Raveloe

Raveloe is a fictional rural village created by George Eliot as the setting for her 1861 novel Silas Marner. Located in an unnamed English county, Raveloe is depicted as a small, self-contained parish in the Midlands, characterized by thatched cottages, a parish church, a central green, and a social center known as the Rainbow Inn. The economy rests on farming, cottage industries, and crafts; villagers rely on kinship networks and gossip to regulate social life.

In the novel, Raveloe becomes the home of Silas Marner, a linen weaver who is wrongly accused of theft and expelled from Lantern Yard. He settles in Raveloe, living a solitary life and hoarding his earnings until they are stolen, leaving him desolate until a baby girl, later named Eppie, is left on his doorstep. The arrival of Eppie catalyzes changes in Raveloe as the community's attitudes shift; trust, charity, and moral responsibility are central themes. The village is thus both a microcosm of rural England and a testing ground for Eliot’s ideas about faith, community, and providence.

Raveloe has been analyzed as a literary construct rather than a real place, used to explore social norms, class dynamics, and the possibility of personal transformation within a tight-knit parish. The village appears in adaptations and is referenced in discussions of Eliot’s realism and social critique.