Silas Marner

The small religious community in Lantern Yard practices a strict, austere form of Calvinist Protestant Christianity that demands a great deal of the members of the congregation. Silas is raised in this environment, and the practices of the chapel leave a lasting impression on his character. When Silas is betrayed by his best friend, he is also framed for theft and forced to leave Lantern Yard. His departure is a symbolic moment. Silas physically leaves Lantern Yard and, at the same time, he leaves his religious inclinations behind as well. The physical departure is symbolically a philosophical exit, demonstrating the severance between Silas and everything he knows. Lantern Yard becomes a fixed point in Silas’s psyche, a symbol of the moment of significant change and suffering in his life. He can sort his existence into the time at Lantern Yard and the time after Lantern Yard, which extents to his time with and without religion, as well as his time in and out of the north of England.

When Silas leaves Lantern Yard, he travels south to Raveloe. The contrast in cultures is stark. As the narrator notes, Raveloe is a plentiful place where the people do not need to work nearly as much in order to survive. They have a local church, but it preaches a more traditional form of Anglican Protestant Christianity, an interpretation of the religion that does not demand nearly as much of its congregation as Silas’s former chapel. Even after moving further south, Silas cannot leave Lantern Yard behind him. Lantern Yard travels with him, pressing down on his thoughts and driving him into solitude. Lantern Yard becomes a personal symbol to Silas, reminding him of the dangers of trusting others. He was exiled from Lantern Yard by the duplicitous congregation, but he drives himself further into exile because he cannot bring himself to trust again. Silas does not want to be hurt and, whenever he considers whether he should integrate himself into the local community, he turns to the symbol of Lantern Yard as a reminder of how much he can be hurt. Silas conceptualizes Lantern Yard as a symbol of all the pain he has suffered. Lantern Yard was everything he knew, right up until it was forcibly taken away from him. In Raveloe, he finds himself in a strange and foreign land. The local religious practices are nothing like what he has known, and the people are very different, yet the symbol of Lantern Yard looms large in his mind.

Silas gradually comes to terms with his exile and—through the love of Eppie and his neighbors—becomes a part of the Raveloe community. He attends the church in Raveloe after rediscovering his religion. In doing so, he learns to let go of his past. Once he feels better about his life, Silas announces his plan to travel north and return to Lantern Yard. He wants answers about his past, and he believes that the only place where he can get these answers is Lantern Yard. When he returns to the chapel, however, the building has been turned into a factory. None of the local people remember the religious group that once met there. The memories that have haunted Silas for so long have been erased from the world. The chapel has not just been destroyed; it has been forgotten. The replacement of the chapel with a factory is a symbol of the imminent Industrial Revolution, but it is also a message to Silas. The chapel is not just destroyed; it is erased from the local memory. This erasure gives Silas permission to leave his memories behind too. He realizes that he must do the same, allowing his memories of Lantern Yard to be replaced by something more modern and productive. Silas leaves Lantern Yard in his past, achieving catharsis by addressing the symbolic meaning of the destruction of the old chapel.