53 pages • 1 hour read
George EliotSilas Marner
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1861A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Character Analysis
Silas Marner
Silas Marner is the eponymous protagonist of the novel, but he does not fit the conventional mold of a hero. He is introduced to the reader as an outsider, a man on the periphery of one community who has already been unjustly exiled from another. Silas is a skilled weaver, allowing him to maintain his solitude, but he is not exceptional in any other way. He is not particularly strong, intelligent, or courageous; he is simply a man who has lost his faith in community, in religion, and in his fellow man. Silas arrives in the narrative at his nadir, at a moment of complete disillusionment with society, and, over the course of the novel, he gradually finds something worth living for. He tries to find meaning in his life through work and money, only to lose everything. Only when a little girl accidently stumbles into his home does Silas learn that life is worth living.
Despite the changes to Silas’s character, there are a number of fundamental qualities that remain the same throughout the novel. He is an honest man and a hard worker. These qualities are important, especially in the context of his faith and his social status. Silas’s experiences cause him to lose his religion. He does not attend church or chapel for more than a decade after being exiled from Lantern Yard. Despite this lack of religion, he remains a hard worker. He does not act dishonestly just because he no longer believes in or practices any organized religion. His dedication and his honesty remain, demonstrating that such qualities are not inherently linked to religion. Silas is an honest man not because he is a Christian; he is simply an honest man, and he is able to remain as such without the constant oversight of a divine being. Silas’s lack of religion functions as a critique of people who depend on religion for moral guidance. At a time when religion was often at the center of life, Silas does not preach atheism or agnosticism. He does not explicitly criticize religion. Instead, he simply lives his life in a moral fashion without religion. That he is able to do so provides a template for an irreligious existence that can remain moral without God’s guidance. Similarly, Silas’s hard work and honesty do not provide him with any material reward. When he is at his most lonely, he works harder than anyone. His reward is a big bag of gold coins, which he counts each night as a way to quantify his dedication. Even though he works tirelessly for years, he never earns enough to raise his social status. Godfrey casts an unimpressed eye over the size of the fortune when it is finally retrieved, noting that Silas would still need to work for the rest of his life to survive. As such, Silas’s hard work is also a critique of the rigidity of the social structure. Class status is not tied to morality or hard work. Some people are simply born wealthy, while others must toil for their whole lives, only to have everything taken from them in a heartbeat.
Eppie changes Silas. He adopts her without a second thought, seeing no option other than to raise the orphaned girl by himself. She replaces the gold in his life, but provides him with a newfound wealth. Eppie shows Silas how to love, something that his gold could never teach him. He coveted his gold, but he loves his adopted daughter. She rekindles his faith in humanity, inspiring him to attend church again, even if he has learned to live without religion. Through her help, he even puts the pain of his past behind him. His return to Lantern Yard shows him that the chapel is gone. With Eppie at his side, Silas finds catharsis in an unexpected way.
Godfrey Cass
Godfrey Cass is a rich coward. While his brother Dunsey is more explicitly and obviously immoral, Godfrey commits as many transgressions but assures himself that he is a good man because he experiences guilt. Godfrey helps his brother to commit immoral acts. They embezzle rent money that is meant for their father, and he secretly marries an opium addict. In these circumstances, Godfrey insists that Dunsey has convinced him to breach his moral code. He frets and obsesses over his guilt and anxiety, insisting that he would tell the truth if only Dunsey were not there to stop him. Godfrey lies to himself. He allows himself to be cajoled into committing crimes by Dunsey, with Dunsey providing the security blanket of an excuse for Godfrey to behave just like him. When Dunsey seemingly leaves Raveloe, Godfrey does not confess his sins. He keeps his secrets and covers up the truth for years, demonstrating how his previous desire to confess his sins was an utter sham. Godfrey is a pathetic figure, even more so than Dunsey. While Dunsey knew himself to be malicious and immoral, he was at least honest with himself. Godfrey clings to his moral pretensions, insisting that he has been blackmailed or tricked or deceived in some way. He is convinced that he would act differently, if only his brother were not around. This is proven to be false. Godfrey is just as immoral as Dunsey; he simply lacks the capacity to admit as much.
The moment of reckoning for Godfrey occurs when Silas Marner enters the room with a little girl in his arms. In this moment, Godfrey has an opportunity. He can confess his sins to everyone present and take responsibility for his daughter. Instead, he allows a poor weaver to do what he should be doing. He allows Silas to take the girl home, offering a small sum for the weaver to buy furniture. Godfrey placates his uncertainty with meager charity and then rejoices in the good fortune that his wife is dead and that his daughter has seemingly been adopted by another man. Rather than confessing everything, Godfrey embraces the opportunity to bury the truth and start a new life. Any pretentions he held that he is a moral man simply held back by an immoral brother are revealed to be hollow. Godfrey abandons his responsibility. His main concern is ensuring that Molly is dead rather than that his daughter is taken care of. Godfrey places his own well-being so far ahead of everyone else that he puts himself in an almost irredeemable position. No matter how much money he gives to Silas, no matter how much he tries to reform his character, he cannot change the fact that he rejected the opportunity to confess his sins and take responsibility for his daughter. Godfrey had an opportunity to be the man he had convinced himself that he was, yet he lets this opportunity to pass him by.
The death of Molly gives Godfrey everything he wants. He is able to marry Nancy and, with Dunsey seemingly gone forever, he inherits his father’s estate. Godfrey becomes the head of the local community, and he is praised for his charitable donations to Silas and Eppie. The irony of Godfrey’s life is that he cannot enjoy himself. He is wracked with guilt and fear that the truth will be revealed. He cannot have children with Nancy, yet he must watch his actual child grow up in a nearby house. For all his wealth, he cannot purchase peace of mind. When Dunsey’s skeleton is revealed, he seems to change his mind. He determines to tell the truth, only to be rejected by Eppie. Once he suffers from this rejection, he returns to his moral cowardice. Rather than confess, he resolves to put the truth in his will. This gesture is emblematic of Godfrey’s cowardice. He is only willing to admit his faults at the exact moment when he will suffer no consequences.
Eppie
Eppie is vitally important to the plot of Silas Marner, but her character emerges fully formed. After her brief appearance as a toddler in Part 1, she is presented in Part 2 as a near adult. She has been raised by Silas, and her development during her formative years is presented as a series of anecdotes that—other than noting her mischievous personality—are more focused on establishing Silas’s unwillingness to punish her than outlining Eppie’s own character. He cannot bring himself to punish the little girl whom he has grown to love more than anything else in his life, even his money. This love is vital for Silas, and it rejuvenates him. By raising Eppie, he shows the community that he is a sympathetic figure, and everyone is willing to help him in turn. The people of Raveloe love Eppie, who seems to drag Silas into the heart of the community through her sheer existence rather than any particular action. In this sense, she plays a functional role in the novel, providing the main character with a new and satisfying way of looking at the world. Her role is to love the man who raised her and, in return, to receive his love.
The older Eppie grows, the more she is forced to confront reality. In glimpses, the reader is shown the difficult decisions that lay ahead. Silas accepts that she will one day marry a man and leave him alone, even though Eppie insists that she is as happy as she could possibly be, especially when their garden is finished. Facets of Eppie’s personality are shown in her desire to stay with Silas forever, or in her wish to replant the tree that has grown near the spot where her mother died. She wants to replant this tree in the garden as a symbolic link between her adoptive father and her biological mother. Similarly, she wonders whether she should wear her mother’s wedding ring when she marries, again linking the past and the present in a symbolic fashion. These fleeting moments are not realized in the novel, but their presentation shows that Eppie considers her past as she navigates her present and that she is a deeply loving and loyal person. Given the tragic circumstances in which she came to meet Silas, she is similarly weighed down by her traumatic past. She searches for a way to reconcile this past trauma with her present, an instructive desire that is eventually echoed by her father’s return to Lantern Yard. These glimpses into Eppie’s character are reflected in those around her.
Perhaps the most important moment in Eppie’s life is the conversation between herself, Silas, Godfrey, and Nancy. Godfrey reveals the truth: He is her father, and he wants her to come home with him. Eppie is offered material wealth, social status, and a chance to know her biological father. In contrast, Silas has little else to offer her that Godfrey cannot at least match. All that he has to offer is sentiment, built on the life that they have spent together. Eppie does not take long to decide. She is polite and direct, choosing to remain with Silas rather than leave with Godfrey. The mature way in which she conceives of her choice is illustrative of her priorities: She genuinely does not see how wealth could improve her life, as she loves Silas too much. She has already learned the lesson that Silas learned after losing his gold: Love and sentiment are far more valuable than material wealth. Love—from family, friends, and community—is hugely important in Silas Marner, and Eppie’s choice embodies this belief. She chooses love over everything, symbolically thanking her father and respecting the changes that she has brought about in his life. Eppie ends the novel by marrying Aaron and settling down in Silas’s house. She is rewarded for her decision and her honesty, achieving the loving, fulfilling life that seems perpetually out of reach for men like Godfrey Cass.
Dunstan “Dunsey” Cass
Dunsey is an obvious villain in Silas Marner. He blackmails his brother and steals Silas’s gold before dying in the stone pit. Dunsey accepts his villainy with a twisted honesty. In this sense, he functions as an important counterpart to Godfrey. Whereas Godfrey is able to delude himself into believing that he is a moral man trapped in an impossible situation, Dunsey embraces his own villainy. He is consciously criminal and utterly unrepentant. When he kills his brother’s horse, he simply walks away. When he notices a weaver’s door is open on a cold night, he invites himself inside and steals the man’s fortune despite being wealthy himself. For Godfrey, Dunsey is a vital presence. With Dunsey around, Godfrey is able to convince himself that he is the good brother and person. When Dunsey disappears, Godfrey lives in fear that he might return. When Dunsey’s skeleton is uncovered, Godfrey takes this as a sign that his own secrets will be unearthed. All the way through the novel, Dunsey’s criminality holds up a mirror to Godfrey’s actions, making Godfrey appear all the more pathetic.
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