Successful Human Relationships In Silas Marner

1173 Words5 Pages
George Eliot was writing in the 19th century with the influences of Dickens, Thackery, Wordsworth and the Romantics being clearly apparent in her work Silas Marner. The Romantics believed that poor and ordinary people were acceptable to be subjects of literature. They also believed people needed to keep in touch with their past in order to have a future and that a child could keep a man in touch with his sensitive side. The motto for the story Silas Marner came from a poem written by the important, Romantic poet William Wordsworth, "A child more than all other gifts, That earth can offer to declining man, Brings hope with it and forward looking thought" Wordsworth was one of the most renown and influential of the Romantics this poem is shown in the book through the happiness brought to Silas after he finds Eppie a lost child of whom he takes in and comes to love as she loves him back. George Eliots beliefs were of strong morals and code for herself and for others, she believed in humanity rather than God and through her experience of chapel learnt to fear God. She was born Mary Ann Evans but was forced to have a pen name of 'George Eliot' because of the nature of her love life and the disgrace it brought from the readers of her novels. George Eliot shows successful human relationships are necessary to find true happiness even throughout all the social classes of the 19th century through two parallel contrasting lives. One of a rich squire, Godfrey Cass and the other of a poorer man Silas Marner. Godfrey has a secret life which he does not tell anyone about as not to disgrace himself, because of this he does not completely relate to people or lead any successful human relations. He is a secretive, anxious, whimsical man and not truly happy a result of his own distancing from people. Godfrey only
Open Document