Silas Marner Part 1

 Word Count: 258

Silas Marner by George Eliot

"To the peasants of old times, the world outside their own direct experience was a region of vagueness and mystery: to their untravelled thought a state of wandering was a conception as dim as the winter life of the swallows that came back with the spring;" (Eliot, 3).

"[W]hen he would have to bear the consequences of his father's violent resentment for the wound inflicted on his family pride - would have, perhaps, to turn his back on that hereditary ease and dignity which, after all, was a sort of reason for living," (Eliot, 27).

    Both of these quotations provide a description of the society in a small town during the early nineteenth century. The first quotation supplies people's views of outsiders. It lets the reader know how small and confined the people are to their homes. The narrator states that none one really travels during this time, and it was deemed strange if one did. They had no need to see the rest of their country - they had all they need in their town. This quotation also relates to a topic we spoke of when we read Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen - limitations in marriage selections. While Silas Marner was written in a different century, the point still remains true at this time. With no one new coming into the town and no one leaving, new and exciting matches are hard to come by.

    The second quotation relays the importance placed on family in the nineteenth century. Any mistake one makes could have massive repercussions for their entire family, especially families of wealth and importance. At this point in the novel, the firstborn child marries a woman of low status, and he is afraid to tell his father because he knows he might become outcasted from the family. This would leave him without money, and completely change his lifestyle. Situations like this one are told as stories to keep children in good behavior. We see an example of this in "Golbin Market" by Christina Rossetti, where Jeanie's story was told to keep Laura and Lizzie away from the goblins. 

Eliot, George. Silas Marner. Hertfordshire, Wordsworth, 1999.

Comments

  1. Kristen SassoMarch 4, 2021 at 7:16 AM

    When reading this book, I didn't see the connection to Pride and Prejudice but now I see the similarity after reading your blog. I agree how the first quote demonstrates the description of the town and the people in it. It shows that the town is more reserved and very small, and the people who live in the town stay strictly in that town.

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  2. UnknownMarch 31, 2021 at 6:38 PM

    I really liked the quotes you choose. When you are discussing about how people didn't really travel much back then. It really makes you realize the time period and how they could really go to many places. They mainly stayed within the town. I also didn't notice the connecti0n to Pride and Prejudice. Now seeing it through that perspective I can see all the connections.

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  3. Wendell EppsMarch 31, 2021 at 9:54 PM

    While Silas's character development plays a major role into the shape up of this story, I really like how you touched more on the actual setting of the area he moved to as well as how families in general were just very different back in the nineteenth century. You mentioned how they were never really out traveling anywhere. This could explain why they saw Silas as this weird person because they were only accustomed to seeing people of the same personality in the same town which is not how real life works. In addition, yes, families were hard to have back then because there were so many tough decisions to make and it was often hard to find true unity and love within a certain family because many marriages were forced. Lastly, I love how you connected your first quote to Pride and Prejudice and your second one to Goblin Market because it allowed me to further conceptualize how those texts were similar to this one and that a lot of the works we have read in class this semester really do all have very very similar messages just in different ways.

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