Mill on the FlossBy George Eliot1860

Author’s Biography Born Mary Ann Evans - 22 November 1819 English novelist, journalist, translator and

one of the leading writers of the Victorian era Her novels are well-known for realism and

psychological perceptions. She used a male pen name – George Eliot –

to ensure her works being taken seriously and also to shield her private life from public scrutiny.

Author’s Biography (con.) Well-known for his five famous novels:

Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), Middlemarch (1871–72), Daniel Deronda (1876),

Her 1872 work Middlemarch has been described by Martin Amis and Julian Barnes as the greatest novel in the English language.

She died at 22 December 1880.

Plot Summary Tom and Maggie are children to Mr and Mrs

Tulliver. Mr Tulliver owns the Dorlcote Mill by which he makes a living. He is mostly attached to his daughter Maggie while his wife and her sisters prefer the boy Tom. Tom is sent to Rev. Stelling for education and while he is there, he visits Philip Wakem, the son of a lawyer who takes Dorlcote Mill from Mr Tulliver and becomes his enemy. Tom avoids making relations to Philip, but Maggie and Philip develop a liking to each other, which lasts to the end.

Plot Summary (con.)When Mr Tulliver has become bankrupt and bedridden, Tom tries to earn a living and gather enough money to pay his father’s debts. Meanwhile, Maggie and Philip always visit each other secretly. Tom then notices and does not allow Maggie to ever talk to Philip again. Mr Tulliver, whose debts are paid, wants to take revenge by whipping Wakem. He is so excited that again falls in bed and this time dies. Maggie, who until now had to do housework, sewing and reading, goes to visit his cousin, Lucy.

Plot Summary (con.)At Lucy’s, she visits Stephen, Lucy’s love. Gradually Stephen and Maggie fall in love with each other. Philip, who is a friend of Stephen, notices this but does not say anything. In an attempt, while Stephen and Maggie are alone in a boat, Stephen wants Maggie to elope with him. Maggie refuses by reasoning that if they do so, they will betray their friends, Lucy and Philip. Therefore, Maggie comes back to the town. The townspeople learn about the elopement and blame Maggie, and Tom does not allow her to come to their house because he thinks she has dishonoured the family name. the story ends when a flood has occurred and Maggie tries to save Tom, but both of them die together.

Characterization The List of the main characters:

Maggie Tulliver Tom Tulliver Mr Tulliver Mrs Tulliver The Dodson Sisters

Mrs Glegg, Mrs Pullet and Mrs Dean Lawyer Wakem Philip Wakem Stephen Guest Bob Jakin Lucy Dean

Characterization (con.) Maggie Tulliver: she is the main character (protagonist) of the

novel. She is emotional and sensitive, Like when Tom reproaches her, she “she crept behind the tub; but

presently she began to cry again at the idea that they didn't mind her being there (38).”

Intelligent and attracted to books, and proud of this knowledge, “’But I shall be a clever woman,’ said Maggie, with a toss (154).”

She has a great concern for others and their feelings, “…but I see one thing quite clearly,–that I must not, cannot, seek my

own happiness by sacrificing others (476).” On the whole, we should think of Maggie as a stock Character

because despite miner changes in her character and temporary alterations, she does not change in these qualities mentioned above.

Characterization (con.) Tom Tulliver: Maggie’s brother. He is rather harsh toward

Maggie. And strict that justice be done to anyone, “But Tom, you perceive, was rather a Rhadamanthine personage,

having more than the usual share of boy's justice in him,–the justice that desires to hurt culprits as much as they deserve to be hurt, and is troubled with no doubts concerning the exact amount of their deserts (55).”

He is highly responsible but with his own conduct. And he feels that everything he does is just and true. And that is why he does not feel any remorse for what he does to Maggie.

Again, Tom is a stock character even though during his maturation he goes through some slight changes, he is still the same Tom.

Characterization (con.) Lucy Dean: Maggie and Tom’s cousin. She

is admirable for her beauty and docility, “there's Lucy Deane's such a good child,–you

may set her on a stool, and there she'll sit for an hour together,… (45)”

In youth, she and Maggie have a good friendship together and often understand each other,

“’I know, dear," said Lucy. "I know you never meant to make me unhappy… (540)”

Characterization (con.) Philip Wakem: Tom’s classmate, Stephen’s friend, and

Maggie’s first lover. He suffers from a deformity in his body; however, he is a talented man in art, and also well-behaved. In understanding other people’s conduct and behaviour and the reason for them, he is better than other characters. When nobody is not aware of Maggie and Stephen’s making out, he know,

“It was impossible for him now to resist the conviction that there was some mutual consciousness between Stephen and Maggie (489);”

and when nobody believes in Maggie’s trueness, he does, "Maggie,–I believe in you; I know you never meant to deceive

me; I know you tried to keep faith to me and to all (531).”

Characterization (con.) Stephen Guest: Lucy’s lover who later

falls in love with Maggie. He is so passionate and is unable to think rationally when he is in love.

Themes Love: there is an intimate connection between love

and suffering. Love means to choose, and it is in deciding what to choose that lovers always suffer.

Sympathy: people who live together should understand each other and not be harsh and strict. (we see examples of it in Mr Tulliver’s sympathy to his sister vs. Dodson sister’s antipathy to their sister, Mrs Tulliver.

The effect of Society on individuals: throughout the story, it is the society that somehow defeats the individual. Mr Tulliver goes to law and is defeated. Maggie is proven to be true, but the society or “the world’s wife” accuses her of falsehood.

Historical Context Schooling

Schools run by the state did not exist in England until 1870. Before that time, parents could send their children to any of four different types of school: private, endowed, church, and ragged. Anyone could open a private school, and no particular qualifications were required, so these schools varied greatly depending on the skill of the teachers. In The Mill on the Floss, the Reverend Stelling's school is a private arrangement, and as Eliot shows, Stelling is obviously not a very gifted teacher. Endowed schools were provided money by wealthy people, often as charity ventures and usually had more supervision of teachers. The Church of England, as well as other religious groups, also ran schools. Ragged schools were established by the Ragged School Union, founded in 1844, to educate the poor.

Historical Context (con.) Darwinism

Darwin’s theories in 19th century had a great influence on intellectuals. Some basic principles of his theory are: the physical world had been and still was subject to continuous

change through the action of natural forces, and man is the product of these forces.

His doctrine of “survival of the fittest” (a term later coined by Darwin’s contemporary, Herbert Spencer) treats the world as an incessant struggle for survival.

These theories can be traced in the Mill on the Floss through the animal metaphors, the language of natural selection and the overall portrayal of Maggie as a “mistake of nature” who is not fit to survive in the environment of St Ogg’s.

Historical Context (con.) Isaac Evans (Eliot’s brother)

More than mere melodrama, the watery hug represented a wishful reworking of Eliot's fractured relationship with her own adored brother, with whom she had grown up on the Warwickshire family farm in the 1820s. Ever since she had written to Isaac Evans three years before to explain that she was now cohabiting in London with the married Lewes – "Mrs Lewes" was a term of social convenience, her legal name remained Mary Ann Evans – the rigidly respectable Isaac had refused to have anything to do with her. Even more hurtfully, he had instructed their sister to break off contact too. This silence was to stretch bleakly over the coming quarter of a century. The brother and sister who, like Tom and Maggie, had once "roamed the daisied fields together" in loving childhood, would never meet again.

Style Point of View

George Eliot uses an omniscient third person narrative. During the novel, she constantly makes comments on a variety of things, on characters and their behaviours, and sometimes events. By this, the reader will understand characters and sympathise more with them.

Sometimes, the narrator and the character are united and what the character says is what the narrator believes. Example of it is in Maggie’s speech about faithfulness when she is alone with Stephen (504).

Style (con.) Realism:

Eliot has focused on Average people instead of elite ones. She tries to show realistic aspects of her characters by which she has given an account of her own culture. Realist writers also gave philosophical and ethical dimensions to their works, which we see in this novel.

Bildungsroman This movement concentrates on the development and

education of a central character: Eliot’s novel focuses on Maggie from childhood to adulthood

It involves external and internal conflicts of the central character: Maggie’s struggle with her relatives is hand in hand with her internal struggle about love and faithfulness.

Style (con.) Symbols:

Floss: this turbulent river with the potential of flood represents Maggie herself with her unduly and violent emotions and her stormy life.

Maggie’s eyes: they are the first things that everybody notices in Maggie. They represent her loveliness and her power

Style (con.) Motifs:

Music: it is an important motif. Throughout the novel, music plays an important role in Maggie’s life. She is irresistible to it. Music makes her “strong for all enjoyment, weak for all resistance (439).”

Style (con.) Imagery:

Mill on the Floss is full of description of the setting which provides a rather rich imagery. The main imagery however is animal imagery.

“Maggie and Tom were still very much like young animals (40)”

“They scampered out among the budding bushes of the garden with the alacrity of small animals getting from under a burning glass (72).

“…Bob, who was looking at her with the pursuant gaze of an intelligent dumb animal …(253),”

Style (con.) Foreshadowing

Eliot’s constant reference to Floss river seems to be a foreshadowing for the ending. “A wide plain, where the broadening Floss hurries on

between its green banks to the sea, and the loving tide, rushing to meet it, checks its passage with an impetuous embrace (4).”

“"Perhaps not," said Maggie, simply; "but then, you know, the first thing I ever remember in my life is standing with Tom by the side of the Floss, while he held my hand; everything before that is dark to me (322).”

Criticism “As it seems to us, the defect of the Mill on the Floss is

that there is too much that is painful in it. And the authoress is so far led away by her reflections on moral problems and her interest in the phases of triumphant passion, that she sacrifices her story.” Unsigned, “The Mill on the Floss,” Saturday Review, vol. 9, April 14, 1860

“The riddle of life as it is here expounded is more like a Greek tragedy than a modern novel. In form we have the modern novel, with its every-day incidents and its humorous descriptions, but in spirit we have the Greek play, with its mysterious allusions and its serious import.” —E.S. Dallas, “The Mill on the Floss,” The Times, May 19, 1860, p. 10

Criticism (con.) “Many critics, even those as discerning as

Henry James, have criticized her narrative voice as overly intrusive and sententious. But their criticism seems entirely wrongheaded. Eliot’s voice, in its assumption of a wiser, juster, more all-encompassing perspective, is the ligament of her novels. It elevates them from ingenious storytelling to divine comedy.” Paula Marantz Cohen, Why Read George Eliot?

Resources Primary source:

Eliot, George. The Mill on the Floss. 1860. feedbooks.com

Secondary sources: Bloom, Harold (Editor). Bloom’s Classic Critical Views:

George Eliot. Bloom’s Literary Criticism. 2009 New York Henry, Nancy (Editor). The Cambridge Introduction to

George Eliot. 2008. CUP. New York Holland, William. George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss

(Cliffs Notes). 1966. Hungry Minds Inc. New York Online recourses: Sparksnotes. com