Silas Marner is a linen-weaver who was falsely accused of stealing by his townspeople in religious community of Lantern Yard. As a result, he lost his faith in his religion and moved to the town of Raveloe. Now, instead of worshipping God, he worships his growing pile of gold. However, Dunstan Cass, the town squire's degenerate son, steals Silas's gold and disappears. Dunstan's elder brother, Godfrey, is secretly and unhappily married to a woman of a lower class. On New Year's Eve, this woman tries to carry her child to Raveloe to force Godfrey to acknowledge her, but she dies in the snow close to Silas's house. Eppie, the child, gets into Silas's cottage and he adopts her and finds the happiness he lost with his gold. Years later, the pond near Silas's door is drained and the town discovers Dunstan's body with the gold. Now, Godfrey acknowledges himself the father of Eppie and claims her, but she refuses to leave Silas.
George Eliot (1819-1880) was the pseudonym for Mary Ann Evans. She was born at Arbury Farm in Warwickshire, England, attended country schools and grew up with a strong sense of religion. Throughout her literary career, Eliot focused on provincial life and the way people grew capable of goodness despite adversity. Adam Bede (1859) was the first novel written under her pseudonym, followed by The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), MiddleMarch (1872), and Daniel Deronda (1876), among others that established her as one of the most distinguished woman writers of the nineteenth century.
Eliot's understanding of the small-mindedness of people and the effect such thinking can have on people considered to be strangers is clearly demonstrated in the relationship between Silas Marner as a representative of the company of linen-weavers and the town of Raveloe. George Eliot describes the company of linen-weavers, of which Silas Marner is a member, as "[c]ertain pallid undersized men, who, by the side...