Mill on the

Floss
By George Eliot
1860
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'sLucy 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