Ideas the Writer Conveys Through Silas Marner :: George Elliot Silas Marner Literature Essays

Ideas the Writer Conveys Through Silas Marner The writer of Silas Marner, George Elliot was born Mary Ann Evans in 1819 in Warwickshire. She had two older siblings, Christiana and Isaac who she got on especially well with. She also had two stepsiblings from her father's first marriage. She was a precocious child and was sent to boarding school with her sister where she suffered from homesickness and nightmares. At the age of nine she began being taught by a strict evangelical Maria Lewis who greatly influenced Evan's religious and moral beliefs. She had a very strong moral code. When Mary was sixteen her mother died, and her father, whom she was very close to, was left bringing her up. When her father died in 1849 she felt completely alone. Mary Ann Evans wrote under the pen name George Elliot because of her status (she was living with a married man) and she thought she wouldn't get published if she were known to be a women. She was a very intellectual woman and love and relationships were important to her. George Elliot wrote Silas Marner in 1861. It is a moral fable, not an autobiographical novel but it is influenced by parts of Elliot's life experience. For example, in the character Eppie, she has created someone who must live without a mother, as Elliot did from the age of sixteen. Elliot was highly inspired by the works of the poet William Wordsworth, and a quotation from his poem 'Michael', seems to be a kind of basis to the novel. In Silas Marner we are asked to take pity on a man who is outcasted by society. Silas is set up by his friend and wrongly accused of theft causing him to lose his faith in God and trust in people. Silas Marner was born and brought up in the large northern industrial town of Lantern Yard. The people living there are strictly religious and hard working. It is community based around a church. Silas Marner was a gentle young man with a pale face and "large brown protuberant eyes" and a "defenceless, deer-like gaze." His appearance makes him seem a very likeable and approachable character; he has "the expression of trusting simplicity". He is a very trusting man and honest man "Silas was both Sane and honest" and extremely hard working but he is also naÃÆ'Â ¯ve and vulnerable and his cataleptic fits make him even more vulnerable to criticism and accusations. His best friend William Dane, used in the story as a contract to Silas, on the other hand is arrogant and conceited. He has 'menacing' "narrow slanting eyes" and "compressed lips".