Examine the significance of the rural landscape in Silas Marner
Silas Marner was written by George Eliot, who grew up on a large country estate in rural Warwickshire. She started to write novels after leaving London as a means of escape from industrialised Victorian England. These manufacturing developments made her physically and mentally unwell. In her novels, her love for the country can be seen clearly in her excessive nostalgic descriptions of Raveloe. The “screening trees and hedgerows” protect this little village from industrialization, preserving Eliot’s childhood memories of the countryside. These excessive descriptions show the reader the clearly the differences between rural, pastoral villages and “great manufacturing town” like that of Lantern Yard.
Despite the picturesque descriptions of “dewy brambles and rank rufted grass” Raveloe is an extremely insular community weary of “alien-looking men” arriving from “districts far away”. This weariness and suspicion is provoked by a time of extreme change where old traditions and customs are under threat of succumbing to laws of economy. The geographical location of Raveloe reflects these feelings of the villagers. Lying “low among the bushy trees…in a snug well wooded hollow” it remains untouched from any change. It is also described as being “hidden from the heavens” giving a sense of complete isolation, and a reason as to why the “old echoes lingered, undrowned by new voices”. Lantern Yard however wasn’t quite so secluded, and as a result, at Silas’ return at the end of the story it has succumbed to the Industrial Revolution with all traces of the old town wiped out. It is described as a “dark ugly place” all due to change.