Previous
Mood
Definition of Motif
A motif is an element or idea that recurs throughout a work of literature. Motifs, which are often collections of related symbols, help develop the central themes of a book... read full definition
A motif is an element or idea that recurs throughout a work of literature. Motifs, which are often collections of related symbols, help develop the... read full definition
A motif is an element or idea that recurs throughout a work of literature. Motifs, which are often collections of... read full definition
Chapter 4
Explanation and Analysis—Natural Dullness:
Eliot uses the motif of a lack of mental sharpness to characterize the lazy, ineffectual, and immoral Dunstan Cass. in the middle of Chapter 6, the author uses a simile to compare Dunstan's mind to the imaginary "mind of a possible felon":
A dull mind, once arriving at an inference that flatters a desire, is rarely able to retain the impression that the notion from which the inference started was purely problematic. And Dunstan’s mind was as dull as the mind of a possible felon usually is.
Dull people, Eliot tells the reader, have a hard time remembering that something was originally a bad idea once they have seen that it might get them something they want. Dunstan isn't just dull, he's also very self-centered and self-satisfied. For these reasons, when the terrible plan to coerce money out of Silas "flatters a desire" of his, he forges ahead with it without further consideration.
Rather than being thorough and descriptive as it is elsewhere, the narrator's own dull, simple language in this segment reflects the character it describes. It's a delicious little moment of Eliot's snark. The reader is brought into a catty moment of evaluating Dunstan with the narrator, making that narrator's "presence" very strongly apparent.
Dunstan is unable to judge the consequences of his actions and often seriously misbehaves. In this scene he has just abandoned Wildfire, Godfrey's horse, which he was lent after threatening to blackmail his brother and which he has recklessly caused to fall and die. This doesn't really matter to Dunstan—although it's both cruel to the horse and very inconvenient for Godfrey—as he's far more focused on his own motives. Instead of being worried about his brother, he immediately switches back to his only topic of interest: himself.
Dunstan's self-interested dullness is revealed to be his downfall in every way possible as the novel goes on. Near the end of Silas Marner he's found decayed to a skeleton in a dried-up quarry pond. He dies of another mistake of dullness: he falls into the hidden well in a stone-pit because he couldn't see in the dark. Dunstan's "dullness" is so ingrained that it also seems to be catching. After the younger Cass brother has made off with his gold, the old weaver then sits by his hearth reflecting on his loss. Rather than being the warm center of his home, however, the hearth has become a "dull fire" because of Dunstan's crime.
Related Themes:
Chapter 5
Explanation and Analysis—Theft and Thievery :
Eliot populates much of the novel with motifs of theft and thievery, showing the reader that bad behavior and its consequences are unpredictable, and that theft can be experienced and committed by people of any social class. For example, in Chapter 5 when Silas leaves his cottage and Dunstan immediately steals his gold, the weaver thinks to himself that:
He could not have locked his door without undoing his well-knotted string and retarding his supper; it was not worth his while to make that sacrifice. What thief would find his way to the Stone-pits on such a night as this? and why should he come on this particular night, when he had never come through all the fifteen years before?
The "sacrifice" of having a late supper is of course quickly made to seem minimal by Silas's unanticipated "sacrifice" of his gold. It's a very expensive meal, as he only later finds out. Relying on the past as a predictor of the future is a bad idea for Silas. Here, although he has hoarded his money, he "spends" that carefulness very quickly as he ignorantly assumes the best possible outcome for his situation. The repeated use of rhetorical questions emphasizes this, as the narrator ventriloquizes Silas reasoning with "himself." In Silas Marner the assumption that "nothing will go wrong" is almost always a dangerous one. Prudence is extolled as an important virtue, and Silas's carelessness foreshadows his loss.
Related Themes:
Chapter 10
Explanation and Analysis—"Favorable Chance":
Eliot contrasts the virtues of good Christian behavior with the dangers of irreligious reliance on luck in Chapter 10. When Godfrey is enmeshed in making an important decision, the author mentions that Fate, and not the Christian God, is being wrongfully allowed to rule Godfrey's choices:
In this point of trusting to some throw of fortune’s dice, Godfrey can hardly be called old-fashioned. Favourable Chance is the god of all men who follow their own devices instead of obeying a law they believe in. Let even a polished man of these days get into a position he is ashamed to avow, and his mind will be bent on all the possible issues that may deliver him from the calculable results of that position.
Not trusting in God is a bad idea for everyone in Silas Marner, if they take the risk of doing so. "Luck" in this novel is associated with deviating from one's pre-ordained path, always with bad consequences. Eliot's narrator here reminds the reader that people should act in accordance with the teachings of Christianity—the "law that they believe in"—even if it seems difficult. Trusting in the will of the Christian God is the only way to achieve happiness in Silas Marner, as Nancy tells Godfrey in Chapter 17 when she explains she cannot in good conscience go against "the will of Providence" to adopt Eppie. Even though it would make her happy, she feels that having a child when she had not been able to bear one herself would be going against her Christian ideals.
Silas's misfortune in "drawing lots" also comes to mind here: especially as that exercise in luck is crudely framed as a religious one linked with "praying" by the villagers of Lantern Yard. Trusting in God, whether deliberately after a test of one's faith, or consistently through sustained religious practice, is the only thing which is actually rewarding to these characters. Actions have consequences, Eliot implies, so the only way to ensure good consequences is to behave properly.
Silas's gold coins get replaced with Eppie the "golden child" through religiously-aligned Providence, not "Favorable Chance." Faith in God is represented as being quite different from taking risks by Eliot's narrator. Faith will direct a character correctly, and relying on luck will lead them astray from the moral choices the book encourages.
Related Themes:
Chapter 13
Explanation and Analysis—Childish Behavior:
Eppie's childish behavior and development into maturity appear as a motif as soon as she joins Silas's storyline. Her innocent good nature foreshadows other characters' development into better people, particularly Silas, for whom she initially acts as a foil. In Chapter 14 when Silas's love for Eppie begins to awaken and he remembers his own better qualities, the narrator makes the following comparative claim:
As the child’s mind was growing into knowledge, his mind was growing into memory: as her life unfolded, his soul, long stupefied in a cold narrow prison, was unfolding too, and trembling gradually into full consciousness.
When discussions of Eppie's innocent nature occur, they're usually aligned with a different character's equal or opposite nature. As Eppie gains "knowledge" here, Silas recalls his previous life, "growing into memory." The warmth of Eppie's character and the untainted nature of her personality act as a foil for Silas's coldness, eventually freeing his real character from the "cold narrow prison" of his miserly existence.
In the same chapter Eliot writes that Eppie gives Silas "fresh and fresh" links into his "lives" before his self-imposed isolation. She is a God-sent remedy for the betterment of men like Silas who need love to be reawakened, and a counter-example for selfishness and self-interest.
In Chapter 13, just before this, Marner watches Eppie sit with enraptured stillness and feels "awe," as other characters do when they encounter sublime natural beauty. Eliot uses the same pastoral imagery to describe Eppie's heavenly innocence here as she does Silas's "blooming" and "budding" into Christian kindness in later chapters. This foreshadows their eventual alignment:
She was perfectly quiet now, but not asleep—only soothed by sweet porridge and warmth into that wide-gazing calm which makes us older human beings, with our inward turmoil, feel a certain awe in the presence of a little child, such as we feel before some quiet majesty or beauty in the earth or sky—before a steady glowing planet, or a full-flowered eglantine, or the bending trees over a silent pathway.
The enormous images Eliot invokes seem too large to be associated with a baby, but speak strongly to the magnitude of Eppie's influence on Silas: to him, she is a "planet," a "full-flowered" plant, and sheltering trees. Eliot invokes a Victorian trope here of the "wise child," common to a lot of 19th century fiction. Eppie's relationship to the divine is still present, as she has only recently come into the world. The "inner turmoil" this divine innocence exposes in adults makes them feel a sense of awe before the "quiet majesty" of her demeanor and presence. Unlike the gold Silas loses, Eppie's value is in her vivaciousness and receptiveness, and her childlike approach to love and togetherness.
Related Themes:
Chapter 14
Explanation and Analysis—Childish Behavior:
Eppie's childish behavior and development into maturity appear as a motif as soon as she joins Silas's storyline. Her innocent good nature foreshadows other characters' development into better people, particularly Silas, for whom she initially acts as a foil. In Chapter 14 when Silas's love for Eppie begins to awaken and he remembers his own better qualities, the narrator makes the following comparative claim:
As the child’s mind was growing into knowledge, his mind was growing into memory: as her life unfolded, his soul, long stupefied in a cold narrow prison, was unfolding too, and trembling gradually into full consciousness.
When discussions of Eppie's innocent nature occur, they're usually aligned with a different character's equal or opposite nature. As Eppie gains "knowledge" here, Silas recalls his previous life, "growing into memory." The warmth of Eppie's character and the untainted nature of her personality act as a foil for Silas's coldness, eventually freeing his real character from the "cold narrow prison" of his miserly existence.
In the same chapter Eliot writes that Eppie gives Silas "fresh and fresh" links into his "lives" before his self-imposed isolation. She is a God-sent remedy for the betterment of men like Silas who need love to be reawakened, and a counter-example for selfishness and self-interest.
In Chapter 13, just before this, Marner watches Eppie sit with enraptured stillness and feels "awe," as other characters do when they encounter sublime natural beauty. Eliot uses the same pastoral imagery to describe Eppie's heavenly innocence here as she does Silas's "blooming" and "budding" into Christian kindness in later chapters. This foreshadows their eventual alignment:
She was perfectly quiet now, but not asleep—only soothed by sweet porridge and warmth into that wide-gazing calm which makes us older human beings, with our inward turmoil, feel a certain awe in the presence of a little child, such as we feel before some quiet majesty or beauty in the earth or sky—before a steady glowing planet, or a full-flowered eglantine, or the bending trees over a silent pathway.
The enormous images Eliot invokes seem too large to be associated with a baby, but speak strongly to the magnitude of Eppie's influence on Silas: to him, she is a "planet," a "full-flowered" plant, and sheltering trees. Eliot invokes a Victorian trope here of the "wise child," common to a lot of 19th century fiction. Eppie's relationship to the divine is still present, as she has only recently come into the world. The "inner turmoil" this divine innocence exposes in adults makes them feel a sense of awe before the "quiet majesty" of her demeanor and presence. Unlike the gold Silas loses, Eppie's value is in her vivaciousness and receptiveness, and her childlike approach to love and togetherness.
Related Themes:
Chapter 16
Explanation and Analysis—Nancy's Still Beautiful:
The motif of inner goodness shining through one's outward appearance recurs throughout this novel. For example, in Chapter 16 the narrator describes Nancy's looks as remaining pleasant even though she's no longer a young girl. The narrator explains that this is mostly due to Nancy's wonderful personal qualities:
[...] Nancy’s beauty has a heightened interest. Often the soul is ripened into fuller goodness while age has spread an ugly film, so that mere glances can never divine the preciousness of the fruit. [...] The firm yet placid mouth, the clear veracious glance of the brown eyes, speak now of a nature that has been tested and has kept its highest qualities; and even the costume, with its dainty neatness and purity, has more significance now the coquetries of youth can have nothing to do with it.
Eliot's novel portrays having a bad character as affecting one's looks negatively, and a good character as being visible in pleasant features and an inviting aura. If you're kind and benevolent, in Silas Marner it will be reflected in your appearance.
This goes both ways, as pleasant countenances in Silas Marner allow a reader to diagnose things about characters' personalities that might not otherwise be obvious. Readers can "see" things in good people that aren't necessarily visible to the eye in this book; for example, Nancy's eyes are described here as "veracious," which means "truthful." Truthfulness as a character trait isn't really a thing one can usually see, but it's so present in Nancy's character that it's as clear as the color of her irises. Eliot also implies that perceptive people particularly like to see the evidence of a good life well lived on others' faces. She notes, pointing the reader towards this association, that Nancy's beauty would be of interest to those "who love human faces best for what they tell of human experience." Eliot's narrator is very interested in character studies and implies that the reader should be, too.
Related Themes:
