Silas Marner Overview

Eliot goes on to link the Cass family with Marner using money. Dunstan makes Godfrey allow him to sell his horse to pay the debt. Godfrey is now in this position where his horse has to be sold to get the money for the debt as he weren't brave enough to come out and tell his dad the truth even if it meant his dad would take away the money. This shows that Godfrey and his dad don't have a trusting relationship because it is all about the inheritance. Dunstan happens to accidentally kill the horse leaving him to come up with the money which is when he remembers hearing about Marner's stash of money. He decides to try and bully Marner into lending him it. On page 48 Eliot describes what Dunstan is thinking, "He had been imagining ways to tempt the weaver to part with the immediate possession of his money for the sake of receiving interest. Dunstan Felt as if there must be a little frightening added to the cajolery". This shows that instead of Dunstan hoping Marner would lend him money he will try and intimidate Marner into giving it to him which shows his unattractive character. When he finds Marner's house empty and open he goes and in decides to steal the money rather then ask for it. On page 50 it says "Dunstan own recent difficulty in making his way suggested to him that the weaver had perhaps gone outside his cottage to fetch in fuel and had slipped into the stone pit. If the weaver was dead, who had a right to his money? Who would know where his money was hidden? Who would know that anybody had taken it away? He went no further into the subtitles of evidence: the pressing question, "Where is the money?"" In this quote Eliot allows us to get in Dunstan's thoughts and uses money to show it can delude people which is what happened to Dunstan as due to the money he assumed Silas had died outside somewhere. She shows how money can bring out worst in people.

Marner is now devastated by his loss of money. On page 94 Eliot says "Marner's thoughts could no longer move in their old round and were baffled by a blank." This shows that Marner is now unable to cope and this makes the reader sympathize with him because for the second time in his life he's lost everything. However, now that Marner is without the money he begins to socialise with the village people and this suggests that money has a powerful influence over which is now broken.

On New year's eve, Godfrey's wife, Molly, comes to confront Godfrey at his father's party. She wants money and the position that the wife of a gentlemen would command. Molly blames Godfrey for her poverty even though her addictions to opium and alcohol are the real causes. Eliot shows human faults but doesn't sound harsh because of criticising Molly about it she shows that she is quite helpless. When Molly dies and the child enters Marner's cottage while he is having a fit Eliot links the child with Marner's lost gold. On page 135 Eliot says "To his blurred vision, it seemed as if there were gold on the floor in front of the heath. Gold!- his own gold- brought back to him as mysteriously as it had been taken away." This means that Marner originally mistakes the child's hair for his lost gold. Marner thinks that the child was sent to him as a miracle to replace the money which is characteristic of a fable as nothing like that would ever happen. The child shows all the good in Marner whereas the money had just trapped him. He now regains his lost faith in god. On page 153 it says "unlike the gold which needed nothing, and must be worshipped in close-locked solitude, Eppie was a creature of endless claims and ever growing desires, seeking and loving sunshine and stirring the human kindness in all ages that looked on her." This is showing how the child contrasts with the gold.

Godfrey is presented with a moral test when Eppie arrives. He won't claim her so he just gives Marner money for her clothes and food. On page 144 Godfrey says "Poor little thing, let me give you some money towards finding it clothes." Eliot shows that by doing this he is trying to soothe his guilty conscience because a few lines up he says "The child could make no visible audible claim on it's father, and the father felt a strange mixture of feelings, a comfort of regret and joy." Godfrey keeps the marriage a secret because he believes that Nancy will leave him if she finds out and everyone else will know if he tells her. Godfrey is punished for not claiming his child as he and Nancy, as much as they have tried, remain childless. On page 186 Eliot says "And Nancy's deepest wounds had all come from the perception that the absence of children from their heath was dwelt on in her husbands mind as a privation to which he could not reconcile himself." This shows that the fact they remain childless is having a big effect on them, Eliot is showing that a child cannot be easily regained if given away whereas money can.

Dunstan's body is found in the quarry with Marner's gold which teaches Godfrey that secrets come to light. He then confesses to Nancy he is Eppie's father and after talking the two of them decide to claim Eppie who is now eighteen. Godfrey talks about how he can give Eppie money and an upper class life when he doesn't realise that she might want love not money. He doesn't think that Marner might love her and not to part with her. Eliot links the fact that now the money has been found Marner faces losing Eppie. It says on page 199 "the money doesn't. I wonder if it ever could again- I doubt it might, if I lost you, Eppie." This means he is wondering what effect the money will have on him when Eppie leaves. Eppie is faced with a test. On page 206 Silas says "But you must make sure, Eppie. You must make sure you won't ever be sorry, because you made your choice to stay among poor folks and poor clothes when you might have had everything of the best." This is saying that she is offered wealth and an upper class life but on page 206 she says "I should have no delight in life anymore if I was forced to go away from my father." She is saying that money cannot replace the love she feels for Silas. Eliot uses the money image when Godfrey realises he cannot buy back Eppie when he says on page 209 "There's debts we can pay like money debts, by paying extra for the years that have slipped by. While I've been putting off, the trees have been growing- it's too late now." We see that Godfrey has now learned to take responsibility for his actions.

Eliot structures the whole novel around money and it being a corrupting influence. She also presents Godfrey, Marner, Eppie and Dunstan with moral tests which are failed by Dunstan and Godfrey therefore resulting them in being punished while Marner and Eppie being rewarded for passing their moral tests.