by means of Godfrey's issues, which discover their way into
Silas' cabin first as Dunsey, on the other hand in Eppie. Eliot recommends that the interconnectedness of group is not
something one fundamentally goes into deliberately, nor something one can even evade. As far as social standing, Silas
and Godfrey are very a long way from each other: though Silas is a questioned untouchable, Godfrey is the town's brilliant
kid, the beneficiary of its most unmistakable family. By plaiting together the destinies of these two characters and
demonstrating how whatever is left of the town ends up noticeably embroiled too, Eliot depicts the obligations of group at
their most certain and pervasive. The plot of Silas Marner appears to be unthinking now and again, as Eliot takes care to
give each character his or her appropriate reward. Dunsey bites the dust, the Squire's properties are isolated Godfrey wins
Nancy however winds up childless, and Silas lives cheerfully ever after with Eppie as the most appreciated man in
Raveloe. The orderliness of the novel's determination could possibly be totally trustworthy, yet it is a focal piece of Eliot's
objective to introduce the universe as ethically requested. Destiny, in the feeling of a higher power fulfilling and rebuffing
each character's activities, is a focal topic of the novel. For Eliot, our identity decides what we do, as well as what is done
to us.

About any character in the novel could fill in for instance of this ethical request, yet maybe the best representation
is Godfrey. Godfrey as a rule implies well, yet is unwilling to make penances for what he knows to be correct. At a certain

Impact Factor (JCC): 5.9876 NAAS Rating: 3.12

Silas Marner as a Novel of Human Relations 19

point Godfrey gets himself really trusting that Molly beyond words, his consistent faltering have supported him into so
tight a corner that his considerations have turned out to be genuinely repulsive and merciless. Be that as it may, all through
the novel Eliot keeps up that Godfrey is not an awful individualhe has just been traded off by his inaction. Fittingly,
Godfrey winds up with a comparably traded off predetermination: in his marriage to Nancy he gets what he needs, just to
in the end achieve the disappointed conclusion that it is not what he needed all things considered. Godfrey winds up in this
unexpected circumstance not just on the grounds that he is meriting, but rather in light of the fact that traded off
contemplations and activities can't, in the ethical universe of Eliot's novel, have anything besides bargained results. In one
sense Silas Marner can be seen essentially as the tale of Silas' misfortune and recapturing of his confidence. In any case,
one could simply depict the novel as the account of Silas' dismissal and ensuing grasp of his group. In the novel, these
ideas of confidence and group are firmly connected. They are both human necessities, and they both nourish off of each
other. The people group of Lantern Yard is joined by religious confidence, and Raveloe is moreover presented as a place in
which individuals have a similar arrangement of superstitious convictions. In the regular English town, the congregation
worked as the transcendent social association. Along these lines, when Silas loses his confidence, he is confined from any
kind of bigger group.

The association amongst confidence and group lies in Eliot's nearby relationship of confidence in a higher
specialist with confidence in one's kindred man. Silas' recovered confidence varies from his previous Lantern Yard
confidence in critical ways. His previous confidence was construct most importantly in light of the possibility of God.
When he is unfairly accused of murder, he doesn't do anything to protect himself, confiding in an only God to demonstrate
his innocence. The confidence Silas recovers through Eppie is distinctive in that it is not even expressly Christian. Silas
does not say God similarly he did in Lantern Yard, yet constructs his confidence in light of the quality of his and Eppie's
dedication to each other. Silas' new confidence is a religion that one may envision Eliot herself embracing after her own
break with formalized Christianity. It is a more individual confidence than that of Lantern Yard, in which individuals
passionately and superstitiously credit extraordinary causes to occasions with clear causes, for example, Silas' fits. It could
be said, Silas' new conviction is the inverse of his prior, short sighted world view in that it protects the place of riddle and
equivocalness. Instead of working only as a heavenly substitute, Silas' confidence solaces him even with the things that
don't sound good to him. Also, as Dolly brings up, Silas' is a religious on helping other people and confiding in others to do
likewise. Both Dolly's and particularly Silas' confidence comprises of a faith in the decency of other individuals as much as
a thought of the perfect. Such a confidence is along these lines inseparably connected to the obligations of group. All
through the novel, Eliot draws on the normal world for some pictures and similitudes. Silas specifically is frequently
contrasted with plants or creatures, and these pictures are utilized to follow his movement from detached introvert to very
much adored father figure. As he sits alone weaving close to the begin of the novel, Silas is compared to a creepy crawly,
singular and marginally unpropitious. Soon after he is victimized, Silas is contrasted with a subterranean insect that
discovers its standard way obstructeda picture of constraint and perplexity, additionally of hunting down an answer.
Afterward, as Silas starts to contact whatever is left of the town, his spirit is compared to a plant, not yet growing but rather
with its sap starting to circle. At long last, as he raises Eppie, Silas is depicted as "unfurling" and "trembling into full
cognizance," symbolism bringing out both the transformation of a creepy crawly and the blossoming of a bloom. This
nature symbolism additionally underlines the preindustrial setting of the novel, helping us to remember a period in England
when the characteristic world was a greater piece of day by day life than it was after the Industrial Revolution. For the
most part, the occasions of Silas Marner occur in two homes, Silas' bungalow and the Cass family. The novel's two key

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20 A. Karthika Unnithan

occasions are interruptions into Silas' residential space, first by Dunsey and after that by Eppie. Eliot utilizes the home as a
marker of the condition of its proprietor. At the point when Silas is disconnected and without confidence, his cabin is
depressing and stopped from the outside world. As Silas opens himself up to the group, we see that his entryway is all the
more often open and he has a constant flow of guests. At long last, as Silas and Eppie turn into a family, the bungalow is lit
up and loaded with new life, both metaphorically and as strict upgrades and renovations to the house and yard. Similarly,
the Cass family unit moves from messy and "wifeless" under the Squire to spotless and welcoming under Nancy. Raveloe,
as the majority of nineteenth-century English society, is sorted out along strict lines of social class. This social chain of
command is encoded from numerous points of view: the structures characters use to address each other, their propensities,
even where they sit at get-togethers. While the Casses are not respectability, as landowners they sit on Raveloe's social
pecking request, while Silas, an untouchable, is at its base. In any case, Silas turns out to be the preferred man over his
social bosses. Likewise, in Eppie's view, the basic existence of the average workers is desirable over that of the landed
class. Eliot is gifted in demonstrating how class impacts the reasoning of her characters, from Dunsey's concept of Silas as
just a wellspring of income sans work to Godfrey and Nancy's thought that, as higher-class landowners, their claim to
Eppie is more grounded than Silas's. Silas' linger encapsulates huge numbers of the novel's significant topics. On a strict
level, the linger is Silas' employment and wellspring of salary. The degree to which Silas' fixation on cash twists his
character is physically exemplified by the bowed edge and restricted visual perception he creates because of such a variety
of hours at the linger. The linger additionally foretells the happening to industrializationthe linger is a machine in a
period and place when most work was nonmechanical, identified with cultivating and creature farming. Moreover, the
linger, always in movement yet never going anyplace, epitomizes the endless however constant nature of Silas' work and
life. At last, the way toward weaving capacities as an illustration for the making of a group, with its numerous entwined
strings, and augurs the path in which Silas will unite the town of Raveloe. The place where Silas was brought up in a tight-
sew religious organization, Lantern Yard is a group of confidence, held together by a limited religious conviction that Eliot
recommends is construct more in light of superstition than any kind of objective thought. Light Yard is the main group
Silas knows, and after he is banned, he can't locate any comparative group in Raveloe. All through the novel Lantern Yard
works as an image of Silas' past, and his slow dealing with what occurred there signs his otherworldly defrost. At the point
when Silas at last backpedals to visit Lantern Yard, he finds that the whole neighbourhood has vanished, and nobody
recalls that anything of it. An expansive industrial facility remains in the spot where the house of prayer once stood. This
vanishing exhibits the troublesome energy of industrialization, which obliterates custom and eradicates memory. Similarly,
this break with the past signs that Silas has at long last possessed the capacity to move past his own disillusioning history,
and that his prior loss of confidence has been supplanted with freshly discovered purpose. The hearth speaks to the
physical focal point of the family unit and symbolizes the majority of the solaces of home and family. Even in an open
place, for example, the Rainbow, one's significance is measured by how close one sits to the fire. At first, Silas offers his
hearth with nobody, in any event not purposefully. Be that as it may, the two gatecrashers who always show signs of
change Silas' life, first Dunsey and afterward Eppie, are drawn out of severe climate by the enticing light of Silas' fire.
Silas' cabin can never be altogether separate from the outside world, and the light of Silas' fire draws in both adversity and
recovery. At last, it is Silas' hearth that feels the glow of family, while Godfrey's is childless.

REFERENCES

1. Eliot, George. Silas Marner. New York: Washington Square Press, 1948.

2. Hardy, Barbara Nathan, ed. Critical Essays on George Eliot. London: Routledge & K. Paul, 1970.

Impact Factor (JCC): 5.9876 NAAS Rating: 3.12