Dorobanu AlexandraAnul II, Seria 2, Grupa 4

The concept of nostalgia in Silas Marner

Nostalgia is a desire to return in thought or in fact to a former time in ones life, to ones home or homeland, or to ones family and friends, a sentimental yearning for the happiness of a former place or time. ( Dictionary.com )George Eliot leads Silas Marners life through different perspectives of the Victorian Age, uprooting him from the church in Lantern Yard, where he was suspended from the church-membership, and placing him in Raveloe, where he stands as being an outcast. The development of the novel is balanced, the evil is dissolved by the good, the injustice is removed by the truth and what Silas thought he lost, founds trough Eppie.Silas Marner represents a mirror in which are reflected the Victorian social problems : Mammonism, villainy, religious hypocrisy, upper-class haughtiness and vice, corruption ( Lecture 7 : Module 2 continued: The Victorian Novel II: The Art of Victorian Feminine Fiction in Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and Middlemarch plus Silas Marner as a masterpiece in little, Ioana Zirra) Oppositions are obvious starting from the two places in which Silas Marner lives: his native town which is absorbed by the industrialization and Raveloe, which is a simple village where the new visions havent reached yet. Raveloe is introduced as being an important-looking village, with a fine old church and large churchyard in the heart of it( Silas Marner, George Eliot) , but even though it is presented as a pious place, the wickedness and the snobbery were also there. Even his fits of catalepsy were seen different. While in Raveloe he makes Jem Rodney to think he is dead, dispersing even more aversion, in Lantern Yard he is centered by a peculiar interest after he had fallen at a prayer-meeting, into a mysterious rigidity and suspension of consciuosness.( Silas Marner, George Eliot ) For his friend William Dane this trance looked more like a visitation of Satan than a proof of divine favour.( Silas Marner, George Eliot )Another parallel which seems to be mind-consuming for Silas was between his past life and his current one: His life before he came to Raveloe, had been filled with the movement, the mental activity, and the close fellowship.(...) Marner was highly thought of in that little hidden world, known to itself as the church assembling in Lantern Yard; he was believed to be a young man of exemplary life and ardent faith. ( Silas Marner, George Eliot )Silas Marner is a nostalgic character because after he was unjustly blamed, he inevitable feared that Sarah will case me off too(Silas Marner, George Eliot), and indeed she married William Dane. He rejects the idea of being expelled, but when he becomes aware of the falsity of people, he leaves his own country and people, denying even the Power he had vainly trusted in, which for him, had been turned to bitterness.( Silas Marner, George Eliot) He hated the thought of the past; there was nothing that called out his love and fellowship toward the strangers he had come amongs; and the future was all dark, for there was no Unseen Love that cared for him.(Silas Marner, George Eliot)The money he received in his native town were of a lower rate, and a large amount went to objects of piety and charity, but when he rejected the faith, he started to look at the guineas with desire. Also when he was in the church he thought about plants as a desire, because it was his belief that any help given through the medical herbs, would be against Gods will. But now, starting from the help given to Sally Oates, he gives help to anyone and that was the way in which he collected the gold guineas. IN THIS OFFICE OF CHARITY, SILAS FELT FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE HE HAD COME TO RAVELOE, A SENSE OF UNITY BETWEEN HIS PAST AND PRESENT LIFE, WHICH MIGHT HAVE BEEN THE BEGINNING OF HIS RESCUE FROM THE INSECT-LIKE EXISTENCE INTO WHICH HIS NATURE HAD SHRUNK. (Silas Marner, George Eliot )Silar Marners faith was replaced by the desire of collecting money and the frienship that he encontered in the past, was substituted by the guineas, which became his family. He is always trying to draw back from the present and he finds escape in the past, even if it is about what he had lost in Lantern Yard through the money, because he seems to be incapable of bonding with other human beings, or after he has lost the golden family in Raveloe: The touhght of the money he would get by his actual work could bring no joy, for its meagre image was only a fresh reminder of his lost. He filled up the blank with grief. (Silas Marner, George Eliot ) He was generally spoken of as a poor mushed creatur (Silas Marner, George Eliot ). His neighbors became merciful and gracious towards Marners lost, and after he adopted the little girl, he received even more sympathy. The fact that he is a nostalgic character is evident from the fact that when he was robbed, he continuosly hoped that his wealth will come back, his craving for the lost money: During that last few weeks since he had lost his money, he had contracted the habit of opening his door and looking out from time to time, as if he thought that his money might be somehow coming back to him, or that some trace, some news of it, might be mysteriously on the road, and be caught by the listening ear or the straining eyes. ( Silas Marner, George Eliot )His grief for the deprivation was ended by the appearance of the child, but even in this mystery he sees a way or returning to what he had lost: the child symbolizes only an exchange for the gold: his own gold - brought back to him as mysteriously as it had been taken away! He felt his heart begin to beat violently, and for a few moments he was unable to stretch out his hand and grasp the restored treasure. (Silas Marner, George Eliot )Nothing could be more powerfully drawn than the blank despondency of the unhappy man, and nothing more beautifully imagined than the change wrought by the golden-haired child who takes the place of the gold by his hearth and in his heart. ( The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes 1907-1921 Volume XIII. The Victorian Age, Part One, XI The Political and Social Novel )Furthermore through the memories of the past Silas thinks that the child might be his little sister, who came back to him in a dream. He doesnt see Eppie as a beginning but as a connection with the past. Even the name he chooses for her, is the name of his mother, which has a biblical usage: Hephzibah means "my delight is in her" in Hebrew. She is a queen and the mother of Manasseh in the Old Testament. Also if we have to examine the name of Silas, which is also a biblical name of a companion of Saint Paul, we will find that in Greek it means forest, woods and in Latin of the forest, God of trees and forests. (www.behindthename.com)Therefore, the main character is destined to live a life in a village away from the reforms which encounters in his native town. Even he does not live in a place where factories were the principal way of raising money, the imbalance between the peasants and the Squire Casss wealth was evident. And more than that, Dunstan, who depicts the wickedness in the novel is a representant of the High Class, which unveils the authors view about the influential families from the Victorian Age. Due to the change which occurs in his life, he resumed some of his old habbits. For the little child had come to link him once more with the whole world(Silas Marner, George Eliot) Even if for years he avoided his neighbors and their advices of going to church, he finds a friend in Dolly Winthrop, and by her persistences he integrates in the society. Also memories about his past life dominates his toughts and he opened his mind to Dolly Winthrop, he gradually communicated to her all he could describe of his early life.( Silas Marner, George Eliot )There was a vision of the old home and the old streets leading to Lantern Yard and within that vision another, of the thoughts which had been present with him in those far-off scenes. The thoughts were strange to him now, like old friendships impossible to revive; and yet he had a dreamy feeling that this child was somehow a message come to him from that far-off life.(Silas Marner, George Eliot )When the truth was brought to light, and the money were returned to the owner, he finally was able to accomplish what he was withering about. Accompanied by his daughter he returns to his native town, in the hope that the past was enhanced, but there was nothing that remained from his old life. The town has undergone some changes. For Silas, whose thoughts were permanently of the past, and of his injustice, monopolized his whole life. But Lantern Yard developed and instead of the old church there was an opening in front of a large factory, from which men and women were streaming for their midday meal. Lantern Yards gone. ( Silas Marner, George Eliot)His nostalgic memories about his happy living invaded the posibility of change and while the live in Raveloe didnt involved - with only few exceptions: the loss of his money, the appearance of a child, the return of his money - a life filled with changes, Silas was bewildered by the changes thirthy years had brought over his native place, had stopped several persons in succession to ask them the name of this town, that he might be sure he was not under a mistake about it. (Silas Marner, George Eliot)Taking these points into consideration, the novel elaboretes the nostalgy of Silas Marnes who is bound to the past in a period of continuous development. George Eliot layered upon a quiet but insistent nostalgia for times that are not infused by the spirit of industry. ( Industrial Culture and the Victorian Novel, Childers J.W. 2001 )

Works Cited

1. Dictionary.com www.dictionary.com2. Behindthename.com www.behindthename.com 3. Industrial Culture and the Victorian Novel, Childers J.W. 2001, p 914. Silas Marner, George Eliot5. The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes 1907-1921 Volume XIII. The Victorian Age, Part One, XI The Political and Social Novel http://www.bartleby.com/223/1126.html6. Lecture 7 : Module 2 continued: The Victorian Novel II: The Art of Victorian Feminine Fiction in Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and Middlemarch plus Silas Marner as a masterpiece in little, Ioana Zirra p 3