53 pages • 1 hour read
George EliotSilas Marner
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1861A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 2, Chapters 16-18Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2, Chapter 16 Summary
Sixteen years pass. After a ceremony in the Raveloe church, the congregation exits. Godfrey is now married to Nancy. They are middle-aged but childless; they have inherited most of the “divided” family fortune after Squire Cass’s death, though Godfrey has not inherited his father’s title (154). Silas leaves the church, looking older than his 55 years. Eppie, now 18, leaves with him. A boy named Aaron Winthrop, who is Dolly’s son, follows closely behind them. When Eppie tells Silas how much she would like a garden, Aaron offers to dig one. They make plans for him to do so, inviting him to bring Dolly with him.
The house where Silas lives with Eppie is almost unrecognizable. They have many pets, as well as extra rooms with expensive furniture, purchased for them by Godfrey. The people of Raveloe have noticed that Godfrey favors Eppie, but they credit this as evidence of his improved character rather than anything more sinister, like a secret first marriage. As Silas and Eppie eat dinner, he watches her play with the pets. Afterward, they go outside. Silas smokes a pipe, which the people of Raveloe have “strongly urged” him to do as solution for his occasional fits (159). The pipe is evidence of his integration into the local community. In recent years, Silas has shared more about his past with Dolly. He has told her about Lantern Yard, and Dolly is perplexed by their “strange customs” (160). They speculate as to how he could have been falsely convicted. Silas has also mentioned this period of his life to Eppie, and he has told her about the circumstances in which they met. Eppie does not want to know her father’s identity: She believes that Silas is the best possible father she could have. She keeps her mother’s wedding ring and studies it from time to time.
Silas and Eppie talk about the garden. Eppie goes to the nearby stone pit because they are thinking of building a stone wall. The water level has dropped in the pit, which Silas explains is to help water the nearby fields. As they sit beside the water, Eppie reveals that Aaron is interested in marrying her. Silas is sad that Eppie may leave him, but he conceals his real emotions. Eppie is reluctant to accept any proposal, as she does not want “any change” in her life (167). Silas assures her that she will need to marry someone, someday. He offers to speak to Dolly, who is both Aaron’s mother and Eppie’s godmother.
Part 2, Chapter 17 Summary
The Cass house has taken on a more domestic atmosphere. After church, Nancy invites her family, including Priscilla, to the house for tea. Priscilla declines, insisting that she must stay at home to work. At this time, she has taken over management of the family farm due to her father’s old age. As they walk, Nancy mentions that Godfrey is not satisfied with their life. Though Priscilla is angry, Nancy defends him as “the best of husbands” and shares his disappointment that they do not have children (171).
Later, Godfrey takes his regular Sunday walk. He leaves Nancy at the house, where she dwells on her thoughts. She thinks about how their lack of children has affected Godfrey. The couple conceived a child but the baby died during childbirth. Nancy was reluctant to adopt, unwilling to intervene in God’s plan. She refuses to alter the “little code” that governs her life (174). Godfrey pointed to Eppie as evidence for how well adoption could work. For a long time, Godfrey has thought about adopting Eppie. He has never entertained the idea that Silas would refuse his offer to take in Eppie. Godfrey wonders whether his childless marriage is a punishment for his failure to adopt his daughter. He thinks that he may still be able to adopt her in the future. Back at the house, Nancy is alerted to a commotion outside.
Part 2, Chapter 18 Summary
When Godfrey returns home, he is overwhelmed with emotion. He tells Nancy that a skeleton has been found in the drained stone pit near Silas’s house. The skeleton belonged to Dunsey, he says, and has been found with “all the weaver’s money” (181). Seemingly, Dunsey fell into the water in the pit shortly after stealing the gold. Godfrey is deeply affected by the confirmation of his brother’s death. He is worried that all of the secrets of the past may be revealed. Determined to take control of the situation, he tells Nancy about his marriage to Molly. He tells her that he is Eppie’s real father. Nancy is not angry. Instead, she has “only deep regret” that Godfrey did not confess earlier, which would have allowed them to adopt Eppie as their daughter (182). They make plans to visit Silas and share the truth about Eppie’s past.
Part 2, Chapters 16-18 Analysis
In Part 2 of Silas Marner, the narrative leaps forward 16 years. As the characters leave a church service, the narrator describes the effect that the passage of time has had upon them. An important part of the growth of the characters is revealed in Silas’s attendance. During the years of his marginalization, Silas did not attend the church services. His experiences in Lantern Yard were so bad that he had sworn off organized religion entirely. Whenever Dolly mentioned the church to him, he politely declined. After 16 years, however, he is seen attending a church service as though he is a regular fixture in the congregation, again highlighting the theme of Religion as Community Center and Personal Doctrine. Eppie, walking alongside Silas, has had such a drastic effect on her adoptive father, even pulling him back into religion, where he seems content both at a community and personal level. In bringing an irreligious man back to religion, Eppie has inspired a revelation and a change in Silas that seemed impossible 16 years before.
The change in Silas’s life is also evident in his house. In Part 1 of the novel, Silas house was a strange and unsettled place, as Silas’s primary preoccupation was his work. He lived at the edge of the village, and boys would frequently spy on him as though he were a supernatural spectacle. His house was dingy, lonely, and removed from the community. Now, it is abundant with life, from animals to constant renovations. Eppie has changed everything, evidently, and Silas is content with the change. He smokes his pipe while sat outside; this is a clear indication that the cultural exchange with the community is bilateral, as he is willing to accept their advice just as much as their praise. Silas’s adoption of the pipe also serves as a reclamation of the dignity Silas lost when he tried to offer an herbal remedy to Sally and was accused of witchcraft. Now, the very villagers who condemned him offer their own remedies to treat his illness, representing Silas’s full integration into society. Indeed, the lonely house is now filled with noise and happiness. Eppie plays with her pets during dinner time, whereas Silas previously cooked meat alone and played with his money in silence. Those times are consigned to the past, and the physical changes to Silas’s house show how much he has grown as a character. The house is a primary setting in the novel, and the transformation of the house represents Silas’s second bloom. When the novel begins, Silas has been exiled from Lantern Yard, where he lost his fiancée to his supposed best friend through scheming. Even more importantly, he lost his good name. Silas had given up on society, but with Eppie’s arrival, he has found his way back to a community with genuine support and care for its members. To live on the fringes of society is dangerous in a hierarchical system: Eppie has essentially saved Silas just as much as he has saved her, and what started as a dark tale of misfortune is now aglow with happiness and new life.
The changes in Silas’s house, however, are colored by the way in which this change has come about as a result of Godfrey Cass’s guilt and secret parentage of Eppie. Godfrey has offered to help pay for Eppie’s upbringing. Disguising his actions as those of a concerned benefactor, he has paid for furniture and extensions to Silas’s house. He has transformed the weaver’s home into a place fit to raise a daughter. To the community, this seems like an act of charity and an indication that Godfrey is a good man, complicating the relationship between Class and Identity. Godfrey knows better, and his class and fortune are all that enable him to create a façade of goodness. He knows that his willingness to donate money to Silas and Eppie is a manifestation of his shame and guilt. He wants to care for the girl, but he does not want to take responsibility for her. To do so would be to destroy his reputation and his marriage, so he does not believe that he can afford to reveal the truth. His charity is a self-interested act, a balm spread over his own anxiety, which does nothing to eliminate the pain, instead only managing it temporarily.
By this time, Godfrey has everything he ever thought he wanted. He inherited his father’s fortune, his brother never returned, he escaped the responsibilities of his marriage to Molly, and Nancy agreed to be his wife. Even though Godfrey has everything he ever wanted, he is not happy. His long Sunday walks give him time to reflect on his childless marriage. The tragic death of his only child with Nancy only makes him more regretful. He must watch Eppie grow up, knowing that he cannot be her father. Her presence in his life is a reminder of everything he does not have, a reminder of his failure to confess the truth to anyone and of his failure to give his wife a child. Godfrey’s life is a punishment, one in which he is given everything he thought wanted but in such a way that he cannot enjoy it. In this sense, Godfrey and Silas are opposites, each getting what they deserved through the merit of their own actions, which highlights the key element of moral values found in Victorian literary realism.
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