Identify at least three important symbols in Silas Marner and discuss their significance to your interpretation of related events in the novel.
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George Eliot’s eye opening novel
Silas Marner has numerous symbols that we will have to unlock and discover the meaning that will give us an understanding of the overall concept of the novel. Whenever the word symbols come to mind, you think of objects, or something that isn’t necessarily a solid item but has significance, and symbols definitely have more than one interpretation. Some individuals believe that the most significant theme is religion because it’s overall and clear emphasis, have truly not read more in depth to see between the lines. George
Eliot’s ultimate achievement, was for readers to really read with their minds and heart, because only then do you see the significance of symbols in the novel.
Eliot uses symbols in order to help broaden and strengthen the overall plot of the story
.
“Sometimes a symbol holds more power than it represents
.”
Jarod Kintz
. Throughout this outstanding piece of literature, the symbols are Lantern Yard, Silas Marner’s Loom and Silas Marner’s renewal of faith.
The first setting of the novel takes place in a town named Lantern Yard, the people of this town were very pious individuals whose life revolved around the strict religious beliefs.
Silas Marner was a linen weaver and he was active and participated in the social events of the town, he was engaged to young servant woman named Sarah .He was appraised as a young man of
“
exemplary life and intense faith” “ Silas was both sane and honest and passionate man” (7) In a prayer meeting , he suddenly fell and was in a tense state that went on for an approximate hour or hour, he was mistaken for dead , that definitely made the people take a great odd and unusual interest in him. On a night he is suppose to be on watch for the the
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William Dane has not come for his turn and the deacon stopped breathing. When he finally does see William Dane he is with the church minister and a meeting has been called forth. A robbery was committed and Silas’ pocket knife was found at the scene of the crime and he was being accused of it. He had no memory of the pocketknife being in his possession as well all he could say is “ God will clear me” . He was suspended from the church and his fiancee broke off their engagement. Not to long after William Dane marries Sarah and a few weeks after Silas leaves Lantern Yard. Lantern Yard symbolizes Silas’s past, the betrayal he experiences from only world he knows and done by who he thought were his friends. It’s such an irony because when you think of the word lantern , you think of light and that’s definitely not what it brought to his life, it was a horrible and it brought a great deal of darkness. He leaves that awful place for a town named Raveloe, where he will try to start a new life , in a place he doesn’t know anyone, because he had lost everything, his wife to be , his best friend and most importantly his unyielding faith.
In the town of Raveloe , he moves to a cottage far from the rest of the people and he is a totally distinct person. He no longer wants to be socially involved with anyone and he no longer believes in God. Raveloe as well isn’t much a tight knit community in which religion is enforced as it was in Lantern Yard. Silas Marner now sticking to what he does best , begins to weave and work faster than ever and now all his earnings actually were for himself.
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He never really appreciated the entire amount of his earning because his strong religious beliefs, money is the root to all evil and especially because he didn’t have to share it with anyone from the church like he did back in Lantern Yard. For the first time he felt a new
