Silas Marner, or the Opiate Novel : Linguistic Art as Pharmakon in Modern Capitalist Society

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  • アヘンのような小説、『サイラス・マーナー』 : 近代資本主義社会におけるパルマコンとしての言語芸術
  • アヘン ノ ヨウナ ショウセツ 、 『 サイラス ・ マーナー 』 : キンダイ シホン シュギ シャカイ ニ オケル パルマコン ト シテ ノ ゲンゴ ゲイジュツ
  • アヘン ノ ヨウナ ショウセツ、『サイラス・マーナ―』 : キンダイ シホン シュギ ニオケル パルコマン トシテノ ゲンゴ ゲイジュツ

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In George Eliot’s fairytale-like novel Silas Marner (1861), a baby with golden curly hair suddenly appears before Marner, a miser, when he gets depressed because his gold coins, which he has been saving for years, are stolen. Taking charge of the orphan, naming her Eppie after his mother, and living with her as her father, he finally awakens to the value of love, which money cannot buy. At first glance, it seems that in this novel, Eliot merely criticizes capitalism and asserts the superiority of love over monetary value. It should be noted, however, that one of the causes of death of Eppie’s biological mother, a working-class woman addicted to opium, is the neglect by her husband, a landowning-class man, who is Eppie’s biological father; and that in the ending of the story, he, with his vast wealth, financially supports Marner and Eppie. What this narrative development implies is that the happy ending, where love links with capital, is based on the exploitation of the working-class mother. In Silas Marner, Eliot shows that love, which literary genres often portray as supremely valuable, is in fact inseparable from the violence of exploitation and therefore ambivalent. In other words, love is like opium, a pharmakon, which is both a remedy and a poison.

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