What is summary of The Mill on the Floss?

Spanning a period of 10 to 15 years, the novel details the lives of Tom and Maggie Tulliver, siblings who grow up at Dorlcote Mill on the River Floss. The mill is situated at the junction of the River Floss and the more minor River Ripple, near the village of St Ogg’s in Lincolnshire, England.

What is theme of love on the Mill of the Floss?

Love in particular causes people pain, and it is always a matter of choice. Characters, especially Maggie, always have to choose between love for their family, romantic love, loving others, loving the self. Love is a matter of time too – who someone loves first, loves longest, and loves best is always an issue.

What is the symbolism of the river in Mill on the Floss?

On the symbolic level, the Floss is related most often to Maggie, and the river, with its depth and potential to flood, symbolizes Maggie’s deeply running and unpredictable emotions. The river’s path, nonexistent on maps, is also used to symbolize the unforseeable path of Maggie’s destiny.

What happens at the end of The Mill on the Floss?

The end of The Mill on the Floss signifies a return to the beginning of the novel, to Maggie’s nostalgia for their childhood days when she and Tom were united.

What is the significance of the title of The Mill on the Floss?

The title of this book has nothing to do with dentistry. The “Floss” is actually a river. And the “Mill” in question is actually Dorlcote Mill, the family home and business of the Tullivers, conveniently located on the river Floss. A mill is basically a factory.

Is Mill on the Floss a tragedy?

The Mill on the Floss is a tragedy containing a lot of pathetic incidents as well as tragic characters. It is a story of pain and suffering ending in total extermination of Tullivers. George Eliot was a realist and portrayed what she herself saw.

What are the major themes in Mill on the Floss?

The Mill on the Floss Themes

  • Memory and Childhood. Although The Mill on the Floss covers about fifteen years in the lives of its protagonists, siblings Tom and Maggie Tulliver, the story constantly hearkens back to their childhood.
  • Knowledge and Ignorance.
  • Women’s Roles and Social Pressures.
  • Tolerance and Forgiveness.

What is the relationship between Maggie and Tom?

Tom is always the person Maggie will go to for the hope of safety and comfort, no matter how bad things have gotten between them. While the relationship between the two siblings is very back and forth, it is ultimately rooted in a mutual love. They know they have each other, no matter how badly one hurts the other.

What does The Mill on the Floss show are the benefits of hardship?

The Mill on the Floss is a feminist novel in the sense that it reveals the difficulty of Maggie’s coming of age, and that difficulty is shown to be made harder by her society’s narrow views about women.

How Mill on the Floss is a psychological novel?

In this way, George Eliot has artistically fused the domestic and social environment with the psychological complex of a number of characters with Maggie at the centre, where the novel The Mill on the Floss seems to be an essentially moral study of life with a strong spectrum of psychological analysis of the heart.

Do you think that the ending of The Mill on the Floss is justified?

The end of Mill on the Floss is equally defendable at the social level. Eliot wanted to communicate that when one is socially disrupted and humiliated, it is impossible for one to live a happy and respectable life in the society. Maggie had to meet death for she had already socially died.

Is ending of Mill on the Floss is justified?

The end is valid at the symbolic level, too, where River Floss stands for the cause of sustenance as well as ruin for the Tullivers. Some critics view that despite being drowned in the Floss, Maggie could have been killed by some other way. But it couldn’t have been credible enough.