George Elliot And Silas Marner

George Eliot’s Mind

For hundreds of years the British Literature has taught, thrilled, and surprised readers from Great Britain and around the world. Famous writers such as Shakespeare, Chaucer, and Dickens have made a great impact on literature throughout their emotions, desires, fantasies, and events that have influenced their lives. But not just those famous writers have made a great impact in the British Literature. Mary Ann, better known by the pseudonym of “George Eliot” is an example of it. She was a writer that lived in the nineteenth century whose books were inspired by conservatism, tension, and morality of those times. Her novels talk about “an often minutely reproduced society, where the principal emphasis falls upon the problems of an individual.”1 One of her major works is Silas Marner, though it is not her best work, and is her shortest novel, it is the most known.

Mary Evans was born in November 22, 1819 at Warwickshire, England. Her father was Robert Evans, he was the manager of the Arbury estate, and her mother was Christiana. Mary Evans was the third child born of the couple, however her father had two older children from a previous marriage. Her father’s job allowed her to have a look at upper-class and working-class life, these details were factors for her future books. Robert was so proud of his daughter’s intelligence that he provided her with books whenever she wanted them. She went to a Mrs. Wallington’s School at Nuneaton, where she came under the influence of Maria Lewis, a zealous woman who inculcated an evangelical piety in Mary, which provoke an increased in her faith. They remained as good friends for many years, even after she finished the school they kept communication by sending letters to each other. At the school she learned piano, read French and Italian, and was known as a good writer. The death of her mother obligated her to return home to take care of the house and her father. There he let her have lessons to learn Latin and German.

In 1841, her father retired from his charge in Arbury and moved with her to Coventry, where her passion for writing started. In Coventry she met Charles and Cara Bray, a couple who which she shared her doubts about religion. Sometime later in 1842 she stopped going to church, something that her father disliked and rose a conflict between them for several months until they reached a compromise, letting her to be free of believe whatever she pleased to as long as she respect the church. After this she started to make a translation of the book The Life of Jesus Critically Examined, 3rd Vol. by the German David Friedrich Strauss, whom she met through the Brays. The translation of the book made her gain respect around London, and it is the only book that has her real name and not under the pseudonym of “George Eliot.” In 1849 her father died after a long illness, something that really depressed her, so she decided to move to Geneva to live alone for some time, later she came back to London where she worked for John Chapman as his editor. Evans met George Henry Lewes, an intelligent urbane man who was unconventionally married with Agnes Lewes, a woman who cheated on him several times. He was a man with liberal views so he forgave Agnes until he got tired of her infidelity, but he could not get divorce from her. Lewes and Evans consulted articles and went to operas and plays that Lewes reviewed for his job, they soon began an affair. As Lewes could not get divorced, Evans decided to openly live with Lewes as his wife. This was socially unaccepted by the people, because he was already married. Evans was dropout by her friends and her family.

Lewes was a important factor for Evans to start writing, he encourage her to write fiction, but the only problem was that her work could be rejected because of the fact that she was a woman writing fiction, so she opted to use a pseudonym, “George Eliot.” Scenes of Clerical Life was Eliot’s first book of fiction, it contained three successful stories that she published before. Later she published her first long novel Adam Bede that she described as “a country story.” Eliot returned to her childhood throughout her novel The Mill on the Floss. Silas Marner, Romola, and Middlemarch were her best and most recognized works.

After many years of a happy relationship Lewes died in 1878, that was something that made Eliot fall into a deep depression, the main reason that encourage her, the reason that made it possible to write left her alone. She met John Walter Cross, for some years Eliot’s investments had been in his hands, and by the sympathy that they felt to each other started a relationship. In 1880 they got married, Cross was 40 years old, and Eliot 61 years old. Unfortunately in the same year George Eliot died.

George Eliot was working on her novel Romola when she suddenly got the idea to write other novel which later on she would call it Silas Marner, “it came

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