Book Report: ‘Silas Marner’

By Kate Norrish

Staff Writer

According to my grandfather, “Silas Marner” was one of his least favorite books that he had to read in high school. While the book’s flowery writing style and focus on the family unit makes it violently Victorian. I also violently disagree. 

Written in 1861 by George Eliot - most famous for pretending to be a man in order to be respected as an author - this book features Silas. Silas is not having a good time. After being framed for killing a sick priest that he was tasked with caring for, he is excommunicated and spends all his time weaving. He then sells his creations, and hoards the money as a coping mechanism after the trauma of his excommunication. 

Everything changes when an opium addict breaks into his house, and steals the money. Soon after, the man’s daughter, who is still in her toddler years, wanders into Silas’ house. What follows is a series of downright adorable misadventures as a neighbor helps Silas raise this slightly odd, but overall sweet little girl in his new home of Ravaloe - a fictional town in rural England. 

When the child, Eppie (short for Hephzibah), grows up, she and her adopted father find themselves in a situation that made me angrier than a work of fiction had done before. 

In realist novels, I find that I really need to like the characters for me to care about the little details that the book tells us about them. While this led to my opinions of Elliot’s most famous book - “Tess of De’Ubervilles,” - being summed up with a shrug, “Silas Marner” succeeds in this phenomenally. 

The town community is so friendly and close knit that you’ll want to move in, and Silas, despite spending a good chunk of the book in self isolation, will win you over with his protectiveness of Eppie. Silas especially relies on a local mother, Dolly Winthrope, to bond over the antics of Eppie and her son. 

Speaking of which, this kid, both as a little child and late in the book as a young adult, will give you a sugar high from how stinking sweet she is. And yet, she is still a realistic toddler. She has tantrums, disobeys instructions given to her, and at one point responds to being placed in Silas’ coal hold as a form of time-out by using it as a play house. 

The role of age is also a major element of this book, in a way that I find fascinating, if not unique. After the book’s time skip, Silas’ development makes his humanity fully blossom, whereas several of the character interactions that Eppie has remind me of times visiting bitter relatives who only like the idea of me.

One of my favorite little details in this book is how calming Silas finds the rhythm of weaving. As someone who has been doing the craft since my preschool years, I relate to it a lot. To both of us, the repetitiveness of fiber arts is a valuable source of stimulation, self-soothing, and focus. 

It’s nice to see it thematically incorporated into a work of fiction so well, and these descriptions help you understand that Silas is a simple man whose collection of money does not come from a place of material desire. 

Although we never find out who framed Silas, his growth and forgiveness, as both a parent and a person, make him accepted in his new community with open arms. 

After all, Ravaloe cares for him far more than the church did. In fact, the reason he names his adopted daughter ‘Hephzibah,’ is a dark moment that comes out of nowhere, and gives us a quick glimpse into the life Silas may have dealt with before the events of the book. He is still a Christian by the end of the story, but, like in “The Color Purple,” he grows to believe that God can be easily found outside the church. 

I am not a mother myself, even though I would love to be one some day, but I would consider this book to be a wonderful gift to new parents and those entering childcare professions. It is a fun, slice-of-life story about the awkwardness of becoming a parent, and the antics you’re about to get into.