WORLD UNIVERSITY OF BANGLADESH

BA (Hon’s) in English

Date of Submission: 15.02.20

Name: S.M Sakib Ullah

Id: 1365

Batch: 41(A)

Name of Department: English

Course Name: 19th Century Literature - 2

Course Teacher Name: Faisal Ahmed

Course Code: ENG-416

Gold and money are the substitutes for love and companionship in the life of Silas Marner.

Silas was once a relatively happy man. He was well-known in his town of Lantern Yard, had a
strong standing in his church, was engaged to be married, and enjoyed his life fully

Then, tragedy struck. Silas was framed by his so-called best friend, William Dane, and accused
of robbery. The sadness that accompanied the accusation was made worse when Dane also
takes Marner's fiancée from him, prompting Silas to leave town a broken man.

Once in Raveloe, he discovers that the grief of the events of Lantern Yard were superficially
soothed by working long hours and collecting the fruits of his labor. To Silas, money was not as
important in Lantern Yard. He used it for the typical comforts of any citizen who works for a
living. Since none of the daily happenings that filled his life existed anymore, however, money
and gold became the substitutes of love and companionship that he really missed so much.

Chapter 2 tells us as much when it asks the question of what the guineas really meant to Silas.

"It was pleasant to him to feel them in his palm, and look at their bright faces, which were all
his own: it was another element of life, like the weaving and the satisfaction of hunger,
subsisting quite aloof from the life of belief and love from which he had been cut off."

This is the evidence that money and gold were essentially substitutes of joy in the new life of
Silas, one which was lonely and lacked the velocity of his life in Lantern Yard.

Hence, the former "purpose" that propelled Silas to live day by day is no longer there, and he
needs a way to make up for the emptiness he feels in his life.

Finally, notice how money and gold also seem to move Silas away from his gloomy depression
—or at least that is what he thinks. In a metaphorical way, Eliot explains that the money and
gold shine in the darkness. This is an allusion to the state of mind of Silas, and of the false sense
of joy that these material possessions bring him.

"Silas walked homeward across the fields in the twilight, he drew out the money and thought it
was brighter in the gathering gloom."