Silas Lapham is the ambitious businessman whose rise and fall provides the novel with its narrative structure. Silas is from a relatively modest background. He grew up on a farm and travelled around the country before he figured out his path in life. Since his birth, Silas was imbued with a driving ambition to achieve something in life. This innate quality was buried deep within him and needed to be unearthed. The paint mine found on his family’s farm symbolizes this hidden ambition. The paint was uncovered by an act of God, but Silas’s father did not have the time or resources needed to make the paint into a profitable business venture. The paint, like Silas’s ambition, was always present in the family, but fate and circumstance needed to align for Silas to turn this potential into a fortune. Silas’s ambition causes him to transform his life. Allied to the modest, intelligent schoolteacher Persis, Silas seizes on his opportunity. He is ruthless in his pursuit of riches, painting many natural landmarks to advertise his business, defying the expectations of the wealthy and refusing to remain poor, and even betraying Rogers, his one-time business partner.