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Metaphor
Explanation and Analysis—Reaping and Sowing:
In Chapter 9, Eliot uses the metaphor of planting the "seed" of an evil or misguided decision to explain why such decisions inevitably hurt the doer. When describing Godfrey's trust in "the throw of Fortune's dice" to solve his relationship problems, she writes:
Let him forsake a decent craft that he may pursue the gentilities of a profession to which nature never called him, and his religion will infallibly be the worship of blessed Chance, which he will believe in as the mighty creator of success. The evil principle deprecated in that religion, is the orderly sequence by which the seed brings forth a crop after its kind.
With this metaphor, Eliot links religious themes of comeuppance and divine revenge to the concept of Godfrey "reaping" what he sows. Many of the important events in Silas Marner reflect the novel's urging to follow Christian teachings. Within the novel's moral universe, then, reliance on luck instead of just acting morally is in itself risky business. Instead of being proactive about his feelings for Nancy and his marriage to Molly, Godfrey chooses to wait and cross his fingers. Because he does not sow a good deed, Eliot implies his actions can only "bring forth a crop" of trouble.
Warnings by the narrator about leaving things to chance recur several times in the novel. The negative consequences of relying on "Chance" always come with commentary from Eliot's narrator about the dangers of straying from the path of moral action. The most obvious example of this is when Silas's fate is changed by the choice to "draw lots" in Lantern Yard. The reader already knows that "Chance" in this novel is not fair, as the unfortunate result of relying on the luck of the draw was the reason the weaver was exiled from his original home in Chapter 1. Trusting any aspect of one's life to luck—instead of good deeds guided by Christian principles—apparently causes characters nothing but misery in Silas Marner.
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