Eliot’s Art of Characterization

George Eliot was one of the greatest novelists in the history of literature.
Her real name was Mary Ann Evans. One of the distinctive features of
Eliot’s writing was her art of characterization. David Cecil said about her
art of characterization: “It is the treatment of character that George
Eliot’s more active intellect gives her the most conspicuous advantage
over the typical Victorians” Generally her characters are real and life like.
She makes her characters real through their psychological portrayals.
“Her portraits are primarily portraits of the inner man” (David Cecil)
Another aspect is that her character are usually dynamic they are not
static. Her characters grow during the course of novel. Characterization
in “The Mill on the Floss” George Eliot in her novel The mill on the floss
has presented a lot of characters. All of her characters are complex in
terms of the traits the novelist has given to them. Eliot gives us all
characters in detail with all their strengths and weaknesses. The main
aspect is that all her characters in the novel are more living and life like,
so this makes it difficult to put a certain character in the category of
protagonist and antagonist .So we have Mr.Tulliver, Philip Wakeem, Lucy
Dean and all of them have heroic qualities in their own way. Being more
specific we have Dodsons and Tulliver but none of them is entirely good
or bad. Nonetheless, Maggie Tulliver can be put in the category of
protagonist as she is the central figure of novel and all the other
characters are introduced to us in their relation with Maggie. Protagonist
in “The mill on the floss” Maggie Tulliver is the protagonist of the novel
as everything in the book is concentrated on her. The fact that this is an
autobiographical novel support the idea that Maggie is the