George Eliot wrote Silas Marner in 1861. It is probable that she was influenced by William Wordsworth who was one of the "Romantic Poets" who wrote at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The Romantic poets put strong emphasis on the natural world and celebrated beauty and simplicity. It is for this reason that the child was a common theme in their poems. One of Wordsworth's major ideas, radical at the time, was that human beings move at the moment of birth from a perfect idealized "other world" to this imperfect world, characterized by injustice and corruption. Children, being closer to that other world can remember its beauty and purity, seeing its traces in the natural world around them. As they grow up they lose that connection and forget the knowledge they had as children. Eliot was quoted as believing that children and the memories of childhood they evoke in adults can still bring us close to that early idyllic state. In Silas Marner we can see that Eliot uses these ideas in her presentation of the children in the story and most particularly in her presentation of Eppie. .
Eppie is the first child we see in Silas Marner. Throughout the book she is associated with light, gold, innocence, nature, angels, beauty and purity. Eppie, through her connection to nature and the "other world" brings Silas out of isolation and spiritual despair, saves his soul and brings him back to the church and the community. .
Eppie is the illegitimate daughter of Molly and Godfrey. When we first meet her she is with her mother who is an opium addict and we see that she is the only thing that can save her mother from total reliance on the "demon" opium. When Molly gives in to the opium, the "dear burden" she once talked about had become too heavy. She dies in the snow outside Silas Marner's house. Eppie's childish curiosity saves her, she is drawn into Silas" house by the light coming from the open door and it is this light, the fire, that keeps her alive.
