2.1 the Biblical Archetypes Associated with Silas Marner

Acknowledgements

Firstly I am extremely grateful to my supervisor Prof. Liang Xiaodong. She not only provides me many helpful suggestions and patient instructions for my thesis writing, but also encourages me greatly during the long journey of completing my thesis.

My warm-hearted thanks also go to all the teachers in the Faculty of International Studies at Henan

Normal University. Without their teaching and care during the three years, I will never make any progress in my three-year study and in my completion of my thesis.

I also want to show my sincere gratitudes to my family members, my classmates and my friends for their accompaniment, help and encouragement.

摘要

乔治·爱略特是英国文学史上著名的女性作家之一，其主要作品有《弗洛斯河上的磨坊》、《米德尔马契》、《丹尼尔·德龙达》等。其中，《织工马南》是她早期最为著名的一部小说。《织工马南》描述了织工塞拉斯·马南坎坷的人生经历：他被好友诬陷偷了教堂的钱，愚昧的教区人们用抽签的方法断定马南有盗窃行为，未婚妻也抛弃了他，他充满了委屈和怨恨地离开了自己的故乡到拉维罗村庄居住。原先的经历使他开始怀疑自己的信仰，他也不再进教堂，他整天织布，过着孤独的生活。他唯一的乐趣就是晚上数他的金币。一天晚上，他的金币突然被偷了，这唯一的乐趣也没有了，就在他痛苦万分的时刻，一个小女孩爱碧偶然爬到了他家，成为他的养女。正是由于爱碧的到来给塞拉斯的生活增添了生机，他开始与人交往，后来他的银子也失而复得。他开始意识到上帝并没有抛弃他，爱碧实际上就是上帝送给他的礼物，从此他的信仰更加坚定。《织工马南》出版以后，得到了广泛的关注，国内外各种流派的专家学者对其进行了评论，尽管如此，人们不可能将一部名作的深刻内涵挖掘穷尽。它依然吸引着众多的研究者对其进行全新的诠释与解读。乔治·爱略特曾在两所宗教学校就读的经历对她产生了深刻的影响，其作品也明显地受到《圣经》的影响，《织工马南》也不例外，也多有圣经原型蕴藏于其中。本论文旨在从圣经原型角度分析《织工马南》，重点剖析了其中的原型人物、原型结构、原型情节。本论文主要包括三个部分，即引言，正文和结论。引言部分涵盖了小说内容简介、文献综述、研究动机、方法和问题以及论文框架。正文部分有四章内容。其中，第一章简单回顾原型批评理论并阐明在此理论的基础上分析《织工马南》的可行性。第二章主要分析小说中的原型人物。第三章对小说中的原型结构即 U 型叙述结构进行了分析。第四章探讨了蕴含其中的原型情节，即抽签和三个罪证。结论部分对整篇论文进行了概括和总结，并指出乔治·爱略特在《织工马南》中运用原型的目的，即通过丰富的圣经原型的运用，更加强调了传统的基督教价值观以及它

III 在人与人之间的和谐关系中所起的重要作用，另外作品中也反映了在工业文明影响下的人与自然的关系。乔治·爱略特在《织工马南》中使用的原型不仅是她创作灵感的来源之一，同时也帮助我们更深更广地理解小说的内涵。对《织工马南》中原型的探究在一定程度上也丰富了原型研究，为原型研究的发展做出了些许贡献。

关键词：乔治·爱略特，《织工马南》，原型解读，基督教传统价值观

Abstract

George Eliot is one of the famous female novelists in the British literature history; her main literary works are The Mill on the Floss, Middlemarch, Daniel Deronda and so on. Silas Marner is one of her renowned works in her early literary period.

Silas Marner describes a bumpy story of a linen weaver named Silas Marner：he is framed by his friend to steal the church money, the community people confirms his theft in the way of drawing lots and his intended wife also abandons him. He leaves his hometown with the grievance and the complaints, then he moves to the Raveloe to live. The former experience makes him begin to doubt his belief and he does not go to church any more. He devotes himself to weaving all day long and leads a lonely life. His only joy is to count his golden coins, one night, the golden coins are absent. The only joy is gone, at this depressed time, a little girl Eppie scrawls into his door and afterwards becomes his adopted daughter. It is the coming of Eppie that brings the freshness to Marner’s life. He begins to get along with neighbors and consequently he regains his golden coins. He starts to realize that God does not abandon him factually. Eppie is the gift from God. From then on, his belief in God is much firmer.

Silas Marner gains wide attention after its publication, many scholars and critics are interested in studying it. But the connotation of a famous work will never be dug out completely. It still attracts many people to give the further new studies on it.

George Eliot’s experience of staying in two religious schools exerts a deep influence on her and her literary works. Silas Marner is just like this with many archetypes embedded in it. This thesis is to analyze the novel from the perspective of archetypal criticism with the careful analysis of the archetypal characters, archetypal structures and the archetypal plots in this novel.

This thesis mainly consists of introduction, body and conclusion.

The introduction is made up of a synopsis of the novel, a literature review, research motivation, methodology and questions as well as the framework of the thesis.

Chapter One mainly reviews the theories of the archetypal criticism and demonstrates the feasibility of analysis on the basis of the archetypal criticism. In Chapter Two, the archetypal characters are analyzed in

it. Chapter Three discusses the U-shaped structures in this novel. Chapter Four explores the archetypal plots including drawing lots and three sin testimonies.

The conclusion is the summary of the above interpretations and illustrates the intention of the novelist’s employment of these archetypes. Through the using the rich archetypes, the novelist emphasizes the traditional Christian values and the significance of the harmonious relationship between human beings.

Furthermore the novelist also refers to the relationship between man and nature under the influence of the industrial civilization. The archetypes employed in this novel are the origins of the inspiration for the novelist; meanwhile they also give us a much deeper and wider understanding of this novel. The archetypal exploration of Silas Marner to some extent enriches the archetypal study and makes a certain amount of contribution to the archetypal research.

Key Words: George Eliot，Silas Marner，archetypal interpretation，traditional Christian value

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements...... I

摘要...... III

Abstract...... V

Table of Contents...... VII

Introduction ...... 1

0.1 A Brief Introduction to George Eliot and Silas Marmer...... 1

0.2 The Main Previous Researches of the Novel...... 2

0.3 Research Motivation, Methodology and Questions ...... 6

0.4 The Framework of this Thesis...... 7

Chapter One Archetypal Criticism...... 9

1.1 A Main Review of Archetypal Criticism ...... 9

1.2 The Feasibility of Analysis from the Angle of Archetypal Criticism ...... 12

Chapter Two Archetypal Characters...... 15

2.1 The Biblical Archetypes Associated with Silas Marner ...... 15

2.1.1 Job ...... 15

2.1.2 Adam ...... 19

2.2 The Biblical Archetypes Associated with Eppie...... 20

2.2.1 Jesus Christ...... 20

2.2.2 Ruth ...... 21

Chapter Three Archetypal Structures ...... 25

3.1 The U-shaped Structure in the Story of Silas Marner...... 26

3.2 The U-Shaped Structure in the Story of Godfrey Cass...... 29

Chapter Four Archetypal Plots ...... 33

4.1 Drawing Lots...... 33

VII

4.2 Three Sin Testimonies ...... 35

Conclusion...... 37

Works Cited ...... 39

攻读学位期间发表的学术论文目录...... 41

独创性说明...... 43

关于论文使用授权的说明...... 43

VIII

Introduction

0.1 A Brief Introduction to George Eliot and Silas Marmer

The nineteenth century was filled with various changes in England; the great importance was attached to the novels in this time. George Eliot (1819-1880) is a brilliant star among the numerous literary writers in this important period. George Eliot, her primitive name is Mary Ann Evans, she ever reads in two religion universities, so she and her works were greatly influenced with the Christianity religion thoughts.

George Eliot’s works are so multitudinous and they are generally divided into three groups in her literary career. The early period works included Scenes of Clervcal Life(1856-1858), Adam Bede(1859),

The Mill on the Floss(1860), Silas Marner(1861). The middle period novels are Romola(1862-1863), Felix

Holt · the Radical(1866). Daniel Deronda(1876) belongs to her last period novels. Except the above-mentioned works, George Eliot also has other works in her whole life.

Among all her renowned novels, Silas Marner is one of them. This novel is filled with the Christianity influence, and the Bible traces are found in this novel. Silas Marner begins in late November or early

December of about 1803, with a description of Silas as a recluse and a miser, and it ends in May or early

June of about 1819, with an account of Eppie’s marriage to Aaron. To forget his pain, he abandons his home town, settles in as isolated a community as possible, and devotes himself to his work.

The main plot of Silas Marner is as below: at the very beginning, Silas Marner, a linen weaver lives peacefully in his native land and goes to church every Sunday as other people as usual. William Dane is his good friend and Sarah is his fiancée. But one day the dead deacon’s money is gone, Silas Marner is doubted to steal the money, the church draws lots to confirm that Silas Marner is guilty. Sarah breaks up the relationship with Silas Marner and William Dane also misunderstands him.

Silas Marner leaves and goes to Raveloe to restart his own lonely life. The livelong day he sits in his loom. The only enjoyment in his life is to count the golden coins what he earns after one-day laborious work. But one day his money is stolen by Dunstan Cass, Silas Marner becomes upset all day long. A little motherless girl named Eppie crawls into Silas Marner’s home and becomes his foster daughter。

The appearance of Eppie changes and lights Silas Marner’s life. Eppie is Mr. Godfrey’s daughter, Mr.

Godfrey and his second wife Nancy wanted Eppie back to their family after sixteen years, but Eppie refused and chosen to live with Silas Marner and her husband. That is the happy ending of this novel.

0.2 The Main Previous Researches of the Novel

This novel is very renowned in many countries especially in the western countries and in China. Over centuries, there are many critics and researchers studying it from a variety of different perspectives. There are various interpretations to this novel from all kinds of angles existing in western countries and in China.

Then before going into my own interpretation to this novel, it is extremely necessary to sum up the previous studies of this novel first.

There are many researches and opinions about this famous novel Silas Marner in the western countries. Ever since the Mid-1950s, however, it has gradually gathered advocates who have shown that it is not only as rich as in ideas but also as firmly rooted in George Eliot’s personal concerns as any of her other works and, somewhat surprisingly, these two issues have been increasingly seen as one.

Just as F. R. Leavis once asserts that “Silas Marner, always a favourite with readers, was until recently considered too obvious and too lightweight to merit serious critical discussion. In 1949, F. R.

Leavis echoed the views of many when he described it as ‘that charming minor masterpiece’, an evident

‘moral fable’”(Leavis 60).

Referring to the theme of Silas Marner, “In 1975, Ruby Redinger explored the theme of hoarding and concluded that ‘the transformation of gold into Eppie justified George Eliot seeking and accepting money for her writing’”(Redinger 438).

Desser expresses his opinion on the connection between the novelist and her work Silas Marner.

“Lawrence Jay Desser looked at a wide range of parallels between the events of the novel and the author’s circumstances at the time of writing, and noted that ‘fear of being abandoned, fear of having one’s secret revealed, antagonism towards a brother, love for a lost sister, concern for moral reputation are all common to the fact and the fiction” (Desser 251).

Terence Dawson has once discussed the narrative structures about this novel, he re-examines:

The narrative structures in order to illustrate that this novel occupies a much more

significant place in its author’s literary development than has been recognized. On the surface,

the main plot would seem to be about the regeneration of a middle-aged weaver through his

love and his reintegration into the community in which he lives. Interlinked with this ‘story’ is

another, generally described as the story of Godfrey Cass, the local squire’s eldest son, who

turns over something of a new leaf in the course of the events described. Faced by a novel in

which there are two distinct plots, the critic’s first task is to discover the connexion between

them. The most frequent definition of the relation between the two stories in Silas Marner is

that they are parallel, but move in opposite directions. Not only is this view too vague to be

helpful, it is also misleading, for there is no similarity whatsoever between Silas’s situation at

the beginning and Godfrey’s at the end, or vice versa. Nevertheless, the two plots are

unquestionably related: indeed, Terence Dawson say that he should argue that they show many

more similarities than have been identified to date (Dawson 26-27).

In purely narrative terms, the main events of the novel would seem to trace the parallel

stories of the weaver and Godfrey Cass: I do not wish to argue otherwise. But in psychological

terms, because the novel was written by a woman, one would expect it to reflect and describe a

woman’s experience. Such a view assumes that the events of a novel are shaped by the nature

of a dilemma uppermost in its author’s mind at the time of writing. (ibid 27)

Besides many critical essays about this novel from other critics and researchers, George Eliot also has her own opinion about this novel:

George Eliot Saw Silas Marner as a realistic novel: “It came to me first of all, quite suddenly,

as a sort of legendary tale, suggested by my recollection of having once, in early childhood,

seen a linen-weaver with a bag on his back; but as my mind dwelt on the subject, I became

inclined to a more realistic treatment” In view of what has already been seen, this statement

must mean that legendary material is an element of the realistic situation depicted in Silas

Marner (Haight 360).

And the theme of Silas Marner, as George Eliot states it, affirms this modern stance: “It sets-or is intended to set-in a strong light the remedial influences of pure, natural human relations. “George Eliot is able to incorporate prophecy and other forms of spiritual vision into the realist fabric of her novels.

Although her narrators are sometimes skeptical of their more spiritually-oriented characters, the narrative

voice seldom directly condemns expressions of spiritual rapture”(Eliot 404).

What is this novel? Everyone has his own interpretation. George Eliot gives a new light on her own novel:

However, Silas Marner, a very different kind of novel, might be read as a story about the

problem of representing a consciousness with little-to-no capacity for imaginative reach and

where the unknown shapes and dominates nearly all cognitive events. Not only the Cataleptic

Silas but indeed all the characters that belong to his world are limited to the ‘perpetual, urgent,

companionship of their own griefs and discontents,’ and ‘the ever trodden round of their own

petty history.’ (Eliot 29)

“A mind than encounters the world through such a narrow window will, as Eliot describes it elsewhere

‘exalt feeling above intellect’ and will have, in religious life especially, ‘a sense of truthfulness [that] is misty and confused” (Byatt 44) and “Beer sees George Eliot’s interest in chance as having been

“intellectually reinforced by Darwin’s insistence on ‘chance’ mutation as happening to fit or unfit an organism for its medium” (Beer 126-27).

The Darwinians also have their special analysis of this novel:

Silas Marner, published in 1861, two years after The origin of Species, does address what is in

several respects a Darwinian world. It depicts sudden, apparently random change. There are

predators and victims. There is a struggle for existence, entailing individual and societal

extinctions. There is a tangled bank of personal and causal relationships but no apparent grand

design centered on humanity, let alone on any given individual. There is no discernible higher

power directing events. Life’s events are intertwined but stochastic. Like Darwin and perhaps

because of him, Silas confronts “higgledy-piggledy” (Darwin 9).

She would have balked at one arguable implication of Darwin’s theory of natural selection, namely, that moral considerations are irrelevant to well-being or survival. One might even infer that Darwinian survival of the fittest favors the selfish and predatory-the William Danes and Dunstan Casses. I shall argue that in

Silas Marner George Eliot depicts, not a providential world, but a dangerous, unpredictable one, so that she can demonstrate, in a sort of thought experiment, the efficacy of loving-kindness even under Darwinian circumstances (Sonstroem 548).

In a letter to John Blackwood she said, “ I have felt all through as if the story would have lent itself best to metrical rather than prose fiction, especially in all that relates to the psychology of Silas; except that, under that treatment, there could not be an equal play of humor.” (Haight 382).

This novel not only brings the above researches from different scholars and critics in foreign countries, but also immensely attracts many researchers such as the university teachers, English students ,other novel-lovers and so on until now.

Putting much more emphasis on the identity of Silas Marner, Wang Shuli analyzes the main and central character Silas Marner, who is an ordinary lower-class linen-weaver. Through this minor character, he wants to show his own special feeling such as sympathy towards the grass-rooted mankind just like Silas

Marner in this well-known novel. He succeeds in probing into a sympathetic identity for the tiny and ordinary character Silas Marner.

In addition, from another angle, Cheng Rui holds that “ In Silas Marner, George Eliot describes the frustrated life of the title character Silas Marner, tells a story of ordinary people. The experience of Silas

Marner in his religious belief reflects the similar experience of George Eliot herself.”

She also has the strong opinion that “ It shows that she opposes the formalized and hypocritical religion, but at the same time she still holds hope in the instructional functions of religious emotion; moreover, she advocates hew own complete, no-realistic religion of humanity.”

Hao Yichang, according to Northrop Frye’s the important theory of the mytho-arhetypal criticism, reveals the narrative structure of this novel Silas Marner to unfold the features of this unique structure and the symbolic significance to gain a better and deeper understanding of this novel to some extent.

Xie Lin’s main study on this novel is to use the eco-criticism theory to finely analyze it. In her opinion,

George Eliot not only depicts the natural scenery, but also describes the distortion of the interpersonal relations under the bad influence of the so-called industrialized civilization. This civilization exerts a bad and harmful impact to the entire eco-system.

Cui dong analyzes the religious ideas in Silas Marner, he maintains that George Eliot wants to express his own religion ideas about the belief in God in this novel. In accordance with George Eliot, on the one hand, she refuses to look upon everything in the way of the metaphysical religion, on the other hand, she cannot completely break departure from God. She gradually forms his own religion ideas, which is centered

with love and on the basis of the human beings. Totally in Nie Zhenzhao’s eye, this novel is to a certain extent a kind of expression of this female novelist’s own religious thoughts.

0.3 Research Motivation, Methodology and Questions

This novel Silas Marner has already drawn attention from various scholars and researchers abroad and in China. Many critics are greatly interested in it over many years, and this novel is also extremely rich in its content, theme and structure. It will certainly continue to attract as many researchers as possible to do further studies.

Among these studies on this novel, it is obvious that a few of people analyze this novel with the religion ideas and humanity thoughts, even Northrop Frye’s mythos-archetypal criticism is employed to recount the narrative structure hidden in this popular novel. The author of this thesis would like to approach the study of this novel somewhat differently. There is a study scarcity about this novel in the light of the

Biblical archetypal criticism. So the author of this thesis is intended to employ Northrop Frye’s famous

Biblical archetypal criticism to analyze this novel. The reasons of my study are as below:

The female writers in British and American literature history are always my favorites and my focuses.

They are always attracting more attention than the male writers in my heart. George Eliot is one of the famous female writers in British literary history and her works are mostly related to the Christianity religion and the Bible, the Christianity and Bible have largely influenced her novels. Silas Marner is one of her masterpieces and my favorite one.

From the above-mentioned reasons, employing the Biblical archetypal criticism, the writer of this thesis is going to make a fine and delicate analysis of the biblical archetypes in detail among the novel, mainly including the archetypal characters, archetypal structures and the archetypal plots.

The questions about my research are as below: What are the archetypes hidden and used in the novel?

Why does George Eliot use them in her novel? What does she intend to express through these archetypes?

A systematic research in my thesis reveals some important thematic focuses by employing lots of archetypes in Silas Marner. George Eliot not only highlights the traditional Christianity Values and expresses her concerns for the harmonious interpersonal relationship under the rapid industrialized civilization in England but also seeks for the final happiness and significance of the human beings.

0.4 The Framework of this Thesis

This thesis is divided into four chapters besides introduction and conclusion.

The introduction generally consists of four portions, the first part is a brief synopsis of Silas Marner, and the second one is about the literature review abroad and in China. The third section is related to this thesis writer’s research motivation, methodology and questions. The last one is naturally about the main framework of the whole thesis.

Focusing on the archetypal criticism of Northrop Frye, Chapter One tempts to list the important literary theory of archetypal criticism and demonstrates the feasibility of interpretation in accordance with the archetypal criticism. Chapter Two seeks for the archetypal characters and analyzes them carefully. Silas

Marner’s archetypes can be found in Job and Adam. The archetypes of Eppie are mainly the Jesus Christ and Ruth. Chapter Three relates to the archetypal structure-the U-shaped structure with analyzing the lives of Silas Marner and Godfrey Cass. Chapter Four is to probe into the archetypal plots in this novel.

The conclusion is a general summary of the novelist’s important viewpoint through all the exploration of the archetypes in this novel, illustrating the ideas Eliot want to express in this novel and emphasizing the deep and far-reaching meaning of this study.

Chapter One Archetypal Criticism

The archetypal criticism has another name of myth criticism because myth is deemed as the basics of the archetypal psychology. It seeks for the mythic and religious characters, symbols, themes, plots and structures and so on which exist in literature. The purpose of archetypal criticism is to identify the connection between the literature and myths, as well as the literature and Bible. It is Northrop Frye that develops and proposes the complete system theory of archetypal criticism in the help of Frazer’s theory of anthropology and Jung’s psycho-analytic theory.

About this chapter, the writer of this thesis is mainly intended to review the beginning, development and proposition of this archetypal criticism. Frazer, Jung and Frye had all contributed to the formation of the archetypal theory. The other indispensable aim in this chapter is to illustrate the feasibility of analysis with using the archetypal criticism.

1.1 A Main Review of Archetypal Criticism

As a completely new literary critical approach, the archetypal criticism originated in Britain in the

20th century. The theories put forward by Frazer, Jung and Frye have all greatly contributed to the development and perfection of the archetypal criticism.

Generally, Northrop Frye’s archetypal criticism has two main roots: one is the anthropology of the

British anthropologist James George Frazer (1854-1941), and the other is the collective unconsciousness theory proposed by Carl Jung.

Firstly, the theory of anthropology exerts a great influence on the literature on 20th century and makes a basic preparation for the emergence of the archetypal criticism. The Golden Bough is Frazer’s monumental masterpiece. It is not only a anthropology work, but also a typical piece of archetypal criticism.

The Golden Bough, his most famous book, is a comparative exploration of ancient rituals, myths and folk customs as well, as it reveals parallels between the rituals and beliefs, superstitions and taboos of ancient cultures and those of Christianity. Frazer suggests that human beliefs went through three phases,

namely, primitive witchcraft, religion and science. During this process, we come to fully understand a huge amount of mysterious rituals and myths. (Zhang Zhongzai)

In his works, Frazer studies the primitive origins of religion in magic ritual and myth. He thinks that those religious phenomena are the source of the western literature. The motifs of his works corresponds with the early Christianity and demonstrates the essential similarity of man’s wants that reflects through ancient myth, magic ritual and religion.

As I mentioned above, Golden Bough has a huge literary impact, which has given it continued life even when its influence on anthropology has shrinked. As Frye suggests, “[T]he Golden Bough…has had more influence on literary criticism than in its own alleged field, and it may yet prove to be really a work of literary criticism” (Anatomy of Criticism 109).

Secondly, besides the reviewing of the archetypal criticism on the basis of the anthropology, the second major contribution to the archetypal criticism is the work of Carl Gustav Jung.

The second major influence on mythological criticism is the work of C. G. Jung, the great psychologist-philosopher and onetime student of Freud who broke with the master because of what he regarded as a too-narrow approach to psychoanalysis. Jung believed libido (psychic energy) to be more than sexual; also, he considered Freudian theories too negative because of Freud’s emphasis on the neurotic rather than the healthy aspects of the psyche. (Guerin, 177)

Jung’s primary contribution to myth criticism is his theory of racial memory and archetypes. In developing this concept, Jung expanded Freud’s theories of the personal unconscious, asserting that beneath this is a primeval, collective unconscious shared in the psychic inheritance of all members of the human family. (ibid)

Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961), Swiss psychiatrist, is a leading figure of analytical psychology. Though once a follower of Freud, the publication of his essay “ Symbols of the Libido” marks their obvious theoretical divergence. He proposes there exist two layers of the unconscious. The first is the personal unconscious, while the second layer is the collective unconscious, which is identified by him as a racial memory inherited by all the members of the human family and connecting modern man with his paramecia roots. He then proceeds to note that “we mean by collective unconsciousness, a certain psychic disposition shaped by the forces of heredity” (Anatomy of Criticism 812)

C. G. Jung was the developer of the term of archetype. He regarded collective unconsciousness as a deeper layer upon which personal unconscious rests. And the contents of collective unconscious are signified as archetype. Different from the contents of personal unconscious “which have at one time been conscious but which have disappeared from consciousness through having been forgotten or repressed, the contents of the collective unconscious have never been in consciousness, and therefore have never been individually acquired, but owe their existence exclusively to heredity.” (qtd.in Zhu Guang 137-138)

Thirdly, based on the combination of Frazer’s anthropology theory and Jung’s psychology theory, Frye develops and establishes a system of the archetypal criticism.

Herman Northrop Frye(1912-1991), Canadian literary critic, is regarded as the most important figure during the development of the archetypal criticism, Anatomy of Criticism, one of the most important works of literary theory in the twentieth century, was published in 1957 and wins him unending renown. The book overviews the principles and techniques of the literary criticism, in a bid to unveil and classify the underlying myths and archetypes of the world literature.

Frye’s contribution leads us directly into the mythological approach to literary analysis. As our discussion of mythology has shown, the task of the myth critic is a special one. Unlike the traditional critic, who relies heavily on history and the biography of the writer, the myth critic is interested more in prehistory and the biographies of the gods. Unlike the formalistic critic, who concentrates on the shape and symmetry of the work itself, the myth critic probes for the inner spirit which gives that form its vitality and its enduring appeal. And, unlike the Freudian critic, who is prone to look on the artifact as the product of some sexual neurosis, the myth critic sees the work holistically, as the manifestation of vitalizing, integrative forces arising from the depths of humankind’s collective psyche. (Guerin, 167)

In this book, Frye seeks to define some of the crucial terms in archetypal criticism. He derives the term “myth” from Aristotle’s Poetics and argues that “[I]n literary criticism, myth means mythos, a structural organizing principle of literal form” (The archetypes of Literature 420). He proceeds to define myth as “a narrative in which some characters are superhuman beings who do not fully adapt to plausibility of ‘realism’ (ibid 366)

As for archetype, Frye stresses that archetype is “a typical or recurring image.” He goes on to note that

“ I mean by an archetype a symbol which connects one poem with one another and thereby helps to unify

and integrate our literary experience” (Anatomy of Criticism 99). “Archetypes are associative clusters, and differ from signs in being complex variables” (ibid 102). He further defines archetypes as “the communicable unit which recurs again and again in literature” (ibid).

In conclusion, archetypes are universal innate dispositions, which can be identified in the form of myths, rituals, and symbols and so on. “There are as many archetypes as there are typical situations in life.

Endless repetition has engraved these experiences into our psychic constitution” (qtd. in Zhu Gang 142).

A variety of archetypes deriving from the Bible recur again and again in many literature pieces. Silas

Marner is the case in this point and George Eliot was influenced by the Christianity and Bible in her childhood. The archetypes are embedded and reflected in her novels and other works. It will provide us the feasibility of analysis towards this novel with the theory of archetypal criticism.

1.2 The Feasibility of Analysis from the Angle of Archetypal Criticism

The above-mentioned theory of archetypal criticism tells us that the myth and the Bible are two main origins of the literature. Some of the literary works contains many archetypes such as the archetypal characters, archetypal structure, archetypal plot, archetypal theme, and archetypal image and so on. These archetypes always recur in the literature and trigger the related associations. According to this literary phenomenon, it is greatly possible for scholars and researchers to analyze some literary pieces from the perspective of archetypal criticism.

Under a close study of the western literature, we are inclined to conclude that Frye’s theory can be traced and unconsciously related to many western literature works. It is obvious that the ancient Greek myths and the Bible exert a strong impact upon the people in the western countries. George Eliot is one of them and her many literary works contains a lot of archetypes which originated in the two main sources.

Furthermore, George Eliot’s works are mostly directly related to the Church, Christianity and the doctrine of Bible. It can be inferred that Bible gives a so great influence on George Eliot and her various works. When it is about the novelist and his famous work Silas Marner, it can be easily found that the connection between the Bible and Eliot exists.

Silas Marner, one of George Eliot’s early novels, has the noticeable characteristics of its richness in archetypes such as the archetypal characters, archetypal structure and archetypal plot. It is prone for me to

analyze this novel with the literary critical approach of archetypal criticism to explore the archetypal characters, archetypal structures and archetypal plots employed by George Eliot in this novel. To some extent, the archetypal criticism proposed by Frazer, Jung and Frye is the key to a better and deeper comprehension of this novel Silas Marner. The archetypal criticism is identified as a feasible and helpful approach to the analysis of this novel.

Besides, with the help of the archetypal criticism, it will also strongly improve the ability of understanding her novels and clearly illustrate the purpose of George Eliot’s employing these archetypes in this novel.

Chapter Two Archetypal Characters

There are several categories about archetypes such as archetypal characters, archetypal plots, archetypal structures, archetypal themes and archetypal situations. In this chapter, the writer of this thesis will analyze the Biblical archetypes which are connected with the main characters in this novel Silas.

2.1 The Biblical Archetypes Associated with Silas Marner

Silas Marner is the main character in this novel and his life experience is full of hardships and difficulties. He is suffered with his friend’s betrayal and his fiancee’s abandonment. He is banished by the church after being doubted to steal money at the church. He also lives a lonely life by himself. It is very obvious and inferred that the two main characters Job and Adam in the Bible is the archetypes of Silas

Marner.

2.1.1 Job

The author attempts to analyze this novel with the literary theory of Archetypal criticism to find out the Biblical counterpart of Silas Marner. There are so many similarities between the main character Silas

Marner in this novel and Job in the Bible.

In the Bible, Job is a very devout Christian; he believes in God firmly and is loved by God vey much.

“In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright; he feared

God and shunned evil.” (Job 1:1-2) But one day Satan said to God, “Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land” (Job 1:10). Satan subsequently demanded, “But stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face” ( Job 1:11) “The Lord said to Satan,

‘very well, then, everything he has is in your hands, but on the man himself do not lay a finger.’ Then Satan went out from the presence of the Lord.” (Job 1:12)

In the first test, Job’s camels were carried out and his servants were put to the sword. In the second test, his seven sons and three daughters are dead one by one. Satan also afflicted Job with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the top of his head.

Job’s hardship is increasing day after day and Job cannot understand his own situation. He began to open his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. He complained God.

After so many sufferings, Job’s faith was tested and God bless him again, “The Lord blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the first. He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand donkeys. And he also had seven sons and three daughters.” (Job 42:12-13)

Although Job’s life trace is very twisted, he sticks to his belief in God and gained the bless from God eventually.

A comparative study demonstrates a great deal of similarities between Silas Marner and his biblical counterpart Job. On the one hand, compared with Job, the figure of Silas Marner displays his moral personality of a typical and devout Christian.

Firstly, in the novel, Silas Marner is a very important character; his whole life is extremely bumpy.

Originally, he is a very devout Christian and is never suspicious of his own belief in God, but the hometown people’s belief is narrow and limited. They misinterpreted the Bible and used the way of drawing lots to decide who the real thief of the church money is. This event leads Silas Marner begin to doubt his own belief and complain that God is unfair. His only enjoyment in that time is to see his money increasing day after day, unfortunately one day his money is absent, Squire Cass’s little son Dunstan steals the money.

In a sense, Silas Marner’s story is mainly a tragedy, especially in the beginning of this novel. Just like

Thomson says “not that Silas Marner is a tragedy. Certainly the main contour of the second half and the ending are of an opposite nature; but the portions describing Silas’ exile, loneliness, and deprivation are dark-hued indeed. One feels that at least in these pages George Eliot was experimenting with a tragic mode” (Thomson 69-70). Althoght the novelist writes this tragedy with a tragic mode, in this tragedy, It is still seen that the devout and other valuable personalities display in the life experience of a Christian.

At the beginning, Silas Marner has the affirmative belief towards God and goes to church on Sundays and firmly believes the salvation from God and the friendship with William Dane. These points are reflected in the text of Silas Marner.

One of the most frequent topics of conversation between the two friends was assurance of

salvation. Silas confessed that he could never arrive at anything higher than hope mingled with

fear, and listened with longing wonder when William cellared that he had possessed unshaken

assurance ever since, in the period of his conversion, he had dreamed that he saw the word

“calling and election sure” standing by themselves on a white page in the open Bible. Such

colloquies have occupied many a pair of pale-faced weavers, whose nurtured souls have been

like young winged things, fluttering forsaken in the twilight (George Eliot 12-13) .

The friendship between Silas Marner and William Dane not true, just like “It had seemed to the unsuspecting Silas that the friendship had suffered no chill even from his formation of another attachment of a closer kind” (ibid 13) .

It is the event of drawing lots that makes Silas Marner begin to doubt God and the friendship with

William Dane. The lots says that Silas Marner is the thief of the Church money and his best friend is the witness of this event.

Just as described in this novel by George Eliot: Poor Marner went out with that despair in his soul-that shaken trust in God and man which is little short of madness to a loving nature. (ibid 18)

Although Silas Marner leaves the town to another place to begin a new life, he continues to live his life as usual, but he never completely abandons God and he believes that one day God will certify his innocence.

The money losing makes Silas Marner’s life much poorer and his only enjoyment is gone. He never goes to the church any more and never pins his hope on anything. The arrival of Eppie lights his hope fire and makes him regain his faith in God. He thinks this is a kind of compensation from God. After many years, the stone-pit before his house is dry, Dunstan’s body is found in the stone-pit and Marner’s money is back. From then on, he goes to church again and his life is also full of the new hope. Silas Marner finds himself again and firmly sticks to his own belief with the hope of living with his daughter and his son-in-law and creating the new life together. Silas Marner’s life is filled with the ups and downs.

George Eliot describes the very lonely and helpless life of Silas Marner:

“So, year after year , Silas Marner had lived in this solitude, his guineas rising in the iron pot, and his life narrowing and hardening itself more and more into a mere pulsation of desire and satisfaction that had no relation to any other being. His life had reduced itself to the functions of weaving and hoarding, without any contemplation of an end towards which the functions tended” (George Eliot 29).

When Silas Marner’s life was in the valley, he lives his own lonely life without help, just mechanically lives his life peacefully. When Job was tested in the Bible, He is also suffering the children’s sudden death and his own sickness.

On the other hand, compared with his biblical counterpart Job, Silas Marner has the same characteristic of the unbreakableness, human love and perseverance. He does not abandon his belief completely and just hides it with the doubt and hope.

“The fountains of human love and of faith in a divine love had not yet been unlocked, and his soul was still the shrunken rivulet, with only this difference, that its little groove of sand was blocked up, and it wandered confusedly against dark obstruction”( George Eliot 133).

“Nobody in this world but himself knew that he was the same Silas Marner who had once loved his fellow with tender love, and trusted in an unseen goodness. Even to him that past experience had become dim” (George Eliot 134). From them on, Silas marner live a lonely and reclusive life. Sonstroem asserts that “Silas’s sociable nature and the dangerous nature of the world are each cause enough to keep Silas from completing an undisturbed life as a contented lover of coins”(Sonstroem 553)

Also, both the character Job in the Bible and Silas Marner in this novel finally regain their belief in

God and get the beatitudes from God. In the opinion of Silas Marner, Eppie, this little girl is from by God as a kind of compensation to him, and brings new hope to his life and changes his life completely. In this novel, Geoge Eliot gives her main character a happy ending, just like Thomson writes “George Eliot succeeded in selecting and organizing precisely the ingredients required for her special concept of tragedy.

Even though she developed her materials inversely toward a happy conclusion for Silas” (Thomson 74)

Through the comparative study of Silas Marner and his biblical counterpart, a few of similarities can be found obviously. They both share the similarities of the devout Christian personality, the human love and

God’s salvation.

In conclusion, by comparing Silas Marner with his Biblical counterpart Job, George Eliot stresses the traditional Christian values and the personal virtues in the influence of this value. She also put emphasis on the God’s righteousness and mercy towards the kindhearted people.

2.1.2 Adam

Adam is the first man created by God from the dust of the ground in the Bible, Eve is his wife also created by God with Adam’s rib bone. They are living in the Garden Eden, but one day tempted by the serpent, Eve disobeys God’s commandment and eats the fruits from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. She also gives some to her husband Adam.

Afterwards, Eve and Adam are banished of the Eden Garden to work the ground and punished by God.

From then on, They come to the earth and live on the earth not in the Eden Garden again. The serpent is also punished to crawl on belly and eat dust all the days of its life. The woman is increased the pains in childbearing and the pain of giving birth to children by God. The woman is also punished to desire for her husband and be ruled over by her own husband. The man is punished to eat through painful toil. They are respectively got the different punishments from God.

Silas marner is also banished from his former livingplace and feel disappointed about the friendship and the interpersonal relationships. “ His cramped beliefs, poor education, and ignorance of huaman nature, together with his natural capacities for affection and faith, conspire to make him preeminently vulnerable to the misfortunes that suddenly befall him. In devastating succession, he is bereft of friendship, fellowship, love, faith in divine justice, home, native town—everything, in fact that had meaning for him”(Thomson

75)

Firstly, Silas Marner’s life experience of banishing by the Church’s drawing lots follows the similar pattern as Adam’s. In some sense, from the perspective of the church, Silas Marner disobeys the church and is forced to departed from the Lantern Yard town. To some extent, it is also a kind of banishment from his former native land.

Secondly, it is observed that Silas Marner is different from Adam at a certain point. Adam can not keep away from the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil according to God’s word. He is easily tempted by his wife and eats the forbidden fruit with his wife regardless of God’s words. God punishes him because of his fault. But Silas Marner is innocent, the drawing the lots is not a scientific and reasonable way to judge who is the thief of the church money. He is not guilty but also punished by the church.

This is a slight difference between Silas Marner and his biblical counterpart Adam.

To sum up, by comparing Silas Marner to his biblical counterpart Job, George Eliot emphasizes his

Christian morality, human love, perseverance and salvation from God. Through depicting Silas Marner as

Adam, She accents his innocence, purity and helplessness.

2.2 The Biblical Archetypes Associated with Eppie

By applying archetypal criticism to analyze this novel, a overall interpretation of the novel reveals that

Eppie is intensely related to Jesus Christ and Ruth in the Bible.

2.2.1 Jesus Christ

In accordance to the Bible, Jesus Christ is the son of God and the savior of human being. The Virgin

Mary from the Holy Spirit gave birth to him and he will save his people from their sins.

“Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, healing every disease and sickness among the people” (Matthew 4:23). Jesus Christ not only heals the sick, the blind and mute but also gives the dead people rebirth.

There are a few rebirth examples in the Bible, a ruler’s daughter has just died, he pleads Jesus to come and put his hand on her, and she will live. “When Jesus entered the ruler’s house and saw the flute players and the noisy crowd, he said, ‘Go away. The girl is not dead but asleep.’ But they laughed at him. After the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took the girl by the hand, and she got up.” (Matthew: 9:23-25)

In the Bible, Jesus Christ in Bethany makes the Lazarus regain his life, although he is dead for four days. In a another city, Jesus Christ makes the widow’s son live again. Even Jesus Christ himself is sentenced to be crucified but two days later he is alive again. Jesus Christ the lord of life with the power of turning the dead to the alive.

It is predicted that the people who believes in him will get the soul salvation to gain the resurrection.

From this, it is seen that George Eliot uses parables in this novel to illustrate Silas Marner’s life freshness; it is because of Eppie just like Jesus Christ with the power of refreshing life and turning the dead to the alive. Thomson depicts that “Injury to him by a Cass is soon followed by a compensatory ‘gift’ from a Cass.

Geoge Eliot emphasizes that because of Silas’ altered habits since the robbery Eppie gets into the cottage insteading of freezing to death outside. The deadly gold is replaced by the living child, the sight of whom reunites Silas with the past”(Thomson 82). It is the gift Eppie from the God just like Jesus Christ the son of

God that changes Silas Marner’s whole life and heals his Psychological hurt caused by William Dane and

Dunsey Cass.

George Eliot describes Eppie just like an angle, who leads people out of the destroying city. “Eppie, therefore, is not simply an instrument for joining Silas to the community; she elucidates for Silas how links between individuals within the community are constructed around ‘need’—both economic and emotional”

(Berger 320). It is Eppie who leads Silas Marner from the dark land to the bright territory to make his life more splendid than before. The angle is the spirit from God, and Jesus Christ is sent from God to be the savior of all human being. Eppie is described as Jesus Christ. Just like Thomson holds that:

The sight of the child curiously revives old memories of a happier time, casting a frail lifeline

of hope back to the past. From then on, the texture of his life is rewoven, and he comes to

recognize that the great rift between the past and the present had existed more in his embittered

imagination than in reality. There is much that he still cannot understand, but he can again have

trust in a benevolent unity to the world. (Thomson 81)

Eppie and his biblical counterpart Jesus Christ share the similarities such as being savior to people.

In conclusion, by comparing Eppie with his biblical counterpart Jesus Christ, Eliot stresses the importance of the human love, it can be a medicine to heal the mental hurt and change one’s life. She also put the emphasis on the harmonious interpersonal relationship.

2.2.2 Ruth

The relationship between Eppie and Silas Marner is very similar to the one between Ruth and her mother-in-law in the Bible.

In the Bible, Naomi is Ruth’s mother-in-law, not her own mother. After his husband’s death, Ruth refuses to go back to her own hometown and worship the false God. She would rather go with her mother-in-law to his dead husband’s hometown to live with her mother-in-law. Although Naomi persuades her to go back, Ruth refuses.

In this novel, Eppie is Silas Marner’s adopted daughter, she and her mother is abandoned by Godfrey

Cass, who is the eldest son of the Squire Cass. On the way to seek fro Godfrey, Eppie’s mother freezes to die on the snow. The little Eppie crawls into Marner’s cottage and consequently adopted by him. Godfrey marries with Nancy. After eighteen years, Godfrey’s young brother’s corpus is found in the stone-pit, his

sin is revealed under the sun. This event motivates Godfrey to make up his mind to admit his sin and regain

Eppie from Silas Marner.

Godfrey’s demand is refused by Eppie, Eppie does not forget his foster father Silas Marner. She would like to live a poor life with Silas Marner than live a rich life with Godfrey Cass. Sonstroem notes that “ the transformation continues when Eppie rejects Godfrey’s offer to adopt her. By her refusal Godfrey finally gains more than he loses, he and Nancy return home disappointed”(Sonstroem 562): “At last Godfrey turned his head towards her, and their eyes met, dwelling in that meeting without any movement on either side. The quiet mutual gaze of a trusting husband and wife is like the first moment of rest or refuge from a great weariness or a great danger—not to be interfered with by speech or action which would distract the sensations from the fresh enjoyment of repose”(Eliot 235).

After refusal from Eppie, Godfrey Cass “having lost Eppie, he begins to value the accidental blessings he has always taken for granted as due him. He begins to overcome the handicap of his lifelong good luck, which has kept him from feeling rightly and seeing truly. Eppie’s rejection of him seems retributive justice for his earlier rejection of her,but it is really his luckiest break of all”(Sonstroem 562).

The connection between Eppie and her foster is very firm, it is obviously observed from Berger’s assertion:

Furthermore, because affective ties are more resilient than economic ties, emotional links

can actually fortify economic transactions. On its own, money produces very weak links

between people; it cannot necessarily identify itself as being connected to one person instead

of another. Moreover, money can also be transferred amongst people and still produce similar

effects. Emotional relationships, on ther other hand, are almost impossible to “steal,” as is

demonstrated by Eppie’s refusal to acknowledge Godfrey Cass, her biological father(Berger

321).

Godfrey perceives “ownership” to be the key to creating family ties; a biological claim, he

imagines, will be sufficient to yield a familial claim. Eventually, however, he is forced to see

that the proprietarial relationship supposed by conventional familial structures is no match for

the bonds created by affection. For Silas, however, money, in conjunction with affective and

familial ties, wields a newly-formed power. When the gold is returned to Silas, the presence of

Eppie gives it new value as an inheritance. Considered as a modified form of hoarding, an

inheritance becomes an investment in affective and social ties as well as an economic

legacy(Berger 321).

In the novel, Silas Marner does not force Eppie live with him, he lets Eppie make the decision by herself. From this, it is noticeable that Eppie and Ruth share the similarities. Ruth is the archetype of Eppie.

They do not want to return to their own parents. This is one of the similarities between them. “Eppie’s identification of Silas as her father is not the result of her having a predetermined place within the biological family but rather is an acknowledgement of his having made a place for her within his own sense of community. She belongs with Silas because she sees her place within the familiy as having been specifically designed for her, not awaiting her arrival”(Berger 322). “ When the foundling Eppie, with the

Cass features and hair, decides to live with Silas Marner and not her real father Godfrey, she is renouncing a place in a heredity ruling class as well as obliquely a deterministic view of man”(Adam 133)

Ruth does not abandon her old mother-in-law and continues to live with her and worship God. So God gives her many beatitudes and finally she marries with Naomi’s rich relative and lives a good life from then on. The same, Eppie does not abandon his adopted father Silas Marner and makes a decision to live with him. Her kindness helps her win the happiness and love. She lives a happy life from that time.

To sum up, by describing Eppie to Jusus Christ, George Eliot emphasizes Eppie’s ability of refreshing and the harmony between people. By comparing Eppie to Ruth, Eliot puts an emphasis on the interpersonal mutual love and the harmonious relationship between man and woman.

Chapter Three Archetypal Structures

In the literature field, the structure of a novel is the basic framework which carries the novelist’s awareness and cognition of this world. It is an important and very key way of the inside organization of the literary work. A proper structure can help the novelist to effectively express the real ideas and successfully achieve the intention of the novelist by this crucial means.

In this chapter, the writer of this paper is prone to quest the archetypal structures implanted in this novel Silas Marner. An aborative reading of this novel displays that the typical archetypal structure is manifested in this novel that is the classical U-shaped structure.

About this classical and typical U-shaped structure, Frye has a very brilliant statement that

We referred earlier to the structure of the Book of Judges, in which a series of stories of

traditional tribal heroes is set within a repeating mythos of the apostasy and restoration of

Israel. This gives us a narrative structure that is roughly U-shaped, the apostasy being

followed by a descent into disaster and bondage, which in turn is followed by repentance,

then by a rise through deliverance to a point more or less on the level from which the descent

began. This U-shaped pattern, approximate as it is, recurs in literature as the standard shape

comedy, where a series of misfortunes and misunderstandings brings the action to a

threateningly low point, after which some fortunate twist in the plot sends the conclusion up

to a happy ending. The entire Bible, viewed as a “divine comedy,” is contained within a

U-shaped story of this sort, one in which man, as explained, loses the tree and water of life at

the beginning of Genesis and gets them back at the end of Revelation. In between, the story

of Israel is told as a series of declines into the power of heathen kingdoms, Egypt, Philistia,

Babylon, Syria, Rome, each followed by a rise into a brief moment of relative independence.

The same U-narrative is found outside the historical sections also, in the account of the

disasters and restoration of Job and in Jesus’ parable of prodigal son. (The Great Code 169)

In general, the U-shaped structure fundamentally adheres to the narrative pattern like this: paradise – losing the paradise – regaining the paradise. In this chapter, A careful research of this novel demonstrates

that the stories of Silas Marner and Godfrey Call both follows this U-shaped structure pattern.

3.1 The U-shaped Structure in the Story of Silas Marner

The obvious U-shaped structure in this novel is shaped by the life of the main character, Silas Marner, the poor and ordinary linen-weaver.

Silas Marner, at the very beginning of the novel, lives in the Raveloe, a very small British countryside village lonely and reclusively. The neighbors in that community think of him with an eyesight of the curiosity and doubt. But he always devotes himself to the work all day along and do not care about anything outside his own room. Besides, he has a little mastery of the medicine herbs knowledge and accidentally makes the patient healthy. So some of his neighbors begins to doubt if he owns a kind of mysterious supernatural powers.

Although he is a little remote from the other’s life and the entire society, but basically he is on earth a kindhearted person. The result of the spiritual alienation makes Silas Marner love money and his potential human love and the spirit of sacrifice reflects in raising and taking good care of Eppie.

Silas Marner’s life is isolated with his communitiy, Thomson ever described “the weaver is her first full study of alienation, anticipating the subtler, more complex treatments of the theme in such characters as

Harold Transome and Dorothea Brooke” (Thomson 74)

Silas Marner’s alienation makes him the focus of the community. Silas is the middle type study served for the relationship between individual and the community. Although Silas is the main character in this novel, but his prominent personality is the passivity. He accepted all the things happened around him such the church’s misunderstanding and the friend’s betrayal without any proclaim. He puts his hope and trust in

God and firmly believes that God will clear him one day in the future.

Silas Marner’s gold absence due to Dunsey and the arrival of Eppie to Silas Marner’s room near the fireplace are the two main events happened to Silas Marner. These two events drive the plot develop forward and to some extent promote Silas Marner’s salvation and change.

Because Silas Marner is the leading character in this novel, the archetypal U-shaped structure is demonstrated mostly in the description of his life. His life experience follows the pattern of the U-shaped structure in this novel. “Silas is equipped with a history of alienation that reaches much further back than

his arrival in Raveloe. His whole life has been a series of disconnections” (Thomson 75).

In fact, there are two places existing in this novel, one is the town of Lantern Yard, the other is the village of Raveloe. The two places respectively witnesses Silas Marner’s different life phases. At the very beginning, Silas Marner lives in the first place-the town of Lantern Yard, one day, he is accused of stealing the church money and parts from his first place. Silas Marner goes to his second place to continue his own living. Silas Marner’s story mainly happened in the second place-the village of Raveloe. At the ending of this novel, Silas Marner visits the Town of Lantern Yard again with his adopted daughter Eppie. From this, in this sense, Geoorge Eliot draws a typical U-shape in this novel. This one of the U-shaped structures implanted in this novel. Furthermore, “The only person who changes significantly in the novel is Silas himself. From trusting and loving he becomes miserly; from misely he becomes trusting and loving again.

His character develops in an A-B-A movement, his first phase making possible his last, and his middle phrase showing a perversion of love and trust”(Wiesenfarth 228). It is also a typical U-shaped structure in

Silas’s character changement and development.

Other U-shaped structures are in Silas Marner’s living and religion belief. At the beginning of the novel, Silas Marner lives peacefully in the town of Lantern Yard and usually goes to church. He also has an intended wife. But after the event of church money theft, his intended wife also abandons him, and he has to go to another home the Raveloe village to restart a new life, His life at that time are very morose and depressed not peaceful, he refused to go to church any more. The event of raising Eppie is most important in Silas Marner’s life, it also marks the turning point in Silas Marner’s living and religion belief. Eppie’s appearance gives the freshness to Silas Marner’s life and Sheds a new light on his darkened life. His life becomes peaceful and hopefully again. And he begins to go to church again. It is obvious that there are another two kinds of U-shaped structures shown in this novel. One is in his living and the other is in his religion belief.

Though aware that William Dane has wrongly and maliciously accused him of theft, he regards himself the victim of divine as well as human betrayal. That brief lapse of consciousness breaks for him absolutely the community of past and present, and the shock is worsened by his essentially emotional reaction.

To people accustomed to reason about the forms in which their religious feeling has

incorporated itself, it is difficult to enter into that simple, untaught state of mind in which the

form and the feeling have never been severed by an act of reflection. We are apt to think it

inevitable that a man in Marner’s position should have begun to question the validity of an

appeal to the divine judgement by drawing lots; but to him this would have been an effort of

independent thought such as he had never known; and he must have made the effort at a

moment when all his enegies were turned into the anguish of disappointed faith (Elliot 17).

He is unable to make a rational response to the experience and to seek out a new basis for coherence in his shattered beliefs. Flight to Raveloe completes this vacuum of existence. “Minds that have been unhinged from their old faith and love, have perhaps sought this Lethean influence of exile, in which the past becomes dreamy because its symbols have all vanished, and the present too is dreamy because it is linked with no memories” (Eliot 18).

Besides the above-mentioned U-shaped structures, there is also another U-shaped structure in the relationship between Silas Marner and the community. “An orphaned impoverished artisan pent in a squalid alley in the heart of a Northern industrial town, his opportunies for social participation have been restricted to a Dissenting sect splintered off by its narrow principles from both the religious establishment and the surrounding secular world.” (Thomson 75).

At the very outset, Silas Marner lives in his original place-Lantern Yard town serenely; he is greatly immersed into the community and also accepted by the community harmoniously. It is because of the theft accident that he is banished from his former community which he has lived in. “For Silas, the world of

Lantern Yard furnishes a closed system of meaning in which he has no need to question the interpretation of people’s actions or words—until he separates himself from the community and relocates to the outskirts of

Raveloe”(Berger 318). In the village of Raveloe, he isolates with the community and lives his own lonely and reclusively. He passively cuts off the relationship with the outsiders. The people of the community is also unfriendly towards, even treat him as a strange and dreary person. The relation between Silas Marner and the community is very bad. “Until the drawing of the lots, Silas does not see himself as part of a contrived or designed group; instead, his identification with the community is manifest in his very existence”(Berger 317).

It is the arriving of Eppie that bridges the break between Silas Marner and the community. Eppie

makes the restart of the communication and exchange. “The transformation of gold to girl has been generally regarded as a vehicle for returning Silas to the community by transferring his love of money into paternal love”(Berger 320). The neighbors also change their previous bad attitudes towards Silas Marner and show more feeling of sympathy, appreciation and admiration. Finally Silas Marner returns to the community and the community accepts him. “The second half of the book deals with Silas’ regeneration, showing how his life is rewoven with society and how his work once again acquires a purpose other than as a deadening refuge from despair”(Thomson 80). “ Silas’s weaving, on the other hand, never seems to entangle him in the external world of social relations and obligations; it causes the accumulation of coins, at which point the process comes to an end or is merely repeated’ (Berger 319). This is obviously another

U-shaped structure shown in this novel.

“When Eppie appears to ‘replace’ Silas’s gold, it looks as though Silas is finally given an equivalent that emphasizes the individuality or particularity Silas has been attributing to the coins. Eppie is the unborn

Child brought to fruition. Her uniqueness is more plainly evident to the Raveloe community than was the distinct quality of Silas’s coins, and thus his attachment to her seems more comprehensively social”(Berger

320).

Through employing these U-shaped structures, George Eliot has her own intention. She confirms her concern for the morality of human society, the human mutual love and the redemption of the humankind with her criticism on the evil.

Using U-shaped structures, George Eliot express his concern about the spiritual civilization, besides this, the industrialized question is in her mind. At the end of this novel, it is depicted that a big factory occupies the former place of Lantern Yard. This description shows the destroying influence of the industrialized civilization and the relationship between humankind and nature under this influence

3.2 The U-Shaped Structure in the Story of Godfrey Cass

It is prominently seen that other U-shaped structure is existing in the depiction of Godfrey Cass’s life experience. The plot about Godfrey Cass in this novel is mostly about his daughter Eppie, who is the very key and essential fact in Godfrey Cass’ life. It is just like in the vivid and proper description of Thomson

“Silas’ second errand for aid is on behalf of another person, and he goes to the domestic center of Raveloe,

Red House. He there touches momentarily of the world of Godfrey Cass, whose daughter becomes his savior. Godfrey in deciding not to acknowledge the child and to live her in the keeping of Silas helps the weaver to renewed life; but he also changes the course of his own life”(Thomson 83). It is noticeablt that

Eppie is also the key point in the classical archetypal U-shaped structure.

In this novel, Godfrey Cass is another character, he is the first son in the Squire Cass family, which is the richest one in the Raveloe village. He also has the legal right of inheritance in the big Cass family. He is a good young man but lack of the strong willpower. In his first marriage, the opium addict Molly is his wife and Eppie is his daughter, but later becomes the foster daughter of Silas Marner. Godfrey Cass keeps this marriage secret, because his father will get rid of his inherited right if this marriage is under the sunshine one day in the future.

He constantly suffers the blackmail from Dunsey Cass, who know Godfrey’s secret marriage. But with the development of the novel, Godfrey is free of both Dunsey and Molly, because Dunsey steals Marner’s money and drops into the stone-pits before Marner’s cottage and dies. Molly freezes to death on the road to the Raveloe to reveal this secret marriage to the Cass family and the public. Finally Godfrey confesses his own faults to his second wife Nancy, after the discovery of the Dunsey’s corpus in the stone-pit. The childless couple wants to regain Eppie again from Silas Marner. But Eppie refuses them and makes a choice to live with Silas Marner happily.

The story of the Prodigal son in the Bible is familiar to us, there is a typical U-shaped structure embedded in it. The prodigal son leaves the family and suffers a lot outside and then he comes back to his father’s family. The father is very kind to him, because in his father’s eyes, he is dead but now comes to life again. He is lost and has been found. The repentance is very important in this story and the Christianity. It is the key point of the U-shaped structure in this story. “His transformation begins with the discovery of

Dunstan’s sleleton. The discovery is shocking and shameful, because the revelation than Dunstan stole

Silas’s money dishonors the family. The discovery jolts already-guilty Godfrey into religious belief and confession”(Sonstroem 562): “ When God Almighty wills it, our secrets are found out” (Eliot 223).

“Although his newfound belief in a morally purposeful, superintending God is not endorsed by the novel as a whole, it does him good, producing a new openness with Nancy and a new sense of responsibility for his actions” (Sonstroem 562).

It is the same to Godfrey’s life experience, which follows the U-shaped structure. At first, Godfrey is a kind young man, he becomes fallen after his secret marriage, which marks the starting point of his own tragedy. Unlike the Prodigal son, who suffered the poverty and shame, Godfrey still has the right of inheritance of his own family property and respected by the community. But his hurt is in psychology including the morality and conscience. He abandons his first wife and his own daughter, that is the sin in his deep heart, eventually, he admits his sin to his second wife Nancy and gives a repentance to raise his own daughter, although his daughter Eppie refuses his appeal, but he gains the psychological release and the salvation. That is the U-shaped structure in Godfrey’s psychological development in his whole life experience.

It is the same to the depiction of Godfrey in Sonstroem’s opinion “Godfrey eventually knows unhappiness, for many reasons, including a guilty conscience, a faulty outlook on life and luck. But George

Eliot is at pains to prevent giving the impression that his unhappiness is the simple consequence of moral shortcomings” (Sonstroem 560). “The exchange presents synoptically the birth of a better Godfrey: candid, loving, responsible, generous, with lowered expectations and newfound appreciation for his wife”

(Sonstroem 562).

Through using the archetypal U-shaped structure in the story of Godfrey Cass, George expresses her confirmation of the Christianity traditional value and pins hopes on the human virtues such as morality, conscience and so on.

Chapter Four Archetypal plots

As Ryken Leland asserts in The literature of The Bible, the plot of the biblical literature is focused on the battle between the good and the evil. The conflict may exist in the aspect of the character and the development of the literature works. The conflict may be between God and Satan, bright angels and the fallen angels. The former conflict of the good and the evil are that between God and fallen human being.

George Eliot uses the archetypal plots smoothly and skillfully incorporated into his novel, with the intention of expressing her voice in the deep layer in her mind. That is the splendidness of writing.

In this chapter, the author of this paper explores the two main archetypal plots in this novel and analyze them carefully to some extent to dig out the female writer‘s dedicate purpose of employing these archetypes.

4.1 Drawing Lots

At the very outset of this novel, an important event happens in the town of Lantern Yard, which changes Silas Marner’s destiny and becomes the turning point in his whole life. Silas Marner is doubted to steal the church’s money by the people in his hometown, where their belief is with the color of superstition.

When it is difficult for them to decide whether Silas Marner is the thief, they unreasonably adopts a way of drawing lots. As a result, Silas Marner is misunderstood, the neighbors and the whole community cannot believe him any more. His intended wife Sarah leaves him and he cannot live any longer in his own native land. The only choice for him is to go to another new place to restart his own life.

In the Bible, the plot of drawing lots exists in the Samuel 1:

Then Saul prayed to the LORD, the God of Israel, “Give me the right answer.” And Jonathan and Saul were taken by lot, and the men were cleared. Saul said, “Cast the lot between me and Jonathan my son.”

And Jonathan was taken. (Samuel1 15:41-42)

But in the men’s eyes, Jonathan is innocent: But the men said to Saul, “Should Jonathan die-he who has brought about this great deliverance in Israel? Never! As surely as the LORD lives, not a hair of his head will fall to the ground, for he did this today with God’s help.” So the men rescued Jonathan, and he

was not put to death. (1Samuel 15:45)

Sonstroem says that “Silas is capable of friendship: he remembers his mother and infant sister fondly, and his heart goes out to his fiancee and to Dane. The failure of fellowship lies with the deceitful scoundrel

Dane, of course, but also with the Lantern Yard faith” (Sonstroem 550). Indeed, Lantern Yard faith is not correct, especially using the way of drawing lots to judge the truth. In the Bible, the way of drawing lots is used to misunderstand the good man. The people in the town of Lantern Yard do not keep this same thing in their mind. They repeats the same tragedy in their realistic life and blurs the distinction between the good man and the bad man.

The Raveloe’s religion faith is greatly different from the Lantern Yard faith. Sonstroem distinguishes them:

Raveloe’s religion also differs in kind from that of Lantern Yard, and the qualitative

differences account for its greater protection against the unexpected. Although less devoted to

formal religion than are the Lantern Yard congregation, Raveloe residents are just as

preoccupied with the supernatural. But their approach to the supernatural is different, in a way

that goes well beyond the difference between a congregation of Dissenters and one of the

Church of England (Sonstroem 555).

The Raveloe religion allows for the diabolically unjust and especially for the unknown. It

confesses ignorance rather than professing creeds. It keeps a vigilant eye out for evils, yet it

trusts blindly but wisely in God’s goodness—wisely because trust in in a loving God fosters

love of one’s fellows. With such a wary belief the Lantern Yard fellowship might have

discerned Dane’s perfidy and would have been slower to declare Silas guilty. At the very least

the Raveloe religion does no harm(Sonstroem 556).

The Lantern Yard faith is not a right one, which is a wrong understanding of God’s way, just like

Sonstroem affirms:

The drawing of lots reveals a second weakness: the sect’s assumption that God will suspend

natural laws to intervene on behalf of truth and true believers. Dane has probably rigged the

lots. It is unlikely that a thief who takes the trouble to plant Silas’ knife in one abode and the

empty moneybag in another would hazard the success of his scheme on chance, especially

when one’s fellows are so easily deluged. However, a God continually suspending the regular

operations of the universe could certainly override one evildoer’s machinations. Whether or

not Dane manipulates the drawing, the outcome shows the Lantern Yard faith to be false. There

is no God who acts according to the sect’s expectations. In the world as George Eliot presents

it, Silas’ s calamity could happen to anyone. But the Lantern Yard faith, which distracts one

from worldly knowledge and oversimplifies God’s ways, renders its believers especially easy

pickings. The narrator sympathetically attributes Silas’s sorrow to false idears (Sonstroem

551).

Silas Marner blames his disaster on William Dane and ultimately on God: “[T]here is no just God that governs the earth righteously, but a God of lies, that bears witness against the innocent”(Eliot 61).

Understandbly, the once open, trusting Silas Marner responds to his calamity by running away and shrinking inward. Having settled in Raveloe, which is “hedden even from the heavens by the screening trees and hedgerows” (ibid 63), he feels relatively safe from his “unpropitious deity”(ibid 64). It is the

Lantern Yard false faith that makes Silas Marner hide from other people.

By using the archetypal plot of drawing plots in this novel, Eliot stress again the conflict between good and evil existing in the society depicted in the novel. She also highlights the traditional Christian value.

4.2 Three Sin Testimonies

In the Bible, there is a typical archetypal plot about sin testimony:

As she was being brought out, she sent a message to her father-in-law. “I am pregnant by the man who owns these,” she said. And she added, “See if you recognize whose seal and cord and staff these are.”

(Genesis 38:25)

Judah recognized them and said, “She is more righteous then I, since I wouldn’t give her to my son

Shelah.” And he did not sleep with her again. (Genesis 38:26)

From the quotations from the Bible, It is seen that the three sin testimonies of Judah’ sleeping with his daughter-in-law is the seal and cord and staff.

The similar plot happens in the Chapter 18 in the novel Silas Marner. When Godfrey finds that

Dunsey’s skeleton and Silas Marner’s gold coins are together. He recognizes Dunsey’s skeleton through three objects: his watch and seals and gold-handled hunting-whip with Godfrey’s name on it. So, as the same, the watch and seal and hunting-whip constitutes the three sin testimony of Dunsey’s stealing Silas

Marner’s golden coins.

The using of this archetypal plot of three sin testimonies into this novel is the purposeful arrangement by the novelist. In George Eliot’s mind, the bad things will be revealed one day and the bad man will not have the good ending. Through this, the novelist put much more emphasis on the traditional Christian values. When the battle between good and evil. The final winner is always the good not the bad. The novelist also stress that although the good man’s life are always filled with temporary sufferings and hardships, he can win a good ending eventually. The good will gain good, the bad will gain the bad. The function of morality and conscience is emphasized as well as the traditional Christian values by George

Eliot.

Conclusion

George Eliot is a female novelist in the Victorian period, when the religious issues attracted more attentions. She is greatly influenced by the atmosphere of the Christianity and the Bible. Furthermore, her father is a firmly devout Christian and brings her to the church when she is very young. It is not hard for us to explain why her most works are always related to the Christianity and the Bible. So there is a universal usage of the biblical archetypes in his literature works.

The intention of this thesis is to explore the biblical archetypes as many as possible in this novel. A close analysis is necessary to understand the deeper meaning of all the biblical archetypes embedded in this novel. There are also a variety of categories about archetypes such as archetypal images, archetypal themes, archetypal plots, archetypal characters and archetypal structures and so on. About this thesis, the archetypal characters, archetypal structures and the archetypal plots are the main focuses.

Through analyzing the main leading character Silas Marner in this novel and his biblical archetypal counterparts Job and Adam in the Bible, meanwhile by comparing the another character Eppie in this novel to her biblical counterparts Jesus Christ and Ruth, the novelist express her concerns for the human mutual love and the interpersonal relationship, the devout Christian personality and the traditional Christianity values are also confirmed by the novelist.

With the careful interpretation of the typical archetypal U-shaped structures in the stories of the two main Characters Silas Marner and Godfrey Cass, the author of this thesis finds several U-shaped structures from four aspects of Silas Marner’s place, living, religion belief and the relationship with the community.

The U-shaped structure in Godfrey Cass’s psychology is described in the close analysis of this novel. Using the above-mentioned U-shaped structures in the novel, the novelist expresses her emphasis on the harmonious relationship between the man and woman. She also slightly cares for the relationship between man and nature under the industrialized civilization.

In addition to the archetypal characters and archetypal structures used in this novel, the two main archetypal plots of drawing lots and three sin testimonies are manifested in the content of the novel. Using the archetypal plots, the novelist affirms that the good always the winner during the battle between the

good and the evil. The tradition Christian values are strengthened by the novelist through the close analysis of these classical archetypal plots in the novel.

The archetypes embedded in Silas Marner are not only one of the important origins of inspiration, but also serves as the indispensable part of the mechanic organization. The richness of archetypes employed in this novel gives us a much deeper and wider comprehension of the novel. The skillful employment of the archetypes also enriches the archetypal research to some extent. By using these rich archetypes in this novel,

George Eliot highlights the traditional Christianity Values in the interpersonal relationship under the rapid industrialized civilization in England, and she also shows her concerns for the relationship between huamn beings and nature in that industrialized society in the novel.

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攻读学位期间发表的学术论文目录

侯俊娟. “On William Blake’s Poem ‘The Lamb’.” 读与写杂志. 2011年第 03 期。 ISSN: 1672-1578; CN: 51-1650/G4.