Aireville School
Sidrah Sarfraz
Mrs Rosser
48263
How does George Elliot create sympathy for George Elliot in the novel of the same name?
Mary Anne Evans was born in 1819 near Aubrey, the youngest child of the local priest Robert Evans, she was highly educated and first developed her career writing pieces for Blackwoods magazine and went on to write her first book in that was a translation of Strauss’s life of Christ in 1846. Being a determined woman writer in a society ruled by men, where women writers weren’t accepted; Mary developed a false name, George Elliot, to enable her to have her wonderful books published. She went on to write many more novels, two of these great novels Felix halt the Radical (1866) and Daniel Deronda (1874-7). Although her shortest it was and still is one of her most loved novels, Silas Marner which was published in 1861 during the Victorian period, a time of strict values and traditional religious beliefs. Unlike most the other writers of her time, who wrote about the upper classes, Elliot wrote about a lonely linen weaver that lived exiled in the rural village of Raveloe. Elliot had humanistic views and felt empathetic towards the lower classes. Another great writer who shared her views, which Elliot quotes at the start of her book, was Wordswiorth. Silas Marner the eponymous character leaves his first home in lantern Yard when he is found guilty of stealing the church’s money, feeling cheated by God and his best friend he leaves home and moves to the rural village of Raveloe, leaving behind religion and his social character and becomes exiled and isolated in his cottage home for 15 years. Causing suspicion and speculation, he doesn’t try to mix with the community and they knew no more about him 15 years on than they did the day he arrived, and so treat him like an outcast. This reflects the struggles that Elliot faces during her life after becoming a fallen woman, she also is treated as an outcast and isn’t accepted in society, also the small similarities that they both have as they both wear glasses and she knows what it is like to stare at things and how this may seem strange to other people, but is completely normal. Elliot uses money as a major plot line for this novel; she shows how rejection of one thing leads to the love of money and how having too much can lead to certain consequences when having to deal with it. She is trying to show the reader that money doesn’t have to play a part in happiness and that sometimes not having it can make you happier.
At the start of the novel Elliot tells us about the village of Raveloe, she talks in the first person to include the reader, firstly she shows it is a traditional village “old echoes lingered undrowned by new voices” she explains that even the ‘new’ younger generation hasn’t changed the village and that it still is very much the same as it has always been. Raveloe is from the rich central plain and Elliot who knew about it so well from her childhood describes it as “Merry England” which shows it is a luscious rural area that is close to nature, this gives it a bright sunny feeling and makes it seem warm and inviting. Elliot also gives the sense that it is a comfortable village, describing it as “nestled in a snug, well-wooded hollow”, which makes it feel safe and secure and cosy but also seems like a creature hibernating so gives the impression that maybe it is sleepy and innocent of what is going on in the world around them. The people of Raveloe liked to display their wealth, and although the church is described as the ‘centre Of the community’ it is only frequently visited by its members who look upon it from their homes, admiring its grandness of ‘large brick and stone’ from their homes. ‘Orchards and ornamental weathercocks’ stood proudly on their rooftops; Elliot is using irony here to show that the people displayed their wealth on their houses. Elliot does show however that everyone is equal as she says “there is no manor house in the vicinity” this expresses that no one is more important than the other, even if there is different levels of wealth. She also portrays a relaxed attitude towards work and that the villagers enjoyed religious holidays,’ a jolly Whitsun and Easter tide’. Silas Marner moves to Raveloe in 1805 and Elliot talks about him 15 years on still living in Raveloe. The book shows that he hasn’t changed the impression of the neighbouring villagers living around him it says “and the years rolled on without producing any change in the impressions of the neighbours concerning Marner”. Elliot is showing that the impression that people had when he first moved to Raveloe that he was strange and odd and this perception remained 15 years on. The villagers found Silas’ unexplained perfect weaving a suspicion ”the shepherd himself…was not quite sue that this trade of weaving, indispensable though it was, could be carried on entirely without the help of the evil one” they believed that his immaculate weaving was helped on by the devil, so he was thought of as evil, this again gives the reader a bad impression of him.
