What was George Eliot's purpose in writing Silas Marner?

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What was George Eliot’s purpose in writing Silas Marner?

The basis of Silas Marner is that true happiness is achieved only through reciprocated love and respect for another and not through amassing wealth. This is illustrated when Silas’ relatively rich, but lonely and monotonous lifestyle is positively transformed by the loss of his money and the gain of the love of Eppie. Some say that the novel is a fable because of its simple, and sometimes contrived, plot. However, Eliot probably recognised that this idea was a little unoriginal and perhaps clichéd, so her purpose, therefore, was - using an extreme, but realistic and contemporary, example - to create an original interpretation of a moral that, in the newly industrialising England in which she lived, was likely to be forgotten.

In order to remove the complications of this industrialisation, the novel is set in a rural area of England where village community is central to the novel. Instead of the “great manufacturing town” of Lantern Yard from which Silas comes, the agricultural people of Raveloe are in touch with the community and nature around them. When Silas first enters the Rainbow Inn after the robbery, the first dialogue heard by the reader is that of an argument between the villagers on the very subject of “who it is has got the red Durhams o’ this country-side”. While it is difficult to respect one’s surroundings if they are the factories and industry in a city, it is easier for one to appreciate and respect nature, and this connection is key to respecting other human beings.

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The natural imagery is sustained throughout the novel, and is sometimes used to describe the follies of that which is not natural. The miserly life represented by Silas’ gold is described as “a clinging life” similar to that of ivy clinging to a tree. When Silas’ “tree” of gold was stolen, he could no longer sustain the parasitic way in which he so unnaturally derived happiness from his money. He felt the “withering desolation of...bereavement”, just as vines of ivy would wither away with the felling of their tree.

Through this use of harsh natural imagery, Eliot shows ...

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