Dissertation2 2 | - Freelance Writer
Sep 13, 2016 | #1
This client ordered his paper early in July, with a deadline of July 22, 2016. Me and my fellow freelance writer were a bit late in meeting that deadline, but kept in touch with the client, and delivered his paper in time for him to meet his deadline.
After reviewing the document quite quickly, the client had some largely superficial issues (e.g. he did not care for the paragraph spacing), and one other issue: that of the deadline. Although he could still use the paper (as he admitted), he was upset that it was late.
I offered him 1/3 of the purchase price back. He refused, saying the lateness meant he deserved the entire cost back. I offered to take care of his other non-time concerns, but he refused, stating that since the paper was late, nothing else mattered.
I answered that this was not the case if he was still using the paper -- to give a 100% refund for lateness when the paper can still be used made no sense whatsoever.
Despite voluminous emails back and forth, and several other offers, the client remained unhappy.
Our conversation ended without a resolution, and then several weeks later, he filed a claim through PayPal. Even though the client did receive what he paid for, the credit card company sided with him.
It is quite clear to me, after several years in this business, that this client intended to complain about this paper right from the start just so he could take back his money. Of course, we will do what we can to ensure our copyright remains intact, but that is not the point. The point is that this client is a scammer.
To help other freelance writers avoid similar frauds, here is the customer's information:
Harsh Kapoor (current or former student at NYU.edu)
Staten Island, NY
USA (his current location may be Delhi, India)
In "Silas Marner," George Eliot reflects the manner in which Victorian England constructed class hierarchies. Specifically, the upper class' access to material resources and social prestige remained unquestioned. Through Eliot's fictional depiction, however, class systems are questioned. In the novel, there are social realms in which the rules of social privilege are not applicable. This paper seeks to answer the following questions:
(1) How does Eliot COUNTER the rules of social privilege within social realms?
(2) How does such an alternative DISPLACE the existing system of privilege?
(3) How is such an alternative NOT considered a complement to the existing system of privilege?
As a normalizing discourse, the novel frequently perpetuates class hierarchies in society. However, "Silas Marner" poses an alternative approach due to the interactions between the residents in Raveloe. In particular, Eppie's presence permits for the questioning of social privilege. Through Eppie, Marner serves as a link between both upper class residents, the Cass family, and lower class residents, the Winthrop family. Ultimately, these social realms allow Eliot to pose a counterargument towards the rules of social privilege.
Issues relating to social privilege and social class are illuminated through several lenses; one way in which to consider these issues is in the way Eliot portrays tension between individual and community identities. These identities can be tied to the social or class privilege of the individual, or the lack thereof. Furthermore, conflict can arise when an individual believes or witnesses themselves to be of a different social class, or level of social privilege, to the community or communities of which they are a part. The character of Silas can be seen to experience this kind of tension as an individual in the community, as he is first a core member of the community of Raveloe then an individual alone. By the conclusion of the narrative, Silas has rejoined the Raveloe community and receives the social support that - in the nineteenth century - was provided to individuals largely by the village or town in which they lived. Since the time of Eliot's writing the novel, technological development and societal change have led to a situation in which geographically-local support and solidarity have been significantly undermined, and the rise of individualism. This is also clearly related to class and privilege, as those with privilege isolate themselves from the community. It can be seen that the community of Raveloe serves some functioning in stabilizing social class and an individual's place in the class hierarchy, to some degree. Displays of social class and hierarchy are demonstrated, for example, through the public events in Raveloe; dances provide one example of a public ritual through which social class and social privilege are understood, shown and perpetuated. Initially Silas is seen as an outsider in this community structure, which has a significantly insular social structure and identity. Notably, the character of Godfrey in Silas Marner is an insider in the village and has social privilege as the heir of a locally-important family. Silas is an outsider and is not trusted or esteemed in the way that Godfrey is within the village.
As a normalizing discourse, the novel frequently perpetuates class hierarchies in society; a parallel can be seen in the plot structure overall which works through the characters and their narratives in an at-times mechanical fashion. As a writer, Eliot takes care to give each character their due time and attention in the overall narrative, and this can be understood on one level to represent a reinforcement of social structures that anoint certain characters as "important". Eliot views the world and society as ordered on moral lines; however, it can be seen that the moral and the social cannot be entirely disconnected, and therefore Eliot's moral ordering of the narrative can be seen as a reinforcement of strict and binary social structures and hierarchy. Eliot believes in moralistic reward or punishment of an individual's actions and character by some greater power. This belief in, essentially, karma as a narrative and plot device can be understood variously as a way of undermining social class and privilege - as virtuous individuals will ascend socially and economically as a result of their good morals - or alternatively as reinforcement of a hierarchical social structure. Bonaparte (39) sees Silas Marner in some way as representing a secular translation of the "word of the Lord" - Eliot may be seen to be advocating replacing social-class based hierarchies and privilege with a moral code based upon a personalized religious belief and practice. Eliot's writing from the first novel imbued this idea of personal accountability and responsibility, and that bad actions would be met with bad ultimate outcomes and vice versa. Eliot's narrative essentially posits that behavior and experience is determined to a high degree by an individual's moral character; however, as moral character is fomented in the context of a particular family, community and society, social class and social structures undoubtedly affect the options, behaviors and opportunities open to any given individual.
Eliot's sense of moral order as a driving factor in character and plot development cannot be disconnected from factors relating to social class and privilege, nor from those relating to faith. Over the course of the narrative in Silas Marner, Silas loses his personal faith and then eventually regains it. This loss and rediscovery is mirrored - and connected to - Silas's rejection and then acceptance by the community in which he lives. Social structures and religious faith are inextricably linked in Eliot's Raveloe, as the church is the social center of the village in many ways. Social organizing is arranged around and often by the church, and those like Silas who lose their religious faith find themselves socially isolated as a result of the church's central role in social structures and hierarchy within the community. The religious life of the community portrayed in Silas Marner is remarkably simple and homogenous - there is only one type of faith through which individuals can access the social support and community offered by the village and its church. By demonstrating the isolation that occurs when the character of Silas deviates from this single socially-approved type of faith, Eliot can be read as a subtle critique of religious faith that is linked to an exclusive and limiting social community structure that does not allow for diversity or uncertainty on the part of the individual. Notably, the faith that Silas rediscovers is less explicitly Christian than the prior faith that he had lost. Silas's new faith is perhaps more humanistic and based on trusting other people in his community - in this way, it can be seen as linked to a humanistic social structure and way of relating to other people. Silas's new, more personal form of faith can be taken as representative of Eliot's own views as they relate to religion - this ideological break with a formal structure of Christianity and the move towards a personal form of faith in which the individual is responsible for their own moral code and actions can be understood as following the trajectory in Eliot's own life. In terms of social structure, privilege and class, the message taken away from this portrayal of changing forms of faith seems to be that individual character, actions and morals ought to trump any social standing or privilege that is achieved through birth and subsequent adherence to an inflexible, formalized Christianity. The lateral connections between individuals in a community are also significantly more important in the person-centric, individual and inherently more ambiguous form of faith that Silas ultimately finds. The "alternative" of such an individualized faith is not considered complementary to the existing system of privilege that is grounded in formalized Christianity.
The presentation of religious and personal faith is one way in which Eliot counters the rules of social privilege within social realms. Another way in which Eliot provides a counter in this area is in the portrayal of domestic, private scenes and settings. The roles of relationships and family in relation to domestic space are made clear in Eliot's portrayal of two specific domestic spheres - Silas's cottage home and the home of the Cass family. Both homes are shown as private alternatives to the more public life in the village community; the state of each home throughout the novel's narrative can be seen as a reflection of the emotional and social state of its inhabitant(s). The emblem of Silas's variously closed and open door reflects his isolation or engagement with the community, and also frames his relationships with Dunsey and then subsequently with Eppie who becomes part of Silas's family. Through the use of the homes as emblems of characters' states, Eliot can be seen to be reinforcing social structures and privilege as they relate to gender - the Cass home is portrayed as "wifeless" and unclean until Nancy enters and makes the home clean and inviting. When Silas and Eppie become a family, their home becomes more socially-open, inviting and appealing. Women are shown as bringing order, cleanliness and social connectivity to the domestic sphere, and this reinforces nineteenth-century social structures that placed a woman in the domestic sphere and assigned to her the majority of domestic tasks such as cooking, cleaning and caring for others in the family and the community.
The community of Raveloe is emblematic of the social-class structures of England in the early nineteenth century. Eliot portrays this strict structuring along class lines, and certain elements of this portrayal can be read as ways of countering the rules of social privilege within social realms. Social privilege and associated rules are deeply embedded in the society and community Eliot portrays in Raveloe: the forms of speech and address characters use towards one another reflect and reinforce a hierarchical social structure in which some individuals and families are considered superior or inferior to others; the activities and habits or behavioral patterns of individuals and groups are also shown to reflect and reinforce a hierarchical social structure; social privilege is made visible and spatial in terms of where individual characters sit during specific social events. For example, in the Raveloe church the higher members of society have specific seats in the front of the building, while the lowly villagers sit in the back. The gentry are looking forward without being able to see the commoners behind them, while the lower-class villagers are observing the gentry from behind. The implication is that the higher-class members of the church congregation are closer to God in their physical placement in the church; however, Eliot's outlining of a more personal spiritual or religious experience based on moral character means that there would be an equalizing of any such distance and it would no longer be based upon social class. Notably, in Silas Marner, Eliot does not depict resentment from the lower-class members of the community towards the land-owners of the higher classes. There is relatively little oppression from the higher classes towards the lower classes, and the villagers are aware that they are treated relatively well by their social superiors in this context. Without the context of the lower-class villagers, the privilege and social elevation of the gentry would have significantly less meaning - the villagers' presence in the church as a watching "audience" for the higher-class residence provides the setting and depth to that elevation in terms of class.
The social class differences and privileges depicted in Silas Marner are largely accurate to the history of nineteenth-century England. Eliot depicts the pre-industrial era in which relations between higher- and lower-class citizens in rural areas were relatively amiable and respectful. When Silas and Eppie travel to an industrial town they see a different kind of class hierarchy, in which factory workers are disrespected, interchangeable and dispensable to their bosses. Witnessing this world, the characters have a new appreciation for Raveloe and its relatively respectful, trade-based community in which there remains interconnectedness between the higher and lower social classes. Eppie is an emblem and an agent of such interconnectedness, as she traverses class boundaries in the context of Raveloe quite consistently, connecting social superiors to more lowly villagers including Silas. In the factory town, social class is more significantly and impermeably stratified, and lower-class individuals have relatively little chance of achieving higher social status through dehumanizing work. Silas's work as a weaver in the context of Raveloe is representative of the interconnectedness of that particular society - Silas helps to weave together the components of the community in vertical and horizontal planes, and this ability to join people together is increased when Silas opens his home and himself more fully to other people in the community. Silas talks extensively about the greater trust he discovers after living with Eppie, and this trust in other people can be seen as the antithesis of the strict and impermeable class boundaries that are in place in the industrialized town. However, it can also be argued that Eliot romanticizes the situation of the peasantry in nineteenth-century England, who by social structures and privilege were kept poor for life - the fact that Godfrey Cass ultimately owns Silas's home demonstrates that even the romanticized, happy peasant remains economically disenfranchised and largely unable to improve their material lot in life while the land-owning upper classes retain control and power in a society. Neill states that such romanticizing of the "happy peasant" means that Silas Marner as a character has been robbed of his intellectual power, in fact of his mind: "In Silas Marner, this higher capacity of the mind to unite thought and feeling has been lost. Such dissolution is manifest in the superstition of the Raveloe villagers, in Silas's catalepsy and analogous social withdrawal, and in Godfrey's excessive attention to his own needs and subsequent suffering.... Eliot identifies genuine sympathy as an expression of an advanced state in which truth is discernible through forms that demonstrate "piety towards the present and the visible" rather than in "the remote, the vague, and the unknown." Not only are the characters in Silas Marner incapable of such sympathy, but the narrator too finds herself so intellectually remote from her subjects that she cannot provide them with a future true to human potential in the way that other parts of the story are true to human suffering. Gwendolyn's reformation under the influence of the greater narratives she resists suggests that present and visible sympathy can be linked to national spiritual destiny, so making the prophetic projection into the unknown a journey into the known. Where there is dissolution rather than evolution of the organism, however, there is less to be seen and said. In Silas Marner, the narrator's access to the realities of the present and of the future is so reduced that she is effectively drawn back into the primitive world from which she seemed at first so removed. And there she wanders through the territory of the dark and the unknown, where she encounters only the shrinking of human nature and the cavities of the dissolving mind" (Neill 960).
This hierarchical social structure also has a geographical element - as Silas enters the narrative and the Raveloe community, he is at the lowest place in the social hierarchy. It is only through acceptance by and of the community that he can be trusted and gain a foothold on the social ladder in that particular place. The mistrust of outsiders is demonstrated by Eliot to exist in Raveloe as a community, and also in its church. Eliot counters this insular, untrusting mode of interacting with newcomers in several ways in the text, including her depiction and discussion of Silas's changing faith. It can be understood that Eliot counters social structures, class and privilege by enticing the community of Raveloe - and, by extension, the reader - to open up to new experiences, new people and new ideas. In the context of the Industrial Revolution that was approaching during the narrative of Silas Marner, English society was about to be opened up to significant new influence in terms of individuals' geographical mobility, industrialization of agriculture and manufacturing, and migration of people from far outside an individual community or village. Eliot further counters the existing system of social class and hierarchy through depicting Silas as a morally good character who is - on moral and behavior grounds - a "better" person than many of those who are situated above him in the social pecking-order of Raveloe. Eliot counters the idea of social structures that are unchangeable and insular, with the idea that an individual's behaviors, beliefs, relationships with other people and moral character should count for more in their social standing than simply the family, status and economic situation into which they are born.
Eliot further counters prevailing social structures and privilege through the literary device of the omniscient narrator. Social structures, class and privilege are commonly communicated to the outside world through the speech, behaviors and actions of individuals, and so they are judged and perpetuated based on these exterior appearances and performances. Eliot's use of the omniscient narrator gives the reader access to the characters' thoughts. Their interior life may not match up to the exterior projections of behavior, speech and action, so that interior life and voice demonstrates ways the character may be at odds with the visible life that perpetuates the social structure, hierarchy and privilege system witnessed in the novel. Access to the interior voice via the omniscient narration can be seen as a way of countering or undercutting the hierarchical structures associated with social class and privilege seen in Silas Marner specifically, and in historical English society more generally.
In terms of displacement, the Lantern Yard can be seen as an existing system of superstition-based privilege, that is displaced metaphorically by a less-superstitious, more humanistic form of belief that - at least potentially -- breaks down certain structural hierarchies. The Lantern Yard is a faith community with a narrowly-defined and maintained religion. This is the community in which Silas is raised, and when he is excommunicated from the Lantern Yard he is unable to find a similar sense of community and belonging initially in Raveloe. After significant time has passed and Silas returns to the Lantern Yard, the area no longer exists in physical form or in memory. Where the Lantern Yard chapel had been, there is now a large factory. This is a clear symbol of the coming of industrial modernity and its displacement of superstition and closed communities with technological advancement and a greater degree of openness in thought. This can be understood as a displacement of traditional social structures and the privilege associated with being in a closed, limited social group.
The presence and character narrative of Eppie allows for an interrogation of existing structures of social class and social privilege. Eppie connects the families and homes at opposite ends of the social spectrum in the village of Raveloe - Silas's lowly cottage and the Red House manor in which the Cass family live and host social events such as dances. Silas, through his connection to Eppie, links the upper-class Cass family and the lower-class residents of Raveloe, including the Winthrop family. Eppie is the granddaughter of the Squire, although unacknowledged by her father Godfrey. Eppie as a character can be understood as being essentially Eliot's argument against the prevailing rules of social privilege and class. The people of Raveloe are aware of Silas's status as the lowliest member of the community, and his messy uncared-for cottage is an emblem of his initial social status in Raveloe. By contrast, the Red house is peopled by visiting gentry and represents the opposite end of the social spectrum. According to a strict hierarchy of social class and social privilege, there would be firm barriers between these two houses and families. However, Eliot writes in such a way that makes it clear these homes and individuals are inexorably connected, and the boundaries between their homes are permeable and can be crossed. The character of Eppie continually crosses the boundaries and borders between The Cass family and Silas. Eppie contains a dichotomy of heritage from a high social class with living conditions among Raveloe's lowest social class.
Other interactions occur between the Cass and Marner homes and families. The first incursion into Silas's private domestic living space is by Duncan Cass, who is looking for money. By the end of the novel, ownership of Marner's cottage has passed to Godfrey Cass despite the latter being in Silas's debt. This is another way in which class structures and boundaries are demonstrated by Eliot to be both permeable and impermanent. The ultimate debt of Godfrey Cass to Silas is not only monetary, as Silas has raised Godfrey's daughter Eppie as his own.
Eliot makes it clear that higher social class and the ownership of land or money do not necessarily lead to personal and spiritual happiness and satisfaction. Particularly as Eliot defines a moral code based on the individual, resulting in a sort of karma relating to reward or punishment for behavior and character, the fact that the most corrupt characters in the novel are those of higher social class can be seen as Eliot's undermining of hierarchical social structures based on privilege. Instead, Eliot seems to propose a system of reward and retribution based on characters' moral values instead of their social status and social appearance to others. Dunstan and Godfrey are shown to be corrupt and unhappy; Silas is portrayed as overly money-focused before Eppie enters his life. Godfrey, in particular, suffers greatly with unhappiness that is caused at least in part by his own corruption, his dishonesty regarding Eppie, and social class rules. Godfrey marries Nancy, a woman from a lower social class, and they fail to have children. Godfrey is ultimately envious of the relationship between Silas and Eppie, feeling that he missed out on this opportunity to form a genuine human bond with his own daughter. Silas and Eppie do become quite genuinely happy towards the end of the novel, and this contrasts sharply with Godfrey's unhappiness. Eliot seems to propose that happiness and human interconnection would be the logical replacement - as a value system - for the existing and demonstrated system of social class and privilege seen in Silas Marner.
Commentary on social class and privilege can be problematic when discussing nineteenth-century novels. David (17-18) notes that the writer's and reader's commentary on the Victorian novel commonly came "from a dominant social position" (David 17) and therefore Eliot can be seen as writing about the lower classes from a privileged position - she cannot necessarily speak for a class that was quite systematically disenfranchised and kept largely illiterate (David 19). However, the novel as a form was viewed as a "particularly influential form of communication" (David 18) and it could be read and responded to in a private way that did not involve public - and therefore potentially dangerous - discussion and discourse regarding social class and privilege.
In discussion, there are multiple related philosophies and criticisms that could commonly be applied to issues of social class and privilege in Silas Marner and elsewhere; however, some of these should be disregarded or refuted in a new critical discussion. Marcuse, for example, claimed that literature creates an alternative to the harsh realities of social inequality, but that it winds up serving as a coping mechanism rather than an impetus to change. Eliot's romanticized depiction of happy lower-class villagers in Raveloe could be seen as supporting Marcuse's ideas that middle-and-working-class people know what is really important in life. Marcuse therefore sees a kind of moral superiority in being from the lower social classes, which obviates the need to work towards social change. However, in refuting Marcuse it is necessary to note that Eliot does not follow this script truly. Eliot's moral reckoning of the characters in Silas Marner is grounded at least in part on their potential and capability to enact change in themselves and in the community. Silas's own improved status and happiness comes not simply from membership in the lower to middle-class of Raveloe's society, but more from his ability to open up to the community, to trust people and to form lasting and meaningful human connections with other characters - notably, Eppie. Likewise, the literary philosophy of Foucault can be challenged as his theory of the novel containing critical energies is similar to that of Marcuse. Foucault considers the novel to contain "explicit relations that are posed and spoken in discourse itself" (Foucault 32) and in the case of Silas Marner it should be argued that rather the novel is not intended to function as a piece of theoretical discourse, but rather as a more open-ended exploration and portrayal of social structures, privilege and hierarchy, and ways in which these may be countered, displaced or replaced with alternatives.
In conclusion, it can be seen that Eliot counters the rules of social privilege within social realms in multiple ways. One major way in which this is countered is through the representation of faith in the novel. The strict and formalized structures of Christianity are questions, and countered with the kind of faith Silas regains - one which is based upon personal responsibility and moral character or a moral code governing behavior. This alternative displaces the existing system of privilege by suggesting that the status and situation in which an individual finds themselves should be the result of their action and behaviors rather than simply their having been born into the gentry class. Eliot's more corrupt and less sympathetic characters - Godfrey, for example - belong to the higher social classes but are not depicted as moral people who would be rewarded by the higher power outlined by Eliot. This alternative is not considered a complement to the existing system of privilege in that it - at least in theory - opens up the possibility for social mobility between classes of birth, based on behavior, moral character and the way in which the individual approaches not only economic work, but also their interconnected relationships with other humans in the community. Through Eppie, Marner serves as a link between both upper class residents, demonstrating how arbitrary and ultimately ridiculous such harsh and strict boundaries between social classes and levels of privilege really were.
Works Cited
Berger, Courtney. "When Bad Things Happen to Bad People: Liability and Individual Consciousness in" Adam Bede" and" Silas Marner"." Novel: A Forum on Fiction. Vol. 33. No. 3. Duke University Press.
Bonaparte, Felicia. "Carrying the Word of the Lord to the Gentiles:" Silas Marner" and the Translation of Scripture into a Secular Text." Religion & Literature (1991): 39-60.
David, Deirdre. The Cambridge companion to the Victorian novel. Cambridge University Press.
Eliot, George, and David Carroll. Silas Marner. Penguin UK.
Foucault, Michel. The archaeology of knowledge. Vintage.
Gagnier, Regenia. "Money, the Economy, and Social Class." A Companion to the Victorian Novel: 48-66.
Goodlad, Lauren ME. Victorian Literature and the Victorian State: Character and Governance in a Liberal Society. JHU Press.
Marcuse, Herbert. One-dimensional man: Studies in the ideology of advanced industrial society. Routledge.
McKay, Brenda. George Eliot and Victorian Attitudes to Racial Diversity, Colonialism, Darwinism, Class, Gender, and Jewish Culture and Prophecy. Vol. 78. Edwin Mellen Press.
Neill, Anna. "The Primitive Mind of Silas Marner." ELH 75.4: 939-962.
After reviewing the document quite quickly, the client had some largely superficial issues (e.g. he did not care for the paragraph spacing), and one other issue: that of the deadline. Although he could still use the paper (as he admitted), he was upset that it was late.
I offered him 1/3 of the purchase price back. He refused, saying the lateness meant he deserved the entire cost back. I offered to take care of his other non-time concerns, but he refused, stating that since the paper was late, nothing else mattered.
I answered that this was not the case if he was still using the paper -- to give a 100% refund for lateness when the paper can still be used made no sense whatsoever.
Despite voluminous emails back and forth, and several other offers, the client remained unhappy.
Our conversation ended without a resolution, and then several weeks later, he filed a claim through PayPal. Even though the client did receive what he paid for, the credit card company sided with him.
It is quite clear to me, after several years in this business, that this client intended to complain about this paper right from the start just so he could take back his money. Of course, we will do what we can to ensure our copyright remains intact, but that is not the point. The point is that this client is a scammer.
To help other freelance writers avoid similar frauds, here is the customer's information:
Harsh Kapoor (current or former student at NYU.edu)
Staten Island, NY
USA (his current location may be Delhi, India)
"SILAS MARNER" - THE PAPER
In "Silas Marner," George Eliot reflects the manner in which Victorian England constructed class hierarchies. Specifically, the upper class' access to material resources and social prestige remained unquestioned. Through Eliot's fictional depiction, however, class systems are questioned. In the novel, there are social realms in which the rules of social privilege are not applicable. This paper seeks to answer the following questions:(1) How does Eliot COUNTER the rules of social privilege within social realms?
(2) How does such an alternative DISPLACE the existing system of privilege?
(3) How is such an alternative NOT considered a complement to the existing system of privilege?
As a normalizing discourse, the novel frequently perpetuates class hierarchies in society. However, "Silas Marner" poses an alternative approach due to the interactions between the residents in Raveloe. In particular, Eppie's presence permits for the questioning of social privilege. Through Eppie, Marner serves as a link between both upper class residents, the Cass family, and lower class residents, the Winthrop family. Ultimately, these social realms allow Eliot to pose a counterargument towards the rules of social privilege.
Issues relating to social privilege and social class are illuminated through several lenses; one way in which to consider these issues is in the way Eliot portrays tension between individual and community identities. These identities can be tied to the social or class privilege of the individual, or the lack thereof. Furthermore, conflict can arise when an individual believes or witnesses themselves to be of a different social class, or level of social privilege, to the community or communities of which they are a part. The character of Silas can be seen to experience this kind of tension as an individual in the community, as he is first a core member of the community of Raveloe then an individual alone. By the conclusion of the narrative, Silas has rejoined the Raveloe community and receives the social support that - in the nineteenth century - was provided to individuals largely by the village or town in which they lived. Since the time of Eliot's writing the novel, technological development and societal change have led to a situation in which geographically-local support and solidarity have been significantly undermined, and the rise of individualism. This is also clearly related to class and privilege, as those with privilege isolate themselves from the community. It can be seen that the community of Raveloe serves some functioning in stabilizing social class and an individual's place in the class hierarchy, to some degree. Displays of social class and hierarchy are demonstrated, for example, through the public events in Raveloe; dances provide one example of a public ritual through which social class and social privilege are understood, shown and perpetuated. Initially Silas is seen as an outsider in this community structure, which has a significantly insular social structure and identity. Notably, the character of Godfrey in Silas Marner is an insider in the village and has social privilege as the heir of a locally-important family. Silas is an outsider and is not trusted or esteemed in the way that Godfrey is within the village.
As a normalizing discourse, the novel frequently perpetuates class hierarchies in society; a parallel can be seen in the plot structure overall which works through the characters and their narratives in an at-times mechanical fashion. As a writer, Eliot takes care to give each character their due time and attention in the overall narrative, and this can be understood on one level to represent a reinforcement of social structures that anoint certain characters as "important". Eliot views the world and society as ordered on moral lines; however, it can be seen that the moral and the social cannot be entirely disconnected, and therefore Eliot's moral ordering of the narrative can be seen as a reinforcement of strict and binary social structures and hierarchy. Eliot believes in moralistic reward or punishment of an individual's actions and character by some greater power. This belief in, essentially, karma as a narrative and plot device can be understood variously as a way of undermining social class and privilege - as virtuous individuals will ascend socially and economically as a result of their good morals - or alternatively as reinforcement of a hierarchical social structure. Bonaparte (39) sees Silas Marner in some way as representing a secular translation of the "word of the Lord" - Eliot may be seen to be advocating replacing social-class based hierarchies and privilege with a moral code based upon a personalized religious belief and practice. Eliot's writing from the first novel imbued this idea of personal accountability and responsibility, and that bad actions would be met with bad ultimate outcomes and vice versa. Eliot's narrative essentially posits that behavior and experience is determined to a high degree by an individual's moral character; however, as moral character is fomented in the context of a particular family, community and society, social class and social structures undoubtedly affect the options, behaviors and opportunities open to any given individual.
Eliot's sense of moral order as a driving factor in character and plot development cannot be disconnected from factors relating to social class and privilege, nor from those relating to faith. Over the course of the narrative in Silas Marner, Silas loses his personal faith and then eventually regains it. This loss and rediscovery is mirrored - and connected to - Silas's rejection and then acceptance by the community in which he lives. Social structures and religious faith are inextricably linked in Eliot's Raveloe, as the church is the social center of the village in many ways. Social organizing is arranged around and often by the church, and those like Silas who lose their religious faith find themselves socially isolated as a result of the church's central role in social structures and hierarchy within the community. The religious life of the community portrayed in Silas Marner is remarkably simple and homogenous - there is only one type of faith through which individuals can access the social support and community offered by the village and its church. By demonstrating the isolation that occurs when the character of Silas deviates from this single socially-approved type of faith, Eliot can be read as a subtle critique of religious faith that is linked to an exclusive and limiting social community structure that does not allow for diversity or uncertainty on the part of the individual. Notably, the faith that Silas rediscovers is less explicitly Christian than the prior faith that he had lost. Silas's new faith is perhaps more humanistic and based on trusting other people in his community - in this way, it can be seen as linked to a humanistic social structure and way of relating to other people. Silas's new, more personal form of faith can be taken as representative of Eliot's own views as they relate to religion - this ideological break with a formal structure of Christianity and the move towards a personal form of faith in which the individual is responsible for their own moral code and actions can be understood as following the trajectory in Eliot's own life. In terms of social structure, privilege and class, the message taken away from this portrayal of changing forms of faith seems to be that individual character, actions and morals ought to trump any social standing or privilege that is achieved through birth and subsequent adherence to an inflexible, formalized Christianity. The lateral connections between individuals in a community are also significantly more important in the person-centric, individual and inherently more ambiguous form of faith that Silas ultimately finds. The "alternative" of such an individualized faith is not considered complementary to the existing system of privilege that is grounded in formalized Christianity.
The presentation of religious and personal faith is one way in which Eliot counters the rules of social privilege within social realms. Another way in which Eliot provides a counter in this area is in the portrayal of domestic, private scenes and settings. The roles of relationships and family in relation to domestic space are made clear in Eliot's portrayal of two specific domestic spheres - Silas's cottage home and the home of the Cass family. Both homes are shown as private alternatives to the more public life in the village community; the state of each home throughout the novel's narrative can be seen as a reflection of the emotional and social state of its inhabitant(s). The emblem of Silas's variously closed and open door reflects his isolation or engagement with the community, and also frames his relationships with Dunsey and then subsequently with Eppie who becomes part of Silas's family. Through the use of the homes as emblems of characters' states, Eliot can be seen to be reinforcing social structures and privilege as they relate to gender - the Cass home is portrayed as "wifeless" and unclean until Nancy enters and makes the home clean and inviting. When Silas and Eppie become a family, their home becomes more socially-open, inviting and appealing. Women are shown as bringing order, cleanliness and social connectivity to the domestic sphere, and this reinforces nineteenth-century social structures that placed a woman in the domestic sphere and assigned to her the majority of domestic tasks such as cooking, cleaning and caring for others in the family and the community.
The community of Raveloe is emblematic of the social-class structures of England in the early nineteenth century. Eliot portrays this strict structuring along class lines, and certain elements of this portrayal can be read as ways of countering the rules of social privilege within social realms. Social privilege and associated rules are deeply embedded in the society and community Eliot portrays in Raveloe: the forms of speech and address characters use towards one another reflect and reinforce a hierarchical social structure in which some individuals and families are considered superior or inferior to others; the activities and habits or behavioral patterns of individuals and groups are also shown to reflect and reinforce a hierarchical social structure; social privilege is made visible and spatial in terms of where individual characters sit during specific social events. For example, in the Raveloe church the higher members of society have specific seats in the front of the building, while the lowly villagers sit in the back. The gentry are looking forward without being able to see the commoners behind them, while the lower-class villagers are observing the gentry from behind. The implication is that the higher-class members of the church congregation are closer to God in their physical placement in the church; however, Eliot's outlining of a more personal spiritual or religious experience based on moral character means that there would be an equalizing of any such distance and it would no longer be based upon social class. Notably, in Silas Marner, Eliot does not depict resentment from the lower-class members of the community towards the land-owners of the higher classes. There is relatively little oppression from the higher classes towards the lower classes, and the villagers are aware that they are treated relatively well by their social superiors in this context. Without the context of the lower-class villagers, the privilege and social elevation of the gentry would have significantly less meaning - the villagers' presence in the church as a watching "audience" for the higher-class residence provides the setting and depth to that elevation in terms of class.
The social class differences and privileges depicted in Silas Marner are largely accurate to the history of nineteenth-century England. Eliot depicts the pre-industrial era in which relations between higher- and lower-class citizens in rural areas were relatively amiable and respectful. When Silas and Eppie travel to an industrial town they see a different kind of class hierarchy, in which factory workers are disrespected, interchangeable and dispensable to their bosses. Witnessing this world, the characters have a new appreciation for Raveloe and its relatively respectful, trade-based community in which there remains interconnectedness between the higher and lower social classes. Eppie is an emblem and an agent of such interconnectedness, as she traverses class boundaries in the context of Raveloe quite consistently, connecting social superiors to more lowly villagers including Silas. In the factory town, social class is more significantly and impermeably stratified, and lower-class individuals have relatively little chance of achieving higher social status through dehumanizing work. Silas's work as a weaver in the context of Raveloe is representative of the interconnectedness of that particular society - Silas helps to weave together the components of the community in vertical and horizontal planes, and this ability to join people together is increased when Silas opens his home and himself more fully to other people in the community. Silas talks extensively about the greater trust he discovers after living with Eppie, and this trust in other people can be seen as the antithesis of the strict and impermeable class boundaries that are in place in the industrialized town. However, it can also be argued that Eliot romanticizes the situation of the peasantry in nineteenth-century England, who by social structures and privilege were kept poor for life - the fact that Godfrey Cass ultimately owns Silas's home demonstrates that even the romanticized, happy peasant remains economically disenfranchised and largely unable to improve their material lot in life while the land-owning upper classes retain control and power in a society. Neill states that such romanticizing of the "happy peasant" means that Silas Marner as a character has been robbed of his intellectual power, in fact of his mind: "In Silas Marner, this higher capacity of the mind to unite thought and feeling has been lost. Such dissolution is manifest in the superstition of the Raveloe villagers, in Silas's catalepsy and analogous social withdrawal, and in Godfrey's excessive attention to his own needs and subsequent suffering.... Eliot identifies genuine sympathy as an expression of an advanced state in which truth is discernible through forms that demonstrate "piety towards the present and the visible" rather than in "the remote, the vague, and the unknown." Not only are the characters in Silas Marner incapable of such sympathy, but the narrator too finds herself so intellectually remote from her subjects that she cannot provide them with a future true to human potential in the way that other parts of the story are true to human suffering. Gwendolyn's reformation under the influence of the greater narratives she resists suggests that present and visible sympathy can be linked to national spiritual destiny, so making the prophetic projection into the unknown a journey into the known. Where there is dissolution rather than evolution of the organism, however, there is less to be seen and said. In Silas Marner, the narrator's access to the realities of the present and of the future is so reduced that she is effectively drawn back into the primitive world from which she seemed at first so removed. And there she wanders through the territory of the dark and the unknown, where she encounters only the shrinking of human nature and the cavities of the dissolving mind" (Neill 960).
This hierarchical social structure also has a geographical element - as Silas enters the narrative and the Raveloe community, he is at the lowest place in the social hierarchy. It is only through acceptance by and of the community that he can be trusted and gain a foothold on the social ladder in that particular place. The mistrust of outsiders is demonstrated by Eliot to exist in Raveloe as a community, and also in its church. Eliot counters this insular, untrusting mode of interacting with newcomers in several ways in the text, including her depiction and discussion of Silas's changing faith. It can be understood that Eliot counters social structures, class and privilege by enticing the community of Raveloe - and, by extension, the reader - to open up to new experiences, new people and new ideas. In the context of the Industrial Revolution that was approaching during the narrative of Silas Marner, English society was about to be opened up to significant new influence in terms of individuals' geographical mobility, industrialization of agriculture and manufacturing, and migration of people from far outside an individual community or village. Eliot further counters the existing system of social class and hierarchy through depicting Silas as a morally good character who is - on moral and behavior grounds - a "better" person than many of those who are situated above him in the social pecking-order of Raveloe. Eliot counters the idea of social structures that are unchangeable and insular, with the idea that an individual's behaviors, beliefs, relationships with other people and moral character should count for more in their social standing than simply the family, status and economic situation into which they are born.
Eliot further counters prevailing social structures and privilege through the literary device of the omniscient narrator. Social structures, class and privilege are commonly communicated to the outside world through the speech, behaviors and actions of individuals, and so they are judged and perpetuated based on these exterior appearances and performances. Eliot's use of the omniscient narrator gives the reader access to the characters' thoughts. Their interior life may not match up to the exterior projections of behavior, speech and action, so that interior life and voice demonstrates ways the character may be at odds with the visible life that perpetuates the social structure, hierarchy and privilege system witnessed in the novel. Access to the interior voice via the omniscient narration can be seen as a way of countering or undercutting the hierarchical structures associated with social class and privilege seen in Silas Marner specifically, and in historical English society more generally.
In terms of displacement, the Lantern Yard can be seen as an existing system of superstition-based privilege, that is displaced metaphorically by a less-superstitious, more humanistic form of belief that - at least potentially -- breaks down certain structural hierarchies. The Lantern Yard is a faith community with a narrowly-defined and maintained religion. This is the community in which Silas is raised, and when he is excommunicated from the Lantern Yard he is unable to find a similar sense of community and belonging initially in Raveloe. After significant time has passed and Silas returns to the Lantern Yard, the area no longer exists in physical form or in memory. Where the Lantern Yard chapel had been, there is now a large factory. This is a clear symbol of the coming of industrial modernity and its displacement of superstition and closed communities with technological advancement and a greater degree of openness in thought. This can be understood as a displacement of traditional social structures and the privilege associated with being in a closed, limited social group.
The presence and character narrative of Eppie allows for an interrogation of existing structures of social class and social privilege. Eppie connects the families and homes at opposite ends of the social spectrum in the village of Raveloe - Silas's lowly cottage and the Red House manor in which the Cass family live and host social events such as dances. Silas, through his connection to Eppie, links the upper-class Cass family and the lower-class residents of Raveloe, including the Winthrop family. Eppie is the granddaughter of the Squire, although unacknowledged by her father Godfrey. Eppie as a character can be understood as being essentially Eliot's argument against the prevailing rules of social privilege and class. The people of Raveloe are aware of Silas's status as the lowliest member of the community, and his messy uncared-for cottage is an emblem of his initial social status in Raveloe. By contrast, the Red house is peopled by visiting gentry and represents the opposite end of the social spectrum. According to a strict hierarchy of social class and social privilege, there would be firm barriers between these two houses and families. However, Eliot writes in such a way that makes it clear these homes and individuals are inexorably connected, and the boundaries between their homes are permeable and can be crossed. The character of Eppie continually crosses the boundaries and borders between The Cass family and Silas. Eppie contains a dichotomy of heritage from a high social class with living conditions among Raveloe's lowest social class.
Other interactions occur between the Cass and Marner homes and families. The first incursion into Silas's private domestic living space is by Duncan Cass, who is looking for money. By the end of the novel, ownership of Marner's cottage has passed to Godfrey Cass despite the latter being in Silas's debt. This is another way in which class structures and boundaries are demonstrated by Eliot to be both permeable and impermanent. The ultimate debt of Godfrey Cass to Silas is not only monetary, as Silas has raised Godfrey's daughter Eppie as his own.
Eliot makes it clear that higher social class and the ownership of land or money do not necessarily lead to personal and spiritual happiness and satisfaction. Particularly as Eliot defines a moral code based on the individual, resulting in a sort of karma relating to reward or punishment for behavior and character, the fact that the most corrupt characters in the novel are those of higher social class can be seen as Eliot's undermining of hierarchical social structures based on privilege. Instead, Eliot seems to propose a system of reward and retribution based on characters' moral values instead of their social status and social appearance to others. Dunstan and Godfrey are shown to be corrupt and unhappy; Silas is portrayed as overly money-focused before Eppie enters his life. Godfrey, in particular, suffers greatly with unhappiness that is caused at least in part by his own corruption, his dishonesty regarding Eppie, and social class rules. Godfrey marries Nancy, a woman from a lower social class, and they fail to have children. Godfrey is ultimately envious of the relationship between Silas and Eppie, feeling that he missed out on this opportunity to form a genuine human bond with his own daughter. Silas and Eppie do become quite genuinely happy towards the end of the novel, and this contrasts sharply with Godfrey's unhappiness. Eliot seems to propose that happiness and human interconnection would be the logical replacement - as a value system - for the existing and demonstrated system of social class and privilege seen in Silas Marner.
Commentary on social class and privilege can be problematic when discussing nineteenth-century novels. David (17-18) notes that the writer's and reader's commentary on the Victorian novel commonly came "from a dominant social position" (David 17) and therefore Eliot can be seen as writing about the lower classes from a privileged position - she cannot necessarily speak for a class that was quite systematically disenfranchised and kept largely illiterate (David 19). However, the novel as a form was viewed as a "particularly influential form of communication" (David 18) and it could be read and responded to in a private way that did not involve public - and therefore potentially dangerous - discussion and discourse regarding social class and privilege.
In discussion, there are multiple related philosophies and criticisms that could commonly be applied to issues of social class and privilege in Silas Marner and elsewhere; however, some of these should be disregarded or refuted in a new critical discussion. Marcuse, for example, claimed that literature creates an alternative to the harsh realities of social inequality, but that it winds up serving as a coping mechanism rather than an impetus to change. Eliot's romanticized depiction of happy lower-class villagers in Raveloe could be seen as supporting Marcuse's ideas that middle-and-working-class people know what is really important in life. Marcuse therefore sees a kind of moral superiority in being from the lower social classes, which obviates the need to work towards social change. However, in refuting Marcuse it is necessary to note that Eliot does not follow this script truly. Eliot's moral reckoning of the characters in Silas Marner is grounded at least in part on their potential and capability to enact change in themselves and in the community. Silas's own improved status and happiness comes not simply from membership in the lower to middle-class of Raveloe's society, but more from his ability to open up to the community, to trust people and to form lasting and meaningful human connections with other characters - notably, Eppie. Likewise, the literary philosophy of Foucault can be challenged as his theory of the novel containing critical energies is similar to that of Marcuse. Foucault considers the novel to contain "explicit relations that are posed and spoken in discourse itself" (Foucault 32) and in the case of Silas Marner it should be argued that rather the novel is not intended to function as a piece of theoretical discourse, but rather as a more open-ended exploration and portrayal of social structures, privilege and hierarchy, and ways in which these may be countered, displaced or replaced with alternatives.
In conclusion, it can be seen that Eliot counters the rules of social privilege within social realms in multiple ways. One major way in which this is countered is through the representation of faith in the novel. The strict and formalized structures of Christianity are questions, and countered with the kind of faith Silas regains - one which is based upon personal responsibility and moral character or a moral code governing behavior. This alternative displaces the existing system of privilege by suggesting that the status and situation in which an individual finds themselves should be the result of their action and behaviors rather than simply their having been born into the gentry class. Eliot's more corrupt and less sympathetic characters - Godfrey, for example - belong to the higher social classes but are not depicted as moral people who would be rewarded by the higher power outlined by Eliot. This alternative is not considered a complement to the existing system of privilege in that it - at least in theory - opens up the possibility for social mobility between classes of birth, based on behavior, moral character and the way in which the individual approaches not only economic work, but also their interconnected relationships with other humans in the community. Through Eppie, Marner serves as a link between both upper class residents, demonstrating how arbitrary and ultimately ridiculous such harsh and strict boundaries between social classes and levels of privilege really were.
Works Cited
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