‘Eliot ensures that in ‘Silas Marner’ all the characters get exactly what they Deserve’. Do you agree with this statement?

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‘Eliot ensures that in ‘Silas Marner’ all the characters get exactly what they Deserve’.

 Do you agree with this statement?

        The word deserve means to be entitled to or worthy of. The characters in ‘Silas Marner’ have things happen to them some beneficial and some detrimental. These are usually a result of what has happened in the past. Many of the characters act foolishly and get what they deserve in return for their foolishness, but others suffer in return for other characters mistakes. Different characters act in different ways when exploring their actions what they deserve will be easily seen. Fair is fair but how fair has George Eliot been to these characters?

Silas Marner is one of the only characters that one could say suffers greatly for another character’s mistakes. Silas, a man who believes faithfully in G-D, lives in a religious community called Lantern Yard in an industrial town, before he moves to Raveloe. Lantern Yard is a close community; everyone including Silas would go to church together every Sunday. Undeservingly Silas is betrayed by what he thinks is a good friend in the community. He is affected deeply by the betrayal and moves to Raveloe where he begins to live his life in isolation. He loses all trust in man and becomes only involved in material things like his pot which ‘had been his companion for twelve years’. When the ‘earthenware pot’ breaks Silas reaction shows that ‘the sap of affection was not all gone’. Silas’s heart at this stage is not completely devoid of human feeling. He becomes however, increasingly dependant on his gold and each night ‘he closed his shutters, and made fast his doors, and drew forth his gold.’ As Silas grows older with just inanimate companions his heart grows harder. ‘His gold, as he hung over it and saw it grow, gathered his power of loving together into a hard isolation like its own.’ The gold represents the hardness of his heart and shows that he is yearning for a human companion. William Dane stole Silas’s fiancé and accused him of being the person that stole money from the church. William Dane the man who betrays Silas was the character who really deserved to live his life in isolation not Silas.

        One can see from where Silas has chosen to live that he has lost all trust in man and is secluding himself from the new community he has moved to. Silas had been a trusting man before the betrayal ‘The prominent eyes that used to look trusting’. He hardly communicates or socializes with anyone from Raveloe until the day that Dunstan Cass steals his only companion, his gold. Silas makes a big step in turning to his community for help. Silas does not help himself in making friends in the community, ‘fifteen years since Silas Marner had first come to Raveloe’, ‘he invited no comer to step across his door-sill, and he never strolled into the village to drink a pint at the rainbow.’ This shows that it is not only the villagers that exclude Silas but also shows that Silas secludes himself. The villagers who never really speak to Silas are eager to hear about the robbery, they are intrigued as this is the first time Silas had ever come to them. Silas did nothing to deserve such a tragic thing to happen to him but it was for the good, it brought him out of his hibernation and enabled him to deserve to have Eppie.

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Godfrey named by his neighbours as a ‘fine open-faced good natured young man’ is the opposite of what people think of him. Godfrey has much to hide and is in fact not at all open faced. Godfrey is unable to be happy and completely ‘open-faced’ as he has a secret that he has yet to share. His wife Molly Farren is an opium addict and an alcoholic which, Godfrey most likely did not know until the two were married. Dunstan ‘urged him into a secret marriage, which was a blight on his life.’ The word ‘urged’ suggests that Godfrey ...

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