Examine the significance of the rural landscape in Silas Marner
George Eliot, the author of Silas Marner became dubious about her religious faith. This lack of faith is reflected in the absence of religious importance in Raveloe. The strong beliefs of Eliot’s father and brother are similar to that of Dolly Winthrop’s who, in relatively unreligious surroundings, is religious herself. The writing of prose allowed Eliot to escape from her depressed and physically unwell state, which was caused by her experience in London. Silas Marner is a tale which allows George Eliot to remember her childhood and evoke nostalgic feelings through the rural landscape that is brought to the reader in the reader. When Eliot refers to Raveloe’s ‘dewy brambles and rank tufted grass,’ she creates a picturesque scene of her past for the reader.
The setting of this story, in Victorian England amidst the industrial revolution contributes to the change in Lantern Yard. However, Raveloe remains unchanged because of its natural seclusion. Silas Marner is closed off even more by the ‘nutty hedgerows’ as well as being part of Raveloe which is a place ‘hidden from heavens’. Raveloe does not have a chance to show off its beauty as it is closed, it lays ‘low among the bushy trees and the rutted lanes aloof from the currents of industrial energy and puritan earnestness,’ which also serves as protection for the Raveloe community as it is shielded from the deadening effects of the Industrial Revolution. The Raveloe community are suspicious about outsiders this is evident through the ‘Shepherd’s dogs’ that ‘barked fiercely when of these alien-looking men appeared on the upland, dark against the early winter sunset’. This suspiciousness and insularity is due to the fact that Raveloe is protected and even closed in by nature which causes unfamiliarity with different people. On the other hand Lantern Yard is affected by the industrial revolution and we see this when Silas Marner returns to Lantern Yard with Eppie, a child that walked into Silas Marner’s life and symbolically brings him out of his cottage. However, this is only evident at the end, as in the beginning, Lantern Yard is puritanical where the centre point of the village is the church. However, when Silas Marner returns with Eppie, he finds Lantern Yard with ‘large factories’ due to the industrial revolution. A town which was once a pastoral and picturesque town has now transformed into a ‘great manufacturing town’. Here we see the transformation of Lantern Yard and the sameness of Raveloe due to its natural seclusion which has also alienated the Raveloe population from outsiders.
