When Silas is subjected to the false accusations and wrongful conviction at Lantern Yard, all that he believed in and held dear was shattered, and his solution was to isolate himself among strangers and to withdraw from all human contact. He decides to bury himself in his work as a weaver and comforts himself with his love of gold. When his gold is stolen, he is, once again devastated and plunged back into the darkness he experienced during his time at Lantern Yard. However when Eppie appears as if by magic in his house, it seems to him as if his gold has returned in the form of the golden-haired baby. As he devotes himself to Eppie’s care, she uncovers long buried instincts and emotions. “As her life unfolded, his soul, long stupefied in a cold narrow prison, was unfolding too” (The “cold narrow prison” represents Lantern Yard). Through Eppie Silas forges stronger links with the village community as “the little child had come to link him once more with the whole world.” This is because wherever he went people would give him advice and the children weren’t scared of him anymore. This is important because it shows that Silas has gone from being alone and unfriendly to being a part of the community once more.
During the time Silas was at Lantern Yard the place was a tightly knit and religious community. This can be proven by the fact that “among the members of his church there was on young man …with whom he had long lived in close friendship” and that Silas was thought to have been selected for a “peculiar discipline.” When Silas was falsely accused of stealing from the church he lost all faith in man and God. Silas says “there is no God that governs the earth righteously, but a God of lies, that bears witness against the innocent.” This is one of the ways that Silas changed during the novel, as before he believed in God and then when he went to Raveloe he didn’t believe in God because God had betrayed him at Lantern Yard.
The community of Raveloe are also a close-knit community like Lantern Yard but they are not as strict or religious as the people in Lantern Yard. When Silas arrived at Raveloe he shut himself up in his cottage and fails to fit into the community because he had “mysterious peculiarities” and he never drank at the Rainbow. He also “invited no comer to step across his door-sill.” This shows that he is unfriendly and doesn’t like to keep other people’s company.
When Silas loses his gold he is accepted into the community more because the villagers try to help him. They help him look for his gold and this makes Silas feel more involved with the community. He allows Dolly Parton to visit him more often and also allows her son Aaron to sing for him. This shows that Silas is willing to try and replace his lost gold with human existence again. Dolly also encourages Silas to become more religious again by saying “it’s niver too late to turn over a new leaf, and if you’ve niver had no church, there’s no telling the good it’ll do you.” This shows that Dolly feels it would be good for Silas to start his life again and to go to church because it will do him good. This influences Silas because he believes in God again but he didn’t before.
After Eppie’s arrival Silas realises that money is not all-important in life and that love has a much larger part to play. Eppie is destroying the monotony of Silas’ previous existence and is giving Silas more hope. This can be proven because in the novel it says, “unlike the gold which needed nothing, and must be worshipped in close-locked solitude…Eppie was a creature of endless claims and ever-growing desires.” This shows that Eppie is helping Silas to change and is also helping him to become better known and liked in Raveloe because “now Silas was met with open smiling faces and cheerful questioning.” Also “no child was afraid of approaching Silas when Eppie was near him.” This is a contrast to his earlier years in Raveloe when the children were afraid of him. Silas also became more religious when Eppie was christened as he went to church with her and brought her up properly. Silas was also christened at the same time as Eppie and so started to believe more fervently in God, like he did while he lived in Lantern Yard. Before Eppie had come to Silas he was obsessed with his gold and living in a monotonous circle of working to get more gold. He had also given up on religion and had locked himself away from other human beings. After Eppie arrived he became open to new ideas and more loving. He also integrated more with the community and regained his faith in God. He felt gold was meaningless as “the coins he earned afterwards seemed as irrelevant as stones brought to complete a house buried by an earthquake.”
The key points in this essay are that the social, moral, cultural, religious and historical aspects of Lantern Yard and Raveloe both influenced Silas Marner in different ways, by changing him from a kind, well-known person, to a lonely miser and then back to a kind, well-known person again.
