The Nature of Fathers, Family and Fetishism in Silas Marner

Abstract

The Nature of Fathers, Family and Fetishism in Silas Marner' is an essay that explores the depiction of interpersonal relationships in George Eliot's Silas Marner. With a focus on Eppie and her relationships with her respective father figures, the effects of realism as a genre and the use of an omnipresent narrator is analysed. Through the theoretical framework of religious fetishism, Eppie's objectification and reduction to an idea rather than a person in the eyes of Godfrey, her biological father, is contrasted with the care and love that Silas gives her for sixteen years. Eppie's agency in making the decision to stay with Silas is highly contrasted with Godfrey's possessive diction, and his misplaced feelings of ownership. Ultimately the essay questions what it means to be a father, and addresses the conflict posed within the text between Godfrey and Silas; the argument of the rightful family that Eppie belongs to, and which of her father figures are more deserving of having her.