The Fall of Silas Lapham

I think it's interesting that the novel is not called The Rise and Fall of Silas Lapham but rather The Rise of Silas Lapham. In this manner, Howells valorizes the moral rise of Lapham (and that of his family) over the monetary and social downfall they experience.

Before his fall, Silas believes his money makes him superior to the Coreys, and that this can give him access to high-society. His house, the dinner party, these are all signs of his own blindness into thinking he can fit in...even though we as readers are aware of the opposite.

Towards the end of the book, however, Silas realizes that without his money he would be no-one in the social world (in Contrast to the Coreys, who have less money than Lapham but have social status because they were born into the "upper crust" and understand its workings and values).

But it's when Silas and his family move back to their "land of origin" that we see how much less superfluous and superficial the Laphams are once they go back to their roots (and quite literally). The Lapham family even seems much happier and ceases to be consumed by the worrying of belonging or fitting in a specific group. As I said in my last post, Silas regains his title of "colonel" (or at least the narrator states that the title is now more fitting), which shows that only then, when he regains the ranks of the working class he is most at ease and in his place.

But interestingly, the Laphams do not seem bitter or even regretful of their monetary downfall, instead, Silas morally rises and, in some way, "redeems" himself: he doesn't trample on others to regain his material possessions and instead accepts the situation and moves on. Furthermore, we learn that Silas has been supporting the daughter of a man who took a bullet for him during the war which also augments our own view of him as a responsible and moral man.