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Essay / The importance of allies and human relationships in Silas Marner
Human beings do not thrive in solitude. Every hero has a support team, and every protagonist must maintain a group of close allies to truly succeed. George Eliot's Silas Marner advocates this idea that even though there is evil 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 Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay As Silas and his isolation from Raveloe's community demonstrate, those who lack human connections suffer serious negative effects. For example, as Durham says in his article “Silas Marner and the Wordsworthian Child,” “[Silas] endured a fifteen-year period of spiritual numbness and indifference that George Eliot describes as a condition of uprootedness, more precisely, fragmentation psychic, loss of awareness of one's personal past. Silas refuses to acknowledge his past and the people who were involved in it. From the friends who betrayed him to the authority figures who banished him, it seems like every relationship in Silas's life has crumbled before him. He is afraid to recognize this brokenness and he is even more afraid of starting new relationships in the Raveloe community. As a result of this refusal, his life becomes dull, gloomy and largely meaningless. Silas “hated the idea of the past; nothing called forth his love and comradeship towards the strangers against whom he had come up against; and the future was all dark” (15). People from his past hurt him deeply: they forced him to draw the conclusion that no being in this world or any other had love for him. For the fifteen years he has been living in Raveloe, Silas has refused to believe in the necessity of loving others or being loved himself. He rejected everyone and accepted a life of quiet and bitter solitude, barely surviving and living for only one thing: his gold. Gold coins; however, be in bad company, and every “day long he sat at his loom, his ear filled with its monotony, his eyes downcast on the slow growth of uniformity in this brownish web” (20). Life drags on for Silas, devoid of happiness, meaning and light. Every day is the same boring routine, and every day he becomes more and more withered and desperate, becoming more like an insect and less like a human. Silas begins to lose everything as he remains trapped in the idea of an evil and loveless world, a world where people disappoint and 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 himself into the monotony and live for the moments when his gold will ease his pain. Because of this extreme isolation, the villagers of Raveloe regard Silas with a "mixture of scornful pity, dread, and suspicion" (40). After all his years of solitude, he pushed away every person; he committed himself to a life totally devoid of human relationships. Yet even though Silas thinks it is better to live alone, he begins to feel a warm sensation when he breaks into the Rainbow on the night of the theft. 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 being causes integration within a community. For example, as Ermarth stated in his description of Silas's life after finding Eppie, "the rest of Silas's story mainly concerns his difficulties inraising the child he calls Eppie, and the need, brought on by his surprising childhood habits, to have more children. turning to neighbors for advice. As Silas begins to open up to the idea of raising a child, he is almost forced to become more friendly with his neighbors in Raveloe. His main concern is doing right by Eppie and raising her in the best way possible, and he realizes that this can only be achieved with the help of others. So not only does Silas find happiness through the child who has entered his life, but he also finds fulfillment through being part of a community, brought about by his love for another. As Silas continues to care for Eppie, “there was no more revulsion around him, neither young nor old; for the little child had come to connect him once more with the whole world” (129). Silas's life is radically changed by the appearance of a child who seems to chase away some of the darkness from this world. Eppie gives him a reason to live and find love again. She brought him joy in many ways, including him in a supportive community and giving him something to love and care for. Before Eppie, Silas never even considered the idea of going to church or getting to know his neighbors. However, in Silas's determination to give the child everything she needed, 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 the church and took part in the observances held sacred by his neighbors” (123). Doing such a thing had been the furthest thought from Silas's mind at the time of his life when he was still cynical about human relationships and angry at a God who did not love him. However, when Eppie arrives, he doesn't hesitate to show up at the church. Thus Eppie “created ever newer connections between his life and the lives from which he had hitherto continually withdrawn into ever closer 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 out of his shell and was the direct cause of an integration that would never have happened without her. Finally, Silas finds his joy and fulfillment in raising a child and being part of a larger community. For example, as Auster explains, "the community remains essentially the same, but the author now offers it the opportunity to demonstrate its humanity, its good will, and its potential for true sociability, which serve to soften, even erase , our consciousness. “of his crudeness… his participation in social relations humanizes him” (Auster 3). Although the fundamental structure of the community has not changed, Silas's role in it has. Instead of doing his best to avoid any relationship with Raveloe, he has become an active member and is reaping the benefits. He is no longer an insect or a wretch, with his gold as his only friend. He was introduced to the community by Eppie and begins to understand that such loving relationships can alleviate the darkness of the world. As Silas reflects on Eppie, he says, “There is good in this world – I feel it now; and it makes a man feel that there is much more than he can see, despite the troubles and wickedness. This 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 happened to him in the past, Silas focuses on the potential for light in his future. There is bad and good in the world, and the perspective Silas takes changes everything. Because he found so much.. 2015.