With reference to the novel Silas Marner, demonstrate how George Elliot conveys her opinions on the changing face of rural England in the early 1900s.
George Elliot, from the novel's outset places a marked accentuation on the growing "unnatural" progression of machine and its evolvement from the standardized archetype of the rural setting. Known as industrialization this movement involved the eradication of many features of life which Elliot considered to be of consequence in an era soon to be over, or at least conspicuously changed.
Being born in the 1800s would have enabled Elliot to have experienced two largely dissimilar aspects of the unsteady face that presided over communities like the fictional Ravloe. The old ways of rural England, it seemed were rapidly giving way to decadence whilst the rise of identity-defacing machinery to cultivate the smaller regions distanced them from the image of the flourishing communal societies they once were.
Elliot is adamant in outlining the fact that England is changing. Her novel is directed toward this point of focus and the opening characters, which encircle her personal contention with industrialization, help to build on this.
Principally Elliot uses the fictitious Ravloe, Lantern Yard and later North"ard to render her feelings. It becomes apparent as Elliot is able to stress more emphatically her discontent through the novel's pages, that her conception of Silas Marner was directly linked to the obliteration of rural settings and the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.
Ravloe, as is delineated by Elliot in the opening stages is close-knit - an initially serene and "important-looking village", where, "many of the old echoes lingered, undrowned by new voices". This is a defining sentence when you consider its context; it serves to highlight succinctly the situation in Ravloe, where "echoes" is used to represent the sameness of generations; each one is dedicated to the preservation of this community and it is something that each one strives to uphold.
