Silas Marner as flawed. But Avaricious?

Raphael mentioned in lit lecture the other day... that...

Silas Marner is not necessarily all good and no evil, depending on how skewed one's definition of evil is. Going on to cite the Christian definition of evil, he then raised the question of Marner's evil lying in his avarice.

His excessive love for his gold is a) disturbing b) abnormal c) neurotic

d) avaricious?

I'm wont to disagree, without offense to Raphael, because I see a slight kink in the way avarice is seen here.

Avarice is the "desire to have a lot of money that is considered to be too strong" (Longman), and I believe the deadly sin associated with this is more greed than avarice (avarice is a tad too specific). Don't get me wrong, this isn't being anal with definitions... Marner would be considered avaricious or greedy if the love for his money (I stress his) is of its material and monetary value. I believe, however, that Silas' love of his money (in its many symbolic roles throughout the novel) has a very different tinge compared to your usual victim of hyper-acquisitiveness.

Marner and Money

1. Marner's acquisition of money, in the novel, is never described as obsessive or compulsive. He works NOT for the money but, as I read it, to wile the time away. And the pile of gold, to him, is indicative of how time passes him by as it grows in size.

"Gradually the gunieas, the crowns, and the half-crowns, grew to a heap and Marner drew less and less for his own wants... do we not wile away moments of inanity or fatigued waiting by repeating some trivial movement or sound... That will help us to understand how the love of accumulating money grows an absorbing passion in men.... (that shows) them no purpose beyond it..."

The last line or so complicates things... Marner is avaricious for collecting money? Hardly. Avarice should be more than just the futile collection of money, it has to encompass the value of the money in question, otherwise an inane collection of bottle caps or other trivialities could be regarded, by a loose definition, to be quasi-avaricious.

2. Money, to Silas (or Silas' money) has no real (ie intrinsic or monetary) value. His consumption patterns are static (aside from his earthenware pot, he "granted himself" very few other "conveniences"). What, then, does he use his hoard for? Apart from subsistence, he has no use for the surplus (contrast this to his use of money after his metamorphosis).

3. Marner's money is the reservoir of his remaining emotions. More a need to feel affectionate for something, here inanimate, (observe his overly-sentimental attachment to an earthenware pot) in place of his lost faith in humanity and God. His money becomes his life because he needs to feel emotion towards something.

Therefore?

Marner's money is not real money in that skewed sense. His hoarding of money is not for the sake of being rich, not for spending power, not for prestige (as an avaricious person would tend to be), but for very emotional, psychological purposes. To wile time away and to fill the void that his disregard for humanity ("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").

Observe how easily Eppie replaces Marner's money (Marner himself makes reference to how Eppie is, to him, a replacement for comfort he once found in the money. Upon her arrival, he no longer frets over his money returning to him and does not feel the pang of its loss. When his gold is found at the end of the novel, he finds it has "lost its hold" over him.

Marner's real sin, in the Christian sense, should actually be some form of idolatry and abject cynicism- a deliberate shunning of the Lord and the disregard of a life steeped in religion, not avarice or greed. The latter two are sins too strong for and, as I read it, above the likes of Silas Marner and the rest of Raveloe's non-gentry townsfolk. Then again, looking at the sins I've just accused Silas of, we question whether he's really at fault here, because his becoming a Jonah figure- hiding from the Lord, the "Power he had vainly trusted" being "very far away from this land in which he had taken refuge", is inflicted by something wildly beyond his control. Evil in the Christian sense? Everyone is evil in the Christian sense.

Just my 2 cents' worth.