Explore the reasons why Eppie has such a profound effect on Marner.
English Coursework: 'Silas Marner'.
Explore the reasons why Eppie has such a profound effect on Marner.
'Silas Marner' is a novel, set in the late Eighteenth Century having a time span of thirty years. It is about a man named Silas Marner that experiences traumatic events, which change his character as the novel progresses. This includes being falsely accused of theft, passing through a phase of obsession with gold, and adopting a baby child. Since his arrival in Raveloe, Marner's physical appearance and taciturn nature have led him being considered somewhat of an outcast by his fellow villagers:
It was fifteen years since Silas Marner had first come to Raveloe; he was then simply a pallid young man, with prominent, short-sighted brown eyes, whose appearance would have had nothing strange for people of average culture and experience, but for the villagers near whom he had come to settle it had mysterious peculiarities...
The atmosphere that Silas Marner created was somewhat disturbing. Echoes of demon-worship, and superstitious goings-on lived in the village, surrounding Marner, giving him this reputation. As well as being a new comer to the village his profession, a weaver, was traditionally associated with loneliness and superstition. He was also from the north. Travel beyond one's immediate vicinity would be highly unusual for most people and hence anyone from outside the locality would be considered an outsider. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the locals did not associate themselves with Marner, and feared him for the aforementioned reasons. Marner, being educated, was able to cure many diseases. However because of the villagers' old-fashioned, superstitious beliefs, they avoided him:
In this way it came to pass that those scattered linen weavers... were to the last regarded as aliens by their rustic neighbours...
Marner, being an educated man, had the knowledge to cure many diseases. However because of the villagers' old-fashioned, superstitious beliefs, they avoided him. They were pessimists and associated skilled people with magic:
'To the peasants of old times, the world outside their own direct experience was a region of vagueness and mystery... especially if he had any reputation for knowledge, or showed and skill in handicraft'.
The community's sense of alienation and emotional stasis is reinforced with this quotation:
...their imagination is almost barren of the images that feed desire and hope, but is all overgrown by recollections that are a perpetual pasture to fear.
As we read on in the novel we discover that the villagers attitude changes towards Marner, firstly when his gold was stolen and secondly the coming of Molly's daughter whom Marner is keen to adopt.
Marner lived alone in isolation in his humble cottage. But as Marner continued his work as a weaver, he became closer with some of the locals. Soon the villagers accepted him, as their views on Marner slowly changed:
Marner was both sane and honest...
Not only did he become close to the locals; he also became fixated on the amount of money he earned. In Marner's own solitude, he was like a spinning insect awaiting its time for counting its rewards:
He handled them, he counted them, till their form and colour were like ...
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Marner lived alone in isolation in his humble cottage. But as Marner continued his work as a weaver, he became closer with some of the locals. Soon the villagers accepted him, as their views on Marner slowly changed:
Marner was both sane and honest...
Not only did he become close to the locals; he also became fixated on the amount of money he earned. In Marner's own solitude, he was like a spinning insect awaiting its time for counting its rewards:
He handled them, he counted them, till their form and colour were like the satisfaction of a thirst for him;
This obsession with money may have been caused by the unpleasant happening fifteen years prior to the start of this novel, in Marner's former home, Lantern Yard. Marner was an extremely religious man who rigorously observed the laws of his religion and within his county he was "proved" guilty for the theft of the money. He honestly thought that God would help him in this case and that the innocent would not be punished for anyone else's wrong doing. However he was wrong. Marner then decided that God could not exist because of the suffering he went through being falsely accused he became cold and unfriendly, trusting no-one, and had faith only in his increasing money. This is a change that Marner experienced before he went to Raveloe:
The prominent eyes that used to look trusting and dreamy, now looked as if they had been made to see only one kind of thing that was very small, like tiny grain, for which they hunted everywhere...
But as time progresses in the novel, and with Marner adopting Eppie his obsession with gold gradually begins to wane.
As we read on, Marner's hard-earned savings are stolen. He is in disbelief and denial that his gold has somehow disappeared. He has pathetic hopes of either finding his money or it turning up of its own accord:
He passed his trembling hands all about the hole...then he held the candle in the hole and examined it curiously, trembling more and more.
A man falling into dark water sees a momentary footing even on sliding stones, is described as if Marner is its representation. The theft of his gold makes Marner so desperate that he turns to the villagers for help. They generally respond but feel he is more crazy than dangerous. At this point in time he changes as he begins to discover the warmth of the village community:
Our consciousness rarely registers the beginning of a growth within us any more than without us: there have been many circulations of the sap before we detect the smallest sign of the bud.
The villagers pity him, and start to speak to Marner and visit him in his cottage. He is gradually changing from a cold, selfish man to being a little more warm and sociable. Because Marner was so attached to his money his loss is genuine:
Marner himself was feeling the withering desolation of that bereavement...
The loss of his money makes him feels as if a human being has died, hence bereavement meaning a loss by death. However, until he adopts Eppie his true potential of being happy and loving is not yet found out.
On a cold, snowy night, a baby child climbs into Marner's cottage. His shortsighted vision tricks him into seeing the child's golden curls as his own guineas returning. However, his reward is far greater. Because of this child, Marner is persuaded to attend church so that she can be christened and named. This child was named after his mother and sister, Hephzibah. This is a Biblical name which Marner shortens to Eppie. Dolly Winthrop mentions attending church to Marner, when his money was stolen, but because of the lack of faith Marner had in God he refuses. However he agrees to have the child Christened is the first time that Marner stepped into the church in the town of Raveloe:
...on this occasion Marner, making himself as clean and tidy as he could, appeared for the first time within the church...
Because of Eppie, Marner was persuaded by Dolly to christen the child. She persuades him that it would be a benefit:
For if the child ever went anyways wrong, and you hadn't done your part by it... it 'ud be a thorn I' your bed for ever o' this side the grave...
This sudden appearance of this child has provoked a reminder jog of his sister:
Could this be his little sister come back to him in a dream- his little sister whom he had carried about in his arms for a year before she died...
This is an effect that Eppie has caused on Marner, which was that he remembered suddenly, and maybe wanted, his sister coming back to him. Confusion stirred in Marner's mind, trying to figure out whether the child was his sister or not:
It was very much like his sister.
From the arriving of Eppie, it has jogged Marner's memories, especially some from Lantern Yard:
Marner sank into his chair powerless, under the double presence of an inexplicable surprise and a hurrying influx of memories.
This is also reinforced by this quotation:
...he had a dreamy feeling that this child was somehow a message come to him from that far-off life: it stirred fibres that had never been moved in Raveloe...
Marner has had such a routine life in Raveloe before Eppie turned up, that he has nearly forgotten his life in Lantern Yard. The short-term effect that Eppie has caused on Marner is that she had triggered his memory on his life in Lantern Yard, especially the time he spent with his sister.
Another change that Marner experiences was the neglecting of his money. Before Eppie had turned up in his life, he lived to work and worked to live, because of the amount of money earned. The gold had kept his thoughts in an ever-repeated circle, leading to nothing beyond itself; but Eppie was an object of changes and hopes that forced his thoughts onward. Throughout the years with Eppie, Marner has learnt that money cannot buy happiness. This is experienced when his money returns to him:
It takes no hold of me now...the money doesn't.
Throughout the years with Eppie, Marner has learnt that money cannot buy happiness. This is experienced when his money returns to him. Marner finds that Eppie is worth far more than any amount of gold on this earth. He learns that Eppie has set him free from his ever-repeating cycle of greed:
If you hadn't been sent to save me, I should ha' gone to the grave in my misery. The money was taken away from me in time... it's wonderful - our life is so wonderful.
This is also reinforced with this quotation:
I wonder if it ever could again - I doubt it might, if I lost you, Eppie
Also we can link in the idea of Marner's fortune being taken away for something even more precious. Marner too makes this assumption:
My money's gone, I don't know where - and this is come from I don't know where.
Marner has learnt that happiness is found not in gold but in the warmth and love of human affection. As Eppie grew, so did he:
As the child's mind was growing into knowledge, his mind was growing into memory: as life unfolded, his soul, long stupefied in a cold narrow prison, was unfolding too. And trembling gradually into full consciousness.
Since the christening of Eppie, Marner and Dolly grew closer as friends. Dolly gave advice to Marner on how to discipline Eppie by putting her in a cole-hole, for this had worked on her own son, Aaron. It was because of Eppie that Dolly started to have a mild connection with Marner. In the future, she knew that her son Aaron was to marry Eppie.
After sixteen years of taking care of Eppie, Marner has changed from being isolated in his cottage, weaving from day to night, to a loving father figure to Eppie and close friends to the villagers:
Nobody was jealous of the weaver, for he was regarded as an exceptional person, whose claim on neighbourly help were not to be matched in Raveloe.
Also the children in the village, who feared Marner when he came to the Raveloe now enjoyed and appreciated his presence:
No child was afraid of approaching Marner when Eppie was near him: there was no repulsion around him now either for young or old...
The effect that Eppie has had on Marner is so dramatic that it is as though a wave of compassion has flooded over Marner but, instead of Marner drowning in the wave, he used it so that it is a benefit to him. He has used this to bring Eppie up in a comfortable environment so that she too can learn to love:
Perfect love has a breath of poetry which can exalt the relations of the least instructed human beings; and this breath of poetry had surrounded Eppie from the time when she had followed the bright gleam that beckoned her to Marner's hearth...
Marner has also been affected by Eppie in terms of his mental focus, she is his life:
Everywhere he must sit a little and talk about the child, the words of interest were always ready for him.
This shows that he loves her so much that he talks about her to others. This is a change as before Eppie arrived, Marner wouldn't associate himself with anyone.
As we read on in the novel we find out that Godfrey wants to claim Eppie back as he is the biological farther of her after all. However Marner is not willing to give Eppie up so easily as he and her have formed strong farther-and-daughter bonds between them:
Your coming now and saying "I'm her father" doesn't alter the feelings inside us. It's me she's been calling father ever since she could say the word.
Marner considers himself and Eppie as one, and that Eppie is a blessing to him:
You'd cut I' two.
Eh, my precious child, the blessing was mine.
This is also reinforced with the quotation of the two relations being inseparable:
The tender and peculiar love with which Marner had reared her in almost inseparable companionship with himself...
The love and warmth with which Marner has brought her up is tested with her being given the choice of choosing whether to stay with the father she's had for sixteen years or to go with her biological father. The traumatic tension that surrounds Eppie, Marner, Nancy and Godfrey is soon answered:
We've been used to be happy together every day, and I can't think o' no happiness without him.
To conclude, Eppie has had a dramatic affect on Silas Marner in that he has broken the shell of isolation and the superstition that surrounded him. His obsession with his money ended because of the life he lived with Eppie. If Eppie hadn't have crawled into his home, he knew he would end his life in misery having no one to love and no one to love him. Eppie has freed Marner from his own prison and brought him closer to the village community. Because Eppie had chosen to stay with him, when Godfrey gave her an ultimatum, he had recovered enough faith in other people as well as God for the rest of his life. He realises that he received the ultimate blessing when Eppie came. If it weren't for Eppie, Silas Marner would not be who he is at the end of this novel.
Tricia Chong
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