Silas’ Four Seasons: Eliot’s Weaver of Raveloe

Abstract

Silas Marner is representative of how geography, space and time can concur to draw an eloquent map of a character's life and interior growth. Set on two different - opposed - locations, that represent two different stages of self-awareness, personal growth and self-fulfillment, the novel opposes rural and urban life, nature to human nature, conveying the character's moods and anxieties. In Silas Marner, these sceneries are portrayed as indoor and outdoor landscapes, the latter standing for aggression, fear and discomfort, and the former for the sacred refuge, the protection to be conquered through the passing of the threshold. Space intertwines with time and it acts upon the terrain, adding meaning layers and punctuating the seasons. Time provokes structural changes and alters the landscape.