The Profession of Silas Marner: Weaver or Nothing Anonymous 10th Grade

Whether it be a businessman or a chef, writer or teacher, one’s profession often reveals insight into a person and immediately creates a stereotype for an individual. While some jobs hold prestigious standing in societal stereotypes, others may wrongly detract from someone’s image on a basis in no way connected to the real person. In George Eliot’s novel Silas Marner, the namesake character holds the profession of weaver, which holds a sort of mystery to others. The ideas of what a weaver is like and how weaving is intermixed throughout literature and one’s own life story are prevalent themes throughout the novel. Thus, the importance of Eliot’s choosing Silas to be a weaver instead of another profession reveals complex, hidden undertones. While much of Silas Marner’s life is mystery to the residents of Raveloe, he remains a common topic of discussion and lore due to his line of work as a weaver.

The life of a weaver, full of travel and isolation, was often accompanied by lore created by the people of the town said weaver was currently residing in. Such a reaction is detailed in describing that “the shepherd dog barked fiercely when one of these alien-looking men appeared…the shepherd himself, though he had good reason to...