Silas Marner: Key Theme Quotations (WJEC Eduqas GCSE English Literature)

Silas Marner: Key Theme Quotations

Your essay question in the Eduqas GCSE exam will focus on a character, an interaction between characters, or a specific theme. Learning quotations by theme is an excellent way to organise your approach to Silas Marner. Here are some important quotations from across the novel that align with the following themes:

• Isolation and community

• Gold

• Belief

Isolation and community quotes

“certain pallid undersized men, who … looked like the remnants of a disinherited race” – Narrator, Chapter 1

Key word or phrase: “disinherited race”

What the quotation means

• This quotation describes the appearance of linen weavers who travelled between houses and villages for work 

• Like Silas Marner, they did their work indoors at a loom, which deprived them of sunlight

  • Therefore, they were usually pale (“pallid”) and shorter than other people

Analysis

• George Eliot was first inspired to write Silas Marner by her memory of seeing a linen weaver with his bag on his back:

  • The quotation could describe Silas Marner as he travels between the houses of his customers

• The quotation emphasises how alien such people seemed to the inhabitants of small, rural communities like Raveloe:

  • The difference in Marner’s appearance contributes to their suspicion of him and his alienation

• Describing linen weavers as “remnants” emphasises their isolation from any community:

  • They are the leftovers (“remnants”) of an unknown people, which implies that they have no community of their own

• The “disinherited” also describes Marner’s position when he first arrives in Raveloe:

  • He is an outcast, deprived of his heritage, his rights and his place in society

• The adjectives “pallid” and “undersized” suggest an unhealthy appearance and stunted growth

“the weaver, as everybody knew, was partly crazy” – Narrator, Chapter 8

Key word or phrase: “everybody”

What the quotation means

• This comment is made after Marner has his gold stolen and he appeals to the Raveloe community to help him find the thief

• Some people believe his story but others do not:

  • The only thing they can all agree on is that he is “partly crazy” 

Analysis

• The fact that “everybody” believes that Marner is mentally unwell (“partly crazy”) emphasises his social exclusion:

  • It implies a consensus in the village that is widely accepted and unquestioned 

  • It increases his isolation, because even the people who are supportive of him, like Mr Macey, share this opinion

  • It reflects society’s tendency to stigmatise and marginalise individuals who deviate from perceived norms

“when a man had deserved his good luck, it was the part of his neighbours to wish him joy” – Narrator, Conclusion

Key word or phrase: “neighbours”

What the quotation means

• When Eppie marries Aaron Winthrop at the end of the novel, the villagers gather at the Rainbow

• They all agree that he deserves his good luck (his gold has been found) and it is their responsibility to wish him happiness

Analysis

• The community is, once again, in agreement about Silas Marner, but this time their consensus is positive and inclusive:

  • This view of Marner demonstrates the reversal in their attitudes towards him

• They feel that Marner “deserves” his good luck because of his adoption of Eppie, a “lone motherless child”

• The reference to themselves as Marner’s “neighbours” shows that he is now regarded as part of their community

• The reference to Marner deserving his good luck also links with the novel’s structure, in which actions are directly connected with their consequences

Gold quotes

“the love of accumulating money grows an absorbing passion” – Narrator, Chapter 2

Key word or phrase: “absorbing passion”

What the quotation means

• The narrator is commenting on Marner’s growing obsession (“absorbing passion”) with saving (“accumulating”) all the money he earns

Analysis

• The narrator attempts to explain why Marner’s love of accumulating money has become obsessive:

  • “Absorbing passion” suggests his love for money consumes and overwhelms him

• Marner’s “absorbing passion” is compared with a prisoner in “solitary confinement” marking their time with scratches on the wall:

  • The narrator suggests that everyone develops habits to overcome boredom,  tiredness or isolation

• Marner’s habit of hoarding and counting his coins has become a habit because he cannot imagine a “purpose beyond it”:

  • In his loneliness, Marner cannot think of anything apart from working, earning and saving money

  • His money makes sense of his life because it has begun to “mark off his weaving into periods”, at the end of which he is paid

“The idea of Marner’s money kept growing in vividness” – Narrator, Chapter 4

Key word or phrase: “money”

What the quotation means

• Dunstan Cass is imagining, more and more vividly, the gold that Marner is said to have hoarded

• He plans to persuade or threaten Marner into lending it to him

Analysis

• This quotation represents the way that money can stimulate greed and corruption:

  • The idea of Marner’s money “growing in vividness” shows Dunstan’s fixation on it as a means of solving his financial problems

• It is unlikely that Marner will want to lend him the gold, but the more Dunstan thinks about it, the more he convinces himself that he is entitled to it:

  • This is partly to do with Dunstan’s class status, which makes him feel superior to a labourer like Marner

  • Dunstan’s assumptions are also due to his character flaws of laziness, greed and dishonesty

• When Dunstan finds Marner’s cottage empty, he seizes the opportunity to steal the gold

“Gold! — his own gold — brought back to him as mysteriously as it had been taken away!” – Narrator, Chapter 12

Key word or phrase: “Gold!”

What the quotation means

• When he first sees the child (Eppie) asleep in front of his fire, Marner thinks that her shining golden curls are his stolen gold returned to him

Analysis

• The presentation of gold in this quotation creates a parallel between Marner’s lost gold and the appearance of Eppie in his life

• As Marner’s adopted daughter, Eppie comes to replace Marner’s gold:

  • The repeated juxtaposition between the gold and Eppie allows Eliot to convey her ideas about what is truly valuable:

    • The relationship between Marner and Eppie has far more meaning and value than the gold that was stolen

  • Eppie becomes Marner’s real treasure, giving his life meaning and purpose

Belief quotes

“In that far-off time superstition clung easily” – Narrator, Chapter 1

Key word or phrase: “superstition”

What the quotation means

• In the early nineteenth century, rural people were generally more superstitious and their beliefs were more deep-rooted and fixed

Analysis

• This quotation from the beginning of the novel characterises the beliefs of people in rural communities like Raveloe:

  • In Chapter 1, Eliot outlines a belief system that combines Christian faith with “strange lingering echoes of the old demon-worship”, which links to pagan beliefs that pre-date Christianity

  • Most of the labouring class of Raveloe are illiterate, so these beliefs have been orally transmitted from one generation to the next

• The villagers’ superstitions make them suspicious of anything or anyone strange or unfamiliar:

  • Their suspicions are partly due to the insularity of traditional rural communities that contain generations of the same families

  • Geographical isolation contributes to the inward-looking views of the Raveloe community

  • Therefore Marner’s appearance among them is met with suspicion based on superstitions about the unknown

“there’s dealings with us — there’s dealings” – Silas Marner, Chapter 16

Key word or phrase: “dealings”

What the quotation means

• Marner is stating his belief that there are powers that intervene in (have “dealings” with) human affairs 

Analysis

• Marner is responding to Dolly Winthrop’s belief that even terrible things happen for a reason, even if people cannot understand why:

  • He refers to the drawing of lots that led to his condemnation and the appearance of Eppie, who he believes was “sent” to him

  • He agrees that there must be a power beyond his understanding, which intervenes, or has “dealings” with, people’s lives

  • This shows that he feels able to make sense of the good and bad experiences of his life, which had previously confused and distressed him

“human beliefs, like all other natural growths, elude the barriers of system” – Narrator, Chapter 17

Key word or phrase: “natural growths”

What the quotation means

• The narrator is describing the way that Nancy Lammeter has constructed her “little code” of beliefs and principles

• Religious, moral or philosophical systems cannot contain all human beliefs

Analysis

• The quotation specifically refers to Nancy’s belief that she should not adopt a child against “the will of Providence”:

  • The narrator is commenting on the fact that this belief is very similar to that of people from different religious traditions to Nancy’s

• This assertion about beliefs and systems applies more widely to Silas Marner:

  • By presenting “human beliefs” as “natural growths”, Eliot is aligning them with the idea of organicism

  • Nancy’s beliefs have developed organically and are a natural collection of ideas from various sources, including the folk beliefs of her elders, Christian traditions and forms of worship, and ideas about social propriety 

• The concept of organicism is also found in Eliot’s depiction of Raveloe as an integrated community: 

  • Its beliefs are part of an organic whole that reflects its nature as a community

  • No single religious system can contain all the beliefs of an individual or a community

Source:

Eliot, George (1996). Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe, ed. David Carroll. Penguin.