Abstract
In her ‘legendary tale’, Silas Marner, George Eliot again addresses the issue of historical continuity. Like the earlier Adam Bede, however, the novel seems to evade the challenge of social change and disruption. Against the flow of history, the plot moves backward in time: the dweller from the industrial city is finally incorporated into the world of ‘Merry England’, ‘never reached by the vibrations of the coach-horn, or of public opinion’.1 Just as Dinah left the harsh world of Stoniton for Hayslope, so Silas leaves the industrial life of Lantern Yard for the rural village of Raveloe which, like Hayslope, stands ‘aloof from the currents of industrial energy and Puritan earnestness’ (p. 33). In Adam Bede George Eliot emphasised the continuity of this process of change: Dinah seemed to evolve, without undue stress, into her natural form of matron. In Silas Marner, however, following the pattern of The Mill on the Floss, she dramatises the conflict and discontinuity of the historical process. Maggie experienced the ‘clash of opposing elements’ and was forced into temporary exile; Silas is abruptly cast out from his friends, work, and home.
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Notes
George Eliot, ‘The Lifted Veil’, Silas Marner and ‘Brother Jacob’, Cabinet Edition (Edinburgh, 1878–80), Ch. 1, p. 7. All references to this edition of the tale will be cited hereafter in the text.
Catalepsy, as Oswei Temkin has shown in The Falling of Sickness (Baltimore, MD, 1971), was confused with forms of epilepsy from ancient times onwards, and the Victorians seemed no nearer than their predecessors to finding an explanation for its occurrence. Although catalepsy was a common term in mid-century psychological discussions (occurring, for example, in the works of Carpenter and Spencer), it was usually introduced as an inexplicable phenomenon. I have been unable to trace any detailed discussion of its causes. Its inexplicable nature seems, indeed, to persist to this day. Thus Robert Simon concludes his technical discussion of Silas’s malady with the observation that ‘Narcolepsy is a baffling illness that defies elucidation by the disciplines of neurology and psychiatry. The precise etiology of this malady remains a mystery today as during the lifetime of Eliot, Melville and Poe.’ See Robert Simon, ‘Narcolepsy and the Strange Malady of Silas Marner’, American Journal of Psychiatry, 123 (November, 1966), 601–2.
Unsigned review in The Times, 29 April 1861 in David R. Carroll (ed.), The Critical Heritage (London, 1971), p. 182.
Joseph Wiesenfarth, ‘Demythologizing Silas Marner’, English Literary History, 37 (1970), 236.
Comte distinguished his theory from that of earlier historians according to the respect with which he treated the past stages of history: ‘For that spirit consists in the sense of human continuity, which had hitherto been felt by no one, not even my illustrious and unfortunate predecessor Condorcet.’ See Auguste Comte, System of Positive Polity or Treatise on Sociology Instituting the Religion of Humanity, trans. J. H. Bridges, Frederic Harrison, E. S. Beesly, Richard Congreave (London, 1875–7), vol. I, p. 50.
Alexander Bain, The Emotions and the Will (New York, 1876), p. 534, p. 537.
George Henry Lewes, The Physiology of Common Life (London, 1859–60),Vol. II, p. 5.
Karl Marx, Selected Writings, ed. David McLellan (Oxford, 1977), p. 442.
David Friedrich Strauss, The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined, trans. Marian Evans (London, 1846), Vol. I, p. 64.
For detailed analysis of the parallels between the lives of Godfrey and Silas see David R. Carroll, ‘Silas Marner: Reversing the Oracles of Religion’, Literary Monographs, 1 (1967), 165–200, Knoepflmacher, George Eliot’s Early Novels: The Limits of Realism
Joseph Wiesenfarth, ‘Demythologizing Silas Marner’, English Literary History, 37 (1970), 226–44
Bruce K. Martin, ‘Similarity within Dissimilarity: The Dual Structure of Silas Marner’, Texas Studies in Language and Literature, 14 (1973), 479–89.
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Shuttleworth, S. (2002). Silas Marner: A Divided Eden. In: Yousaf, N., Maunder, A. (eds) The Mill on the Floss and Silas Marner. New Casebooks. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-230-21296-1_11
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