Review: Silas Marner

Silas Marner
by George Eliot

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Silas Marner / 0-553-21229-X

"Silas Marner" is a wonderful story of maintaining perspective in life - a tale extremely comparable to Charles Dicken's "A Christmas Carol". In the height of his youth, when he is healthy, happy, and totally in love, young Silas is betrayed, cast down, and taught the 'lesson' that only the criminal and avaricious get ahead in life. He moves to a new town and abandons any attempt to connect with the society around him, instead focusing on hoarding his wealth and lovingly counting his money nightly. When his precious hoard is stolen, Silas is again crushed, but the arrival of a small "angel" - a little orphan girl with golden curls - starts him down the long road to redemption.

A powerful aspect of this novel is the use of foils and counterparts against the main character as he learns his life lessons. The members of the local nobility live out their seemingly "perfect" lives unhappily, having not learned the lesson that Silas has learned through his exploitation as a lower-class member of society. By the time the local nobility realize what a treasure Silas' adopted orphan would have been in their barren home, it is too late; only the poor and miserly old man truly understood in time the value of living life for the sake of another.

~ Ana Mardoll

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