The novel starts of with the story Silas Marner, of how he arrives in the village of Raveloe. This is followed by a description of Lantern Yard, where Silas lived previously, and was expelled, accused of theft. This is quite ironical, as robbed later on in the story, which also happens to be the point where the stories start interweaving. Further, Eliot begins to introduce the villagers of Raveloe, their relationship and their problems. After that, the Cass family is introduced, Each character separately, one by one, Starting with Squire Cass and ending with Godfrey Cass, but the character we are probably most interested about in this theme, is probably Dunsey Cass.

After further examination, a more knowledge of the book, what had earlier seemed to be irrelevant, and totally disconnected stories, in chapter 4, we begin to see how exactly does Eliot try to bind the stories together...