Symbols are a cardinal facet of the fresh Silas Marner, by George Eliot. Eliot uses them to assist develop and escalate the secret plan of the narrative. Each symbol represents major subjects of the narrative. Some of the symbols she uses are so distinct, it makes the reader admiration if she meant to utilize them or non. Without Eliot s adept execution of these symbols, the reader would be lost in the pages of the novel and would non understand the major societal impacts of Silas Marner.
Lantern Yard is a good symbol of Silas s yesteryear. He lived at that place in the yesteryear but it represents more than that. It represents the darkness and solitariness of his yesteryear, compared to his life in Raveloe. The scene of the town involves an old prison and dark back streets with cloud-covered conditions. This scene portrays a scene of darkness in the head of the reader. In Lantern Yard, Silas spent all of his clip weaving by himself. The Church that he devoted his life to bewray him. The town of Lantern Yard helps escalate the alteration in his life after he left for Raveloe.
Marner s gold is besides another important symbol to the secret plan. It represents the greed of Silas before Ellie came into his life. It helps beef up the reader s position of the alteration between Silas s life before and after Ellie. It besides helps portray his emptiness and solitariness. Since he spends every dark numeration and bathing in his gold, he spends no clip with anyone else and is really alone interior.
New Year s Eve is a important event in the lives a few major characters in the book. It is a symbol for alteration in the characters lives. For Silas, he gets new start. Eppie comes into his life and he becomes more of a male parent figure and a hero. He does non necessitate to trust on his gold to do him happy any longer. Molly Farren dies in forepart of Silas s bungalow. That is a serious alteration for her. Godfrey Cass is really thankful for her decease. This allows him to acquire on with his life and marry Nancy Lammeter. Eppie besides undergoes a drastic alteration. She loses a female parent and additions new function theoretical account and male parent. That one day of the month in Raveloe s history changed the full narrative.
Eppie is a symbol by herself. She is a symbol of young person and new beginnings. She gives Silas a new significance to life. Her aureate blonde hair is a symbol that she is the replacing for the gold tha
T Silas lost. She is more of a religious type of gold than the actual gold he lost earlier.
The symbol of immorality is represented by none other than William Dane and Dunstan Cass. William Dane betrayed Silas and set him up for ostracism from Lantern Yard. Even though this proved to be good for Silas in the terminal, it was still evil at that point in clip. Dunstan stole Silas s gold. That gold meant more to Silas than anything else in the universe at the clip. The larceny of his gold left him with no more ground to populate. As they were both symbols of immorality, they were besides symbols of justness. When Silas went back to see Lantern Yard subsequently in life, nil was left of the town he had known before, even William Dane. No 1 knows what happened to him but he is decidedly gone. Dunstan gets caught in the rock cavity and drowns for being a stealer. They both received the justness they deserved from their actions.
The unfastened door of Silas s bungalow was besides an of import symbol in the novel. Harmonizing to Robert W. Watson, The door represents Marner s decease, entombment, and Resurrection. He claims that Marner is spiritually dead from being exiled from Lantern Yard. Silas knows William did it, and he told him, You stole the money, and you have woven a secret plan to put the wickedness at my door ( Eliot 11 ) . His tantrums were described as death-like. He was, in a sense, a dead adult male when he moved to Raveloe. As he collected more and more money for his work, he began burying himself in his work and his gold. His life became based on weaving and numbering his gold. Eliot provinces, His life had cut down itself to the mere maps of weaving and billboard, without any contemplation of an terminal towards which the maps tended ( Eliot 18 ) . He so left his door unfastened as he went on an errand and Dunstan stole his cherished gold. The loss of his difficult earned gold so represents his start of his metempsychosis, or Resurrection. He discovers a new religion and a new significance of life in Eppie. During one of his tantrums, he left the door unfastened once more and when he came back, Eppie was waiting for him. His opened door first brings a expletive, and so it brings him a approval in Eppie.
Symbols are evidently a large portion of Silas Marner. Through the illustrations shown supra, symbols portray all the major subjects of the book. Eliot uses symbols to do the narrative more interesting for the reader. She knows how to spice it up.
330
