Human beings do not thrive in solitude. Each hero has a support team, and each protagonist must maintain a close group of allies to truly succeed. George Eliot's Silas Marner promotes the idea that, although evil exists in the world, intimate human relationships are capable of creating happiness in the midst of brokenness. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay As demonstrated by Silas and his isolation from the Raveloe community, those who lack human relationships suffer great negative effects. For example, as stated by Durham in his article “Silas Marner and the Wordsworthian Child,” “[Silas] endures a fifteen-year period of spiritual numbness and indifference that George Eliot characterizes as a condition of uprootedness, particularly a psychic fragmentation, a loss of awareness of his personal past.” Silas refuses to acknowledge his past and the people who were involved in it. From friends who betrayed him to authority figures who banished him, it seems like every relationship in Silas's life has crumbled before him. She is afraid to acknowledge that brokenness and even more afraid of starting new relationships in the Raveloe community. As a result of this rejection, his life becomes boring, dark, and largely meaningless. Silas “hated the idea of the past; there was nothing to reveal his love and brotherhood towards the strangers he had come up against; and the future was all dark” (15). The people from his past hurt him deeply: they forced him to draw the conclusion that there was no being in this world or anywhere else who had love for him. As a fifteen-year resident of Raveloe, Silas has refused to believe in the need to love others or to be loved himself. He pushed everyone away and accepted a life of quiet, bitter solitude, barely surviving and living for only one thing: his gold. Gold pieces; however, he was poor company, and every "day of his life he sat at the loom, his ear full of its monotony, his eyes bent on the slow growth of identity in this brownish web" (20). Life simply drags on for Silas, devoid of happiness, meaning, or light. Every day is the same boring routine, and every day he becomes more and more wizened and hopeless, becoming more and more like an insect and less and less like a human being. Silas begins to lose everything as he becomes trapped in the idea of an evil and loveless world, a world where people disappoint and where God has no special concern for his creations. The past is painful and the future is hopeless, and the only thing Silas can do about it is to weave through the monotony and live for the moments when his gold will ease his pain. Because of such extreme isolation, the villagers of Raveloe regard Silas with a “mixture of contemptuous pity, terror, and suspicion” (40). After all his years of solitude, he has pushed every person away; he committed himself to a life completely devoid of human relationships. Yet, although Silas believes that living alone is best, he begins to feel a sense of warmth when he breaks into the Rainbow on the night of the robbery. Despite his greatest efforts to tell himself how useless human relationships are, he begins to find comfort in community when he needs it most. As Silas loses his gold and receives Eppie instead, he demonstrates how the presence of another human causes integration within a community. For example, as Ermarth stated in his description of Silas' life after finding Eppie, "the rest of Silas's storyis primarily about his difficulties in raising the little girl he calls Eppie, and the need, brought on by his surprising childhood habits, to have more children. he is almost forced to become friendlier to his neighbors in Raveloe. His main concern is to do well with Eppie and raise her as best as possible, and he realizes that this can only be achieved through the help of others he only gains happiness because of the child who has come into his life, but he also finds satisfaction in being part of a community, as brought about by his love for another. As Silas continues to care for Eppie, “there was no repulsion around him now, neither young nor old; for the child had come to connect him once again with the whole world” (129). darkness from this world. Eppie gives him a reason to live and find love again. It brought him joy in more ways than one, integrating him into a supportive community and giving him something to love and care about. Before Eppie, Silas didn't even consider attending church or getting to know his neighbors. However, in Silas' determination to give the little girl everything she needed, both Eppie and Silas were baptized and truly welcomed into the community. “On this occasion Silas, making himself as clean and tidy as possible, appeared for the first time in church and participated in the observances deemed sacred by his neighbors” (123). Doing such a thing had been the furthest thought from Silas's mind during the time in his life when he was still cynical about human relationships and angry at a God who did not love him. Yet, when Eppie arrives, he doesn't hesitate to show up at church. Thus Eppie “created new and new links between his life and the lives from which he had hitherto continually retreated into ever-narrowing isolation” (123). She is a blessing to his life and the only reason he was brought out of his misery and darkness. Eppie forced him to come out of his shell and was the direct cause of an integration that would never have happened without her. Ultimately, Silas finds his joy and fulfillment as a result of raising a son and becoming part of a larger community. For example, as explained by Auster, “the community remains essentially the same, but the author now offers it the opportunity to demonstrate its humanity, goodwill, and potential for authentic sociability, which serve to soften, if not to erase, our awareness. of his crudeness…his participation in social relationships humanizes him” (Auster 3). While the basic structure of the community has not changed, Silas' role within it has. Instead of doing his best to avoid any dealings with Raveloe, he has become an active member and reaps its benefits. He is no longer an insect or a wretch, with his gold as his only friend. He is introduced to the community by Eppie and begins to understand that such loving relationships can eliminate the darkness in the world. As Silas considers Eppie, he states that “There is good in this world, I have a feeling of it now; and it makes man feel as if there was something more good that he could not see, despite the difficulty and wickedness. That draw is dark; but the child was sent to me: there are relations with us, there are relations” (141). Instead of focusing on the injustices that have happened to him in the past, Silas focuses on the potential for light in his future. There is evil and there is good in the world, and the perspective Silas takes changes everything. Since he found it so. 2015.
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