Silas Marner

Content Warning: This guide discusses addiction and depression, which feature in Silas Marner.

“How was a man to be explained unless you at least knew somebody who knew his father and mother?”

In an age before mass media, communities rely on social interaction to validate relationships. A stranger requires accreditation from a trusted member of the community, otherwise they are not given the same rights or trust as a properly vetted person. For weavers like Silas, men who live on the periphery of their communities, such accreditation is hard to come by. As such, they become locked in a self-perpetuating cycle of loneliness and alienation, whereby their isolation prevents them from being trusted enough to enter a community, further exacerbating their alienation.

“He loved the guineas best, but he would not change the silver—the crowns and the half-crowns that were his own earnings, begotten by his labor: he loved them all.”

Silas loves his money on a metaphorical level. He does not need the money to survive, as he barely spends anything on his own pleasure. He has no family and no financial responsibilities. The money functions as a symbolic validation of his desire to remain isolated. As he counts the coins, he feels justified for living on the periphery of the community. The money becomes a replacement for companionship, one that is easier to understand for a loner like Silas.

“And the poor thoughts that the rich were entirely in the right of it to lead a jolly life.”

The town of Raveloe is bountiful and thriving, but the social order is staid and beginning to fester. While the poor, working-class residents do not currently resent the rich elite of the town because they respect Squire Cass, the Squire’s unimpressive sons are set to remind the populace that there is an innate unfairness to the social hierarchy of Raveloe.