Development of Relationships in Silas MarnerThe overstated structural phenomena practically resolve whether the relationships get developed or collapsed down. A comprehensive scrutiny has been accomplished on the subsequent development of some significant characters’ relationships in Silas Marner on the basis of the said phenomena. The analysis is as follows:In Lantern Yard, Silas Marner and William Dane were two bosom friends. The relationship of this friendship is consecrated with all kinds of recognitions. They had responsibilities and trust upon which Silas let William have access to his personal and private life, that is, Silas got accompanied with William when he resolved to meet Sarah, Silas’ beloved.
All these phenomena smoothly geared their friendship up. But the villainous inclusion of William as the third person in between Silas and Sarah and the extra-affair (like extra-marital) relationship between William and Sarah proved a great disloyalty as a good friend. Later, William tremendously contravened his responsibilities and trust by making Silas falsely accused of theft and by marrying Sarah.
Ultimately their relationship tumbled down forever.Silas Marner and Sarah are lover and beloved in the novel Silas Marner. Actually this kind of man-woman relationship takes place only by conforming to the inducement of mind and immoral indulgence of illusion and infatuation. This is why, it happens having no familial, social and religious recognitions. Nevertheless, it is a wide spread relationship which also requires responsibilities, trust and tolerance for its successful development and ultimate maturity. With such facts, Silas’ and Sarah’s affair got a full swing, it was about to attain a final stage of being united through their marriage fixation. But Sarah did not tolerate Silas’ accusation of theft, rather enthused to another affair with William Dane and ultimately they got married. Only the lack of tolerance, thus, caused the utter downfall of Silas’ and Sarah’ relationship. Here mentionable one thing is that there are much more possibilities to be weak gradually towards the third person of opposite sex exposed to and to establish a new extra-marital or extra-affair relationship when the relation faces any problem. This was the real problem of Silas’ and Sarah’ affair.From the dawn of human existence in the world, there have been a well attachment and affinity between human beings and religion on the basis of faith and compliance. Religion is the habitat and sanctuary of optimism and probability for the believers at the time of mundane distress, frustration, deprivation and oppression. But if the religion misguides or deceives the believers through superstitions, fallacies or malpractices, all sorts of responsibilities to and trusts in religion topple down, and tolerance is exhausted to its ultimate end. The same thing happened with Silas Marner in Lantern Yard. His false accusation of theft and its corroboration by the draw of lots, the hypothetical divine system to identify the culprits, were nothing but the man-made prejudice, perverted interpretation and disparaging ritual of the Methodist sect of Christianity. Silas felt deceived and he, then and there, terminated all his faith in and affection for religion.Godfrey Cass, a man of higher class society, and Molly Farren, a maid servant in an inn, are spouses in the novel. Godfrey made this marriage clandestine to his family and society lest he should be dismissed from legacy, humiliated in the society, and lose Nancy, a young pretty lady from another rich Lammeter family. This nuptial relationship, consequently, received only religious recognition rather than the familial and social recognitions. Godfrey, thus, was very indifferent and uncaring to Molly and the new born baby, Eppie. Responsibilities and trust have been lacerated tremendously. Molly did not tolerate it anymore and started being addicted to opium. Ultimately this relationship is awarded a despondent denouement with premature death of Molly. Godfrey Cass is the biological father of Eppie. Eppie, like her mother Molly, did not achieve the social and familial recognition to be the daughter of Godfrey. Responsibilities of a father are totally a big zero (0) when Eppie became absolutely deserted just after the death of her mother, and when no one including Godfrey claimed her guardianship. This negligence of recognitions and responsibilities annihilated all kinds of possibilities to develop an eternal relationship between father and daughter. Long days after Godfrey came to Eppie at her sixteenth with the assertion of fatherhood but she could not accept it because she had no way to have any trust in such a fraudulent father who had left her in so a destitute condition. Ultimately situation got callous and pathetic, at the same time impossible to restore.Adopted father and daughter, Silas Marner and Eppie, are the manifestations of a thriving relationship in the novel. This type of relationship is recognised all the ways. With every possible phenomenon Silas did his utmost to bring up Eppie, and she was also so caring to her father. Their relationship, thus, developed in full swing with mutual responsibilities, strong trust and tolerance at all conditions. It got a fully fledged florescence through Eppie’s comment at the time Godfrey and Nancy came to claim her guardianship:Thank you, ma’am–thank you, sir, for your offers–they’re very great, and far above my wish. For I should have no delight i’ life any more if I was forced to go away from my father, and knew he was sitting at home, a-thinking of me and feeling lone. We’ve been used to be happy together every day, and I can’t think o’ no happiness without him. And he says he’d nobody i’ the world till I was sent to him, and he’d have nothing when I was gone. And he’s took care of me and loved me from the first, and I’ll cleave to him as long as he lives, and nobody shall ever come between him and me. (Eliot 206) Another full and fledged mature relationship is between Silas and Dolly Winthrop, two neighbouring characters in the novel. As neighbours, they are concerned about their own responsibilities; especially Dolly helped Silas in every way in order to bring up Eppie as Silas completely unaware of rearing up a child. Silas’s trust in Dolly facilitated develop a very positive relationship and Dolly’s tolerance for every hassle of taking care of little Eppie made this relationship stable and steady. There is another unbeaten relationship between Godfrey Cass and Nancy Lammeter, the spouses in the novel. Unlike Molly, Godfrey overtly married Nancy, and thus there was no obstacle to have familial, social and religious recognitions for this marriage. In conjugal life Godfrey is so loyal and responsible for his wife and so does Nancy for Godfrey. Trust in each other is also strong, but stronger their tolerance is. Godfrey’s patience for Nancy’s incapability of having children of her own, and Nancy’s tolerance, on the other hand, for Godfrey’s natural irresolution and moral cowardice (Eliot 37) and the secret marriage made their relationship unwavering and smoothly continuous till the end of the novel.Aaron Winthrop and Eppie are mates at childhood, friends at juvenility, lover ” beloved at young age and spouses at maturity. Multi-faced relationships they experienced and enjoyed to their full content, and they were so serious with their every relationship. But Aaron was much more concerned about getting their relationship recognised through marriage rather than Eppie. She was resistant to change and alternate their relation as it was then. But I don’t want any change, said Eppie. I should like to go on a long, long while, just as we are. Only Aaron does want a change; and he made me cry a bit”only a bit”because he said I didn’t care for him, for if I cared for him I should want us to be married, as he did. (Eliot 180)They were, anyway, mutually caring, sharing, loyal and tolerant. This is why, their relationship got a booming continuity and the novel also gets a happy and cheerful ending with their marriage at the church premises.Impact of Human Relationship on Human ExistenceThe existence of human race on the earth commenced with a bonded relationship between Adam and Eve, and since then human being has been obtaining their own survivability and individual identity with diverse modes of relationships, as in the holy Quran, O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male (Adam) and a female (Eve), and made you into nations and tribes, that ye may know each other (not that ye may despise each other)… (The Holy Qur’an 26.49.13/1593)Human being’s instinctive nature of sociality absolutely and extensively contributes to their existence based on their varied relationships. If the relations are well developed, the existence and identity must find their pledge and promise, security and guarantee, because most people seem to render family ties as important for their identity and for the way they commit themselves (Henriksen 2009). If the relations, on the other hand, rupture and come off due to the lack of the required phenomena, it directly impacts on the human existence and their identity. Silas Marner is a striking evident for it. Silas’ undeveloped relationships with Sarah, William and religion awarded him nothing but a life of seclusion without any social values and identity with the threat of survivability in Raveloe, a man keeping no faith in God and religion and retaining pessimistic view in the course of life, and a death in life that groped for existence in the crowd of humanity. Other worthless relationships among Godfrey, Molly and Eppie turned to a triangle divergence for their existence and identity. Godfrey’s negligence to Molly resulted in having no familial and social identity as a wife, frustration, addiction to opium and eventual annihilation of her existence through her premature death. For the same reason, like Molly, Eppie being a little baby of only two years became the victim of existential crisis having no identity in the society. She was about to be the captive of the ferocious clutch of her parents’ broken relationship, and about to lose her survivability in the world due to Godfrey’s not proclaiming their factual relationship unless Silas was there to protect her. And giving no identity to Eppie made Godfrey identity less, existence less and destitute in the kingdom of fatherhood.Immensely blossoming relationships among Silas, Eppie, Dolly and Aaron give them, especially Silas and Eppie, back the meanings and significances of life, familial and social identity with a secure existence and survivability and the revival of faith in God and religion with optimism and tranquility. Actually relationship with Dolly reshaped all these things in Silas’ and Eppie’s life. Eppie, in addition, achieved the fulfillment of every sort of identity and existence of her womanhood entity through the relationship with Aaron. Another successful and fully booming relationship is of Godfrey and Nancy. In spite of suffering the pangs of having no issue in their conjugal life, they never felt their existential or identity crisis, because they were very cooperative to embrace their own place and survivability.