The Interdependence of Faith and Community
In one sense Silas Marner can be seen
simply as the story of Silas’s loss and regaining of his faith.
But one could just as easily describe the novel as the story of
Silas’s rejection and subsequent embrace of his community. In the
novel, these notions of faith and community are closely linked.
They are both human necessities, and they both feed off of each
other. The community of Lantern Yard is united by religious faith,
and Raveloe is likewise introduced as a place in which people share
the same set of superstitious beliefs. In the typical English village,
the church functioned as the predominant social organization. Thus,
when Silas loses his faith, he is isolated from any sort of larger
community.
The connection between faith and community lies in Eliot’s
close association of faith in a higher authority with faith in one’s
fellow man. Silas’s regained faith differs from his former Lantern
Yard faith in significant ways. His former faith was based first
and foremost on the idea of God. When he is unjustly charged with
murder, he does nothing to defend himself, trusting in a just God
to clear his name. The faith Silas regains through Eppie is different
in that it is not even explicitly Christian. Silas does not mention
God in the same way he did in Lantern Yard, but bases his faith
on the strength of his and Eppie’s commitment to each other. In
his words, “since . . . I’ve come to love her . . . I’ve had light
enough to trusten by; and now she says she’ll never leave me, I
think I shall trusten till I die.”
Silas’s new faith is a religion that one might imagine
Eliot herself espousing after her own break with formalized Christianity.
It is a more personal faith than that of Lantern Yard, in which
people zealously and superstitiously ascribe supernatural causes
to events with straightforward causes, such as Silas’s fits. In
a sense, Silas’s new belief is the opposite of his earlier, simplistic
world view in that it preserves the place of mystery and ambiguity.
Rather than functioning merely as a supernatural scapegoat, Silas’s
faith comforts him in the face of the things that do not make sense
to him. Additionally, as Dolly points out, Silas’s is a faith based
on helping others and trusting others to do the same. Both Dolly’s
and especially Silas’s faith consists of a belief in the goodness
of other people as much as an idea of the divine. Such a faith is
thus inextricably linked to the bonds of community.
