Silas Marner

by

George Eliot

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on Silas Marner makes teaching easy.

The Individual and Society Theme Analysis

Themes and Colors
Faith Theme Icon
Morality Theme Icon
The Individual and Society Theme Icon
Fear of the Unknown Theme Icon
The Limits of Human Knowledge Theme Icon
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Silas Marner, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Individual and Society Theme Icon

Two societies are at the heart of Silas Marner: Lantern Yard and Raveloe. These societies are drastically opposed to each other. By the end of the novel, Lantern Yard is a large town filled with factories, busy men, strangers, and travelers. It has experienced the transformative force of the Industrial Revolution. Raveloe is rural and intimate and changes very little from generation to generation. The inhabitants of Raveloe all know each other and are resistant to new or dramatic events in their small village.

The theme of society encompasses both the nature of life in these very different places and Silas Marner’s own changing relationship to his neighbors in Raveloe. Marner’s exclusion from Lantern Yard’s society, his initial willful distance from Raveloe’s society, and his eventual inclusion in this society cause his losing and regaining of faith. The loss of Marner’s money and his finding of Eppie are both presented in terms of his connection with those around him. After he is robbed, Marner is more open to help from others because he feels alone and directionless. Marner is changed from a miserly, isolated weaver into a caring father as he seeks what is needed for his adopted daughter, Eppie. By caring for Eppie, Marner adjusts to Raveloe society, acquiring the customs and beliefs of his new home.

The social conventions of Raveloe dictate what the town’s inhabitants perceive to be right and wrong. Social events, such as the New Years’ Eve dance at Squire Cass’s home, occur according to tradition. Such traditions define Raveloe’s unique identity and society over generations. At the end of the novel, Marner and Eppie travel to Lantern Yard. The village has transformed into a great manufacturing town, made more unsettling by the strong contrast it presents to the intimate village of Raveloe. Men on the streets of Lantern Yard are too busy to stop and assist Marner and Eppie, and both characters long to return to the familiar comforts of Raveloe. Similarly, Eppie is uninterested in Godfrey and Nancy’s offer to adopt her, as this would separate her from the society of those “lowly” folks who she knows and cares for. Eppie and Marner are both happy at the end of the novel because of the connections they have formed with each other and with Raveloe society.

Related Themes from Other Texts
Compare and contrast themes from other texts to this theme…

The Individual and Society ThemeTracker

The ThemeTracker below shows where, and to what degree, the theme of The Individual and Society appears in each chapter of Silas Marner. Click or tap on any chapter to read its Summary & Analysis.
How often theme appears:
chapter length:
Get the entire Silas Marner LitChart as a printable PDF.
Silas Marner PDF

The Individual and Society Quotes in Silas Marner

Below you will find the important quotes in Silas Marner related to the theme of The Individual and Society.
Chapter 1 Quotes

In that far-off time superstition clung easily round every person or thing that was at all unwonted, or even intermittent and occasional merely, like the visits of the peddler or the knife-grinder. No one knew where wandering men had their homes or their origin; and how was a man to be explained unless you at least knew somebody who knew his father and mother?

Related Symbols: Raveloe
Page Number: 1
Explanation and Analysis:

“…there is no just God that governs the earth righteously, but a God of lies, that bears witness against the innocent.”

Related Characters: Silas Marner (speaker)
Page Number: 9
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 2 Quotes

His life had reduced itself to the functions of weaving and hoarding, without any contemplation of an end towards which the functions tended. The same sort of process has perhaps been undergone by wiser men, when they have been cut off from faith and love—only, instead of a loom and a heap of guineas, they have had some erudite research, some ingenious project, or some well-knit theory.

Related Characters: Silas Marner
Page Number: 15
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3 Quotes

“I might tell the Squire how his handsome son was married to that nice young woman, Molly Farren, and was very unhappy because he couldn't live with his drunken wife, and I should slip into your place as comfortable as could be.”

Related Characters: Dunstan Cass (speaker), Godfrey Cass, Squire Cass
Page Number: 20
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10 Quotes

Formerly, his [Silas Marner’s] heart had been as a locked casket with its treasure inside; but now the casket was empty, and the lock was broken. Left groping in darkness, with his prop utterly gone, Silas had inevitably a sense, though a dull and half-despairing one, that if any help came to him it must come from without; and there was a slight stirring of expectation at the sight of his fellow-men, a faint consciousness of dependence on their goodwill.

Related Characters: Silas Marner
Related Symbols: Gold
Page Number: 67
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 12 Quotes

Molly knew that the cause of her dingy rags was not her husband's neglect, but the demon Opium to whom she was enslaved, body and soul, except in the lingering mother's tenderness that refused to give him her hungry child. She knew this well; and yet, in the moments of wretched unbenumbed consciousness, the sense of her want and degradation transformed itself continually into bitterness towards Godfrey. He was well off; and if she had her rights she would be well off too.

Related Characters: Godfrey Cass, Molly Farren
Page Number: 90
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 14 Quotes

“…the little child had come to link him [Silas Marner] once more with the whole world.”

Related Characters: Silas Marner, Eppie
Page Number: 110
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 16 Quotes

By seeking what was needful for Eppie, by sharing the effect that everything produced on her, he [Silas Marner] had himself come to appropriate the forms of custom and belief which were the mould of Raveloe life; and as, with reawakening sensibilities, memory also reawakened, he had begun to ponder over the elements of his old faith, and blend them with his new impressions, till he recovered a consciousness of unity between his past and present.

Related Characters: Silas Marner, Eppie
Related Symbols: Raveloe
Page Number: 118
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 19 Quotes

“…then, sir, why didn't you say so sixteen year ago, and claim her before I'd come to love her, i'stead o' coming to take her from me now, when you might as well take the heart out o' my body? God gave her to me because you turned your back upon her, and He looks upon her as mine: you've no right to her! When a man turns a blessing from his door, it falls to them as take it in.”

Related Characters: Silas Marner (speaker), Godfrey Cass
Page Number: 141
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 21 Quotes

“It's gone, child," he [Silas Marner] said, at last, in strong agitation—“Lantern Yard's gone. It must ha' been here, because here's the house with the o'erhanging window—I know that—it's just the same; but they've made this new opening; and see that big factory! It's all gone—chapel and all.”

Related Characters: Silas Marner (speaker), Eppie
Related Symbols: Lantern Yard
Page Number: 148
Explanation and Analysis:

“Since the time the child was sent to me and I've come to love her as myself, I've had light enough to trusten by; and now she says she'll never leave me, I think I shall trusten till I die.”

Related Characters: Silas Marner (speaker), Eppie
Page Number: 149
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Conclusion Quotes

“…he [Silas Marner had brought a blessing on himself by acting like a father to a lone motherless child.”

Related Characters: Silas Marner
Page Number: 151
Explanation and Analysis: