Coursework Pre-20th Century Text
In ‘Silas Marner’ good triumphs over evil and leaves each character as he or she deserves.
Do you agree?
In ‘Silas Marner’ several key events happen. These events shape the lives of the main characters. Some characters in the novel are good, kind and thoughtful. However, other characters are just the opposite. At the end of the novel these characters generally got what they deserved and good triumphed over evil.???
The main character in the novel was Silas Marner. He suffers many ‘wrong doings’. The villagers in Raveloe did not really understand what kind of man Silas really was. They thought he was different Quote Quote Quote!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It may have been the fact that he did not socialise with the other villagers. He started to work more and more. Weaving away in his loom quote!!!! He became a ‘miser’ and was very ‘lone’. ‘Poor Silas’ was not a bad, selfish man, but because of incidents in the past, he began to ‘worship the guineas’. He felt as if the guineas would not let him down unlike other people had done in the past. The guineas were like ‘unborn children’. Day after day he would just ‘weave away’. His life had become ‘monotonous’. He was just slowly dying, but the thought that kept him lively and ‘excited’ was the thought of his ‘treasured’ guineas. However, Silas’ ‘monotonous’ life was suddenly shattered into pieces. Dunstan stole the money that he had started to love. When he realised that his ‘precious’ money had gone he ‘trembled’. He did not know what to do. The villagers had sympathy for him. Many of them thought of him as a ‘poor mushed creatur’. When people spoke to Silas, he would be ‘motionless’, usually ‘leaning his elbows on his knees, and pressing his hands against his head’. The villagers were kind towards him ‘but the kindness fell on him as sunshine falls on the wretched- he had no heart to taste it, and felt that it was very far off him’. If the tale had ended at this point I would not have said that Silas did not get what he deserved because he is a compassionate and merciful man. The story takes a dramatic change and a new major character is introduced; Eppie. The arrival of Eppie ‘warms his heart’ and he starts to take interest in other people’s lives again. He feels as if Eppie has been ‘sent to save him’. When Godfrey suggests that Eppie would be better off living with him, Silas ‘trembles violently’. There is not one instance in the novel when Silas is ever violent, yet George Eliot describes Silas as ‘trembling violently’. This demonstrates his affection and compassion for his ‘blessed’ daughter.. In many instances, Silas showed that he was not a selfish and uncaring man.QUOTE!!!!!!!!!!!! He may not have always done what was right, but in the end when Eppie ‘warms his heart’ he shows his true personality. I feel that Silas gets what he deserves in the end; happiness and love, which are reciprocated by his daughter.
