Silas Marner

Examiner Report

• Candidates needed to write more relevantly towards the question, selecting more relevant
quotations/events from the novel
• Candidates needed to show a wider and deeper knowledge and understanding of the
novel: material was often too narrow and superficial in scope
• Candidates needed to analyse language more explicitly, using more subject terminology in
an explicit way; analysis was often missing or too implicit (don’t assume the examiner will
hunt for analytical detail – you may not get credit for it if it’s not obvious)
• Candidates needed to include more contextual knowledge throughout the essay (historical,
social, religious, literary…)
• Candidates needed to spell Eliot correctly
• Candidates needed to eliminate basic plot misunderstandings, which seriously undermine
the credibility of the argument
• Candidates needed to provide more thoughtful and evaluative points, rather than sticking
only to basic ideas. Cover these basic/central ideas, but then move on to more nuanced
points, such as exploring Eliot’s use of recurring motifs/symbols (textile
language/rivulet/natural imagery…). Essays were too conservative/boring – say something
interesting and sound genuinely interested and emotionally invested!
• Candidates needed to show a clear, succinct and thoughtful understanding of Eliot’s beliefs
and her central motivation for writing the novel

For ideas about how the abstract ideas above translate into specific analysis, read the essay below
and try to identify at which points the essay corresponds to each of the bullet points above.
Write about the importance of community and how this is presented at different points in the
novel.

[A = analysis; C = context]

Faced with the damaging alienation of the Industrial Revolution, Eliot uses her novel to show that
community is vital to the state of humanity. Her central protagonist’s suffering is directly attributed
to the loss of community; when he regains human love and understands the fundamental
interconnectedness of humankind, his life – and that of others – is utterly transformed.

Eliot shows the positive impact that community once had on Silas’ life. He enjoyed a thriving
community in Lantern Yard, which Eliot describes as a ‘close fellowship’. ‘Fellowship’ implies shared
interests, in this case religious interests [A: definition/connotation]. Indeed, Silas’ community was a
sect, made close by its ‘narrow’ beliefs. While this narrow-mindedness signals the potential dangers
of closed communities [evaluation/development of argument for later], Eliot also draws attention to
the great sense of comfort, protection and belonging that Silas derived from living amongst people
who share his religious practices and beliefs, which are ‘unquestioned’ and therefore easily followed
[explanation]. The religion of Lantern Yard reflects Eliot’s own religious upbringing: it is a non-
conformist sect, common in the 18th and 19th centuries, which worshipped in modest chapel
buildings (rather than churches) and which preached the value of ordinary working people, rejecting
the Church of England’s hierarchy [C]. This community is, therefore, unified, symbolised by the ‘swell
of voices in song’ [A]. Indeed, their faith binds unrelated families and individuals together as
‘brothers’: there is no hierarchy nor distinction between individuals. Rather, everyone is equal and
Silas is, consequently, well-regarded. Eliot describes this community as cosy, intimate and, therefore,
unthreatening (‘little pews’ and ‘familiar’ voices) [A]. It is like a family to Silas, shown by Eliot’s
metaphor in which she compares Silas to a child and the Lantern Yard church to the ‘refuge and
nurture’ provided by a parent, implying both safety and protection [A]. Here, Eliot proves the
importance of community in its ability to sustain and help human life thrive; it provides safety,
belonging, and a sense of purpose.

When Silas loses this community, he suffers significantly. Betrayed by his best friend and wrongly
‘suspended’ (rejected) from the religious community unless he confesses to a crime he didn’t
commit, Silas suffers immediately the effects of physical and spiritual isolation. Having drawn
strength and purpose from the ‘refuge’ of Lantern Yard’s community, he now seeks ‘refuge’ and
purpose solely in his weaving work. Eliot uses textile imagery to show that Silas is completely cut off
from communal ties: as one of the wandering linen weavers (now situated in Raveloe), he is viewed
with a ‘remnant of distrust’, ‘remnant’ suggesting his lack of importance or value to the rest of the
community. Having lost faith not only in God but also in people, he makes no effort to integrate
himself into the ways and customs of Raveloe and, as such, the inhabitants view him with
‘suspicion’. Focusing solely on his work, Eliot begins to show the devastating impact of a lack of
community on Silas, the repetition of ‘own’ (‘own water’, ‘own kettle’…) emphasising his sad
isolation. Eliot shows that work is not a substitute for human connection, but merely a ‘bridge over
the loveless chasms’. It is emotionally unfulfilling: it ‘reduces’ his life ‘to the unquestioning activity of
a spinning insect’.

As a side note, Eliot’s repetition of ‘unquestioning’, which she also used to describe the worshippers
in Lantern Yard, may reflect her criticism of narrow-minded communities which don’t promote free
thinking, such as the one in which she grew up. This feature of Lantern Yard made it, ultimately, a
damaging community for Silas: their spiritual ignorance wrongly criminalised and ostracised Silas.
Here, the dogmatism that Silas learnt in Lantern Yard continues to cause him damage in Raveloe
which, itself, is also ignorant and closed-minded: it fails to accept Silas despite his differences.
Communities, Eliot shows, are not always positive and inclusive. Eliot, a critical thinker and social
philosopher, felt that these features should be integral to a community and she enjoys lightly
mocking Raveloe’s ignorance, even while anticipating its growing acceptance and inclusivity of
difference.

The dehumanising metaphor of the spider shows the extreme negative impact of human disconnect,
imprisoning Silas in monotonous, mechanical drudgery. Indeed, contemporary readers would have
recognised the description of Silas’ ‘treadmill’ loom action as a reference to the common
punishment of prisoners, the only difference being that Silas imposes a self-imprisonment, living
apart from all human contact. While Raveloe has not at this point endured the full consequences of
industrialisation, Eliot was writing from the perspective of having already witnessed what she
regarded as the unnatural and devastating consequences of the Industrial Revolution on the human
condition: she feared for the way that industrialised work divorced us from our natural selves,
making machines of us all, reflected in the dehumanising language she uses to describe Silas. For
her, nature and human community are vital in restoring us to our true selves.

Silas’ only community, however, is his gold. Having lost faith in humankind, he transfers his love for
humans onto his coins, personifying them: ‘he loved them all’ like ‘unborn children’, in other words
not for their material value but for their emotional value. At Lantern Yard, he was described as the
child in receipt of parental protection: here, he is the parent but his children are ‘unborn’, showing a
lack of affection and emotional fulfilment. In his evening revelry (implying jolly communion), he
thinks he finds physical and emotional comfort: in the absence of human company, he ‘bathed his
hands’ in the coins and experiences anticipation and excitement as he meets his shining coins again,
as one might a human. When Dunstan steals his gold, the ‘support’ that it provided becomes even
clearer, as Silas’ life becomes even emptier – a joyless ‘blank’ of ‘loneliness’. Eliot, however, makes it
apparent that – much like his work – the coins are a wholly inadequate substitute for true
community: she uses natural and textile imagery of a ‘rivulet’ to show how his ‘life had shrunk’ into
‘a little shivering thread’. Where, in Lantern Yard, he was nourished and connected by the
community of the church, his life is now isolated and barely sustained. Without human company, he
is fragile and weak, the adjective ‘shivering’ gaining reader sympathy for Silas’ utter vulnerability.
However, the textile imagery also anticipates the way that he will, one day, be woven happily into
the social fabric of Raveloe.

It is, in fact, through the theft of his coins and, then, through the arrival of Eppie, that Silas regains
his community and, therefore, the vigour of his life. Rather than viewing him with suspicion, villagers
start to sympathise with the ‘poor mushed creatur’ that Silas has become. He realises that he needs
to seek help not from within, but from others. Dolly, in particular, brings him ‘comfort’ and helps to
induct him into the customs of Raveloe. His ‘shrunken rivulet’ begins stirring against the blockage of
his own resistance, to be burst eventually by his love for Eppie which rushes instinctively into his
heart with ‘tenderness’. It immediately stirs ‘fibres that had never been moved in Raveloe’,
anticipating how – through Eppie – he will become part of this village’s social fabric rather than a
single ‘shivering thread’. Adopting her, Silas becomes closer to the customs (particularly the practice
of religious baptism) of Raveloe in his desire to protect Eppie, and Eppie also puts him back in touch
with memories of his former, now lost community: he names her after his sister. Eliot describes
these emerging bonds using natural images: Eppie ‘created fresh and fresh links between his life and
the lives’ of others. His isolated prison transforms into a lively, bonded community; his withering life
begins to grow and thrive. The natural imagery indicates Eliot’s belief that communion with each
other (rather than isolation), and communion with the natural world, is our naturally intended state.
Indeed, the extended metaphor of Eppie’s garden – set in Silas’ home, but populated by the furze
bush her mother died under, nourished by the soil of her genetic father’s home, nurtured by her
husband, and its fence open to the rest of Raveloe – reflects the fact that, as humans, we are all
connected, and nurturing this connection is good for all: indeed, the cross-class relationships
between Silas, Eppie, Godfrey and Nancy also serve the Casses well too (suffering as they did, too,
from emotional isolation). It strengthens them all, and resolves past griefs (even if imperfectly, in the
case of Godfrey).

Juxtaposing this natural, interconnected scene with a Lantern Yard now dramatically transformed by
industrialisation, Eliot stresses the importance of reinforcing communal bonds without which
humankind is sick in its mechanical isolation and ‘indifferent’ to each other’s needs. Threatened by
increasing industrialisation, Raveloe represents Eliot’s idealised community at the end of the novel:
at Eppie’s wedding villagers are all reconciled despite their differences. The lost ‘swell of voices in
song’ that Silas heard during his Lantern Yard years is replaced now by ‘a hearty cheer’ of the
Raveloe villagers, affirming their acceptance and love for Silas who, though older, is stronger
because he has finally found the bond and sense of purpose offered by community. Moved, this is
the vision of humanity that the reader wants to hold onto, rejecting the alienation of
industrialisation.