Introduction by Frederick R. Karl

1. Go here for a short biography of Mary Ann Evans (A.K.A George Eliot)

2. As you read the Introduction by Frederick R. Karl to the Signet edition of Silas Marner, find synonyms for the following words:

personification, inherently, powerful, alienated, different, dig, steadfast, remnant, rebirth,

admonish, celebrate

Her third novel, Silas Marner, was subtitled The Weaver of Raveloe; originally, the words "A Story by George Eliot" were considered, then deleted. The novel proved to be, in imagined episodes and characters, the embodiment of qualities innately linked to Eliot herself, especially a growing obsession with money. She and Lewes were building a fortune, mainly in investments, comparable to Marner's stacks of coins; but alongside that was the appearance in the couple's life of Lewes's sons from his marriage, a foreshadowing of the introduction of a child into Marner's. Equally compelling is Eliot's positioning of Marner as a marginalized figure, isolated from the rest of mankind, intent on solitary work at his loom: not at all distinct from the situation of the writer herself, at her desk, socially marginalized by her decision to run off with the married Lewes, a solitary figure whose own family treated her as an outcast.

Eliot and Marner were not duplicates or twins, but as we delve deeper in the novel we can see how she transformed personal considerations into fictional representation. An abiding belief in Eliot - the residue of her earlier Evangelicism - was her interest in regeneration of a lost soul, or in the restoration of spiritual life in someone who had focused on hard, unyielding matter. In still another respect, she was eager to castigate the class of squires on their dissolution and lack of productivity, their thievery, their failure to maintain moral principles, in this case a failure to recognize even a daughter. By this means, she could laud the working class, who appear as honest, hard-working and focused - qualities that nation-building required. In a third way, she was attempting to reveal how guilt must eventually be confronted and resolved: that the really evil are punished...

3. From the passage, can you identify what might be some possible themes of the novel?