乔治•艾略特的小说一直被认为是现实主义作品的代表，她的早期小说《织工马南》同样也不例外。艾略特集中创作于十九世纪中期，是现实主义高度发展的时期。当她同其他现实主义作家一样宣称忠诚地致力于再现事实的时候，她的作品却有意无意地流露出了浪漫主义色彩。《织工马南》这部现实主义小说就再现了乔治•艾略特向往自然的浪漫主义情怀。具体表现为：她认为现实社会的宗教信仰和机械化的生产活动造成了人性缺失；而与大自然保持着密切联系并具备独特精神价值的乡村才是适合人类居住的理想社会。同时，她坚信人性缺失的成年人只有在自然之子——孩童的教导下才能重拾人性本真。她以十九世纪早期传统宗教势力仍然强大、工业革命正在兴起的英国社会作为男主人公塞拉斯•马南生存的背景，讲述了他因在宗教盛行、工业起步的家乡遭受精神创伤，从而逃离到一个世外桃源般的乡村，最终在一个孩子的影响下在这里获得精神救赎的故事。小说中令男主人公遭受精神迫害的故乡灯笼镇象征了令人不满的同时期英国社会。一方面,虚伪的宗教使得众信徒的人性与自身相分离，他们不仅失去了爱和同情心，也失去了自由意志；另一方面，机械的纺织劳动造成了马南的异化，不仅使他与劳动活动之间产生对抗，也使他与自身本性以及他人之间产生疏离。与之形成鲜明对比，给马南带来救赎的乡村拉维罗则是人类的理想家园。这里保持着天然的自然风光，生活悠然，民风淳朴。拉维罗不仅表面上天人合一，更具备了深层次的精神价值——精神的统一性和对个人差异的包容性——拉维罗似乎是一个适宜人类居住的社会。需要注意的是，对于乡村社会拉维罗的这种理想化再现并非说明乔治•艾略特对社会进步持有消极态度。实际上作者也着意刻画了拉维罗的阴暗面，她用 封建贵族家庭的衰落暗示了传统社会行将消逝的必然命运。综合拉维罗社会的明暗两方面，我们推测乔治•艾略特虽然对自然状态下的乡村社会充满怀恋，但却无意逆历史潮流回到过去；她或许只是希望未来社会的发展能够以其为鉴，继承其有益于人性发展的特质。最后，给马南带来救赎的养女爱贝被作者有意刻画成为一个自然之子：她不仅与大自然保持着神秘的联系，同时也保持着自然纯真的人性。在自然之子的影响下，马南重拾了失落已久的爱的能力和对万事万物的感知，并最终获得精神救赎。

The novels of George Eliot are generally labeled as realistic, Silas Marner being one of them. Most of George Eliot’s works were written and published during the mid-nineteenth century, a period roughly belonging to the age of realism. Yet although George Eliot overtly avowed commitment to the realistic art, her works have demonstrated strokes of Romanticism. In Silas Marner, we can identify George Eliot’s Romantic longing for nature, which is embodied as such: she finds that the contemporary society goes against human nature and the community in the countryside, with its natural environment and special spiritual values, is truly congenial to the human well-being; meanwhile, she believes that the corrupt adult can recover the lost human nature under the instructions of the innocent child. The story is set in the early nineteenth-century England when religious influence was still strong and industrialization was just on the rise. The novel gives an account of the protagonist Silas Marner’s journey of escaping his hometown where he receives spiritual injuries and then settling down in a rural community which stands on the brink of industrialization and where he gains spiritual redemption under the influence of a child. Silas’s hometown Lantern Yard is symbolic of the contemporary English society at which George Eliot held criticism. On the one hand, the false religion has caused the separation of humanity from the religious believers, depriving them of love, sympathy, as well as free wills; on the other hand, the mechanical work of weaving has alienated Silas Marner from his labouring activity, his own nature and the other human fellows. In contrast to Lantern Yard, the rural community Raveloe is set up as a model of the ideal society. Typical of a romantic idyll, Raveloe is noted for its natural landscape, easy life and simple country folks; besides, George Eliot also imbued the community with significant spiritual qualities, namely the spiritual homogeneity and the tolerance for individual difference both of which make the community more conducive to human happiness. To be noted, rather than merely idealizing the countryside, Eliot also exposed the dark side of the Raveloe community. The seemingly contradictory efforts suggest that although George Eliot was nostalgic about the bygone community, she by no means recommended restoring the past; instead, she may only hope that the healthy development of the society in the future could draw on the human-friendly qualities of the rural community in the past. In Raveloe, the person who plays the most important role in redeeming Silas Marner is his adopted daughter Eppie. The child Eppie is delineated as a child of nature, for she not only maintains a mysterious bond with the natural world, but also retains the most innocent human nature. Under the instruction of Eppie, Silas Marner gradually retrieves his innate capacities for affection and perception which have got lost in the worldly experience, and finally realizes spiritual salvation.