– Leon Kass Excerpt 1:īaby was christened, the rector deciding that a double baptism was the lesser risk to incur and on this occasion Silas, making himself as clean and tidy as he could, appeared for the first time within the church, and shared in the observances held sacred by his neighbours. The second relates what happens later, when Cass and his wife, Nancy, appear in Marner’s home and propose adopting Eppie. The first describes Marner’s new life as Eppie’s father and the many ways she broadens his narrow existence. Despite his offer of two powerful inducements - wealth and his blood relationship as her biological father - Eppie chooses to stay with Marner. But as Eppie approaches the brink of womanhood, her natural father, the wealthy and childless Godfrey Cass, make himself known and seeks to take her back.

Marner’s dedication to her care returns him to the human family, restoring him to his community and his lost faith. For the next sixteen years she lives with him as his daughter. Rejuvenated by her presence, Marner decides to keep Eppie and to rear her. Then one winter night, as he stands stock-still in a trance, a strange woman freezes to death in the snow, and her child, Eppie, wanders into Marner’s home. There he works at his loom, his money accumulates, and gradually it becomes his sole reason for living.Īfter fifteen years Marner’s money is stolen, and this second blow threatens to destroy him altogether.

He moves from Lantern Yard, the scene of the betrayal, to the village of Raveloe. In a part of the novel not reproduced here, the young Marner, then a religious man, suffers a shattering betrayal that destroys his faith. She beautifully represents, too, not just the duties parents and children bear toward one another, but also the blessings that flow to each from meeting these obligations. In telling his story, Eliot explores the part of parenthood that transcends a biological connection. In the course of the novel, Marner is “saved” from his dismal fate by the arrival of a child.

George Eliot’s Silas Marner is the story of an isolated and suffering miser, a weaver named Marner.

Silas marner by george eliot