Summary: Conclusion
Eppie and Aaron are married on a beautiful summer day.
Priscilla Lammeter and her father are among those who watch the
procession through the village. They have come to keep Nancy company, as
Godfrey has gone away for the day “for special reasons.” Priscilla tells
her father that she wishes Nancy had found a child like Eppie to raise
for her own. The procession stops at Mr. Macey’s porch, as he is
too old and frail to attend the wedding feast and has prepared some
kind words for Silas. At the Rainbow, the assembling guests talk
about Silas’s strange story, and everyone, even the farrier, agrees that
he deserves his good fortune. The wedding procession of Silas, Eppie,
Aaron, and Dolly approaches the cottage. Eppie and Aaron have decided
they would rather stay in Silas’s cottage than go to any new home,
so the cottage has been altered to accommodate Aaron. Among other
improvements, a large and impressive garden has been built at Godfrey’s
expense. Returning home with the wedding party, Eppie tells Silas
that she thinks “nobody could be happier than we are.”
Analysis: Chapters 19–21, Conclusion
The final intersection of the two narrative lines resolves
the novel’s remaining tensions. The confrontation between Silas
and the Casses over their claims to Eppie is partly a conflict of
class. Despite their good intentions for Eppie’s welfare, Godfrey
and Nancy do not understand the depth of Silas’s feelings for his
daughter. Godfrey simply assumes that “deep affections can hardly
go along with callous palms and scant means.” Though Nancy is more
sympathetic to Silas’s bond with Eppie, she still regards the prospect
of Eppie’s belatedly restored birthright as an “unquestionable good.”
Also, Nancy’s “code” gives precedence to the claim of the blood
father over the adoptive father. Against these claims, however,
Silas and Eppie’s simple assertion of family easily wins out. The
Casses’ assumptions of upper-class superiority and the importance
of blood relations are no match for Silas’s simple emotion and moral
certitude. Eliot here shows that Silas’s “rude mind,” which she
describes with some condescension earlier in the novel, in fact
possesses a great deal of natural nobility.
While Godfrey’s attempt to make up for his past inaction
is an important event, to some extent it has been predetermined
by what has come before. As Silas says, after so many years, it
is impossible for Godfrey to make up for his previous refusal to
claim Eppie. Godfrey comes to understand that his wish to “pass
for childless” when courting Nancy now means that he must continue
to be childless, even though his wish has changed. Godfrey has no
more managed to escape the consequences of his actions than Dunsey
has. The sense of predetermination that haunts Godfrey is integral
to the highly moral nature of Eliot’s narrative universe. Good deeds
are ultimately rewarded, and evil deeds—or cowardly inaction—are
punished.
When Silas and Eppie visit Lantern Yard, they find that
it is the opposite of Raveloe in more than one sense. Silas finds
it a frightening and unrecognizable place. The chapel and graveyard
have completely disappeared, and no one in the town remembers anything about
the way things once were. Unlike Raveloe, where nothing ever goes
away, in the larger town we see that people and places can disappear
without a trace. The same thirty years that have utterly effaced
Lantern Yard have brought virtually no comparable change to the
landscape of Raveloe. The transitory nature of the larger town is
partly a function of its size, but is also tied to industrialization.
A factory, after all, replaces Lantern Yard’s chapel. The tall buildings
that Silas and Eppie pass on their way through the town, with their
“gloomy” doorways filled with “sallow, begrimed” faces, contrast
with the rural, outdoorsy life of Raveloe. The industrial landscape
of the larger town—frightening, destructive, and dehumanizing—has
wiped out memory and history.
Silas Marner closes with a final public
event, bringing together all of its characters in the same way the
Rainbow and the Squire’s dance do. However, whereas Silas is an
intruder at the public gatherings earlier in the novel, this time
he is at the center. Moreover, Godfrey, who was the beau of the
New Year’s dance, chooses not to attend the wedding, making himself
the outsider. Importantly, both Mr. Macey’s statement and the wedding
guests’ conversations concern not the newlyweds but Silas himself.
This provides yet another sign that Silas has completed his progression
from the margins of the community to the center.
