The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot: Book Review

The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot
Originally published in 1860
Modern Library Kindle Edition, $2.99
150th Anniversary Edition by Signet Classics, $7.95


Mr Tulliver, owner of Delcorte Mill, isn't the best neighbor you could have. He spends most of his time suing other landowners about water and land rights. He even wants his son, Tom, to get an first rate education just in order to help with his lawsuits, seeing as how Mr. Tulliver is always getting outsmarted by book learned lawyers. Problem is, Tom isn't very smart in terms of formal education, and would be perfectly happy just helping his dad run the mill.

The person that would benefit the most from an education is his younger sister Maggie. She loves to read and has a passionate attitude towards gaining knowledge and learning about the world. But this is 1820s England, and women are supposed to keep out of the way of men, look pretty, clean, cook, and get married.

Maggie doesn't quite fit that mold, even as a child, which is when we are introduced to her in the novel. Her aunts (on her mother's side) are constantly berating her for her impulsive character, lax morals, and lack of decorum. Her one aunt on her dad's side is a nice woman but would be what we would consider today a welfare mom, the result of marrying low and having 8 children. Mr Tulliver has to help her get by. Another thing that the aunts drive home time and time again is Maggie's skin color. I guess she's pretty tan from being outdoors a lot and they think that is unbecoming. They have nothing good to say about Maggie. Even her MOM falls pretty much in line with their thinking. Her dad loves her but is always referring to Maggie as a "wench". You can tell he means it affectionately, and maybe its just a 19th century turn of phrase, but it bothered me a lot.

Most of the conflict of the book deals with Maggie's relationship with her brother Tom, a relationship which ruins her life. Maggie loves Tom a lot....maybe a bit too much. She is constantly striving for his approval and affection. It's an unequal relationship because Tom doesn't worry half as much about Maggie's needs and feelings as she worries about his. Add to that the fact that Tom likes to control people weaker than him, and he sees Maggie as weak, and it doesn't make for a healthy relationship. That's another theme that comes up in this book repeatedly. Namely, that women are weak and men are stronger and superior.

At its core, The Mill on the Floss is about a girl that starts out rebellious, smart, inquisitive, loving, and dynamic, and how she is worn down by her family into becoming a conformist, slavish, beholden, one trick pony stunted soul (is this a run-on sentence?) It's not really Maggie's fault, well, not all of it. From the time she is a child her aunts and her mom, along with her brother, are constantly beating her down emotionally, forging her into what their model of a proper lady dictates she should be. They insinuate, they castigate, they berate, and probably a bunch of other ates I can't think of. It made me sad to see her gradually give in to their dictates (another ate)  over the course of about a decade as she enters her early 20s.

Her brother, Tom, and her dad are in on it too. They forbid her to love who she wants to love. Like they are God on high decreeing to her how to live her life. I despised Tom. He was such a thick clod so he was the WORST person Maggie could have been devoted to. Mr. Tulliver is just as bad in ruining Maggie's love life. Lucy, Maggie's cousin, seems to be one of the only people Maggie gets any support from, BUT Maggie is attracted to Lucy's fiance....so that has its OWN set of complications.

I don't want to totally give Maggie a free pass in this book. She COULD have stood up to her family but she didn't. Well, at least not in any significant way. Her reaction in trying times was either repress or renounce. Neither of which hints of a strong soul. Women could have happy and fulfilling lives back in those times. It was just harder to do. The weird thing is that in the afterword by Jane Smiley to the Signet Classics edition, Smiley asserts that Eliot DELIBERATELY made Maggie fail to live a full life simply so the novel wouldn't become TOO autobiographical. George Eliot was a woman that lived a life above and beyond the normal accepted gender roles of the time. So the fact that Eliot SUPPRESSED the possibilities of the novel in order to not make it seem like she was writing about herself greatly weakens the book.

And just a warning. The ending of the book is horrible. Like Eliot just wrapped it up in a like a 5 minute cigar break. Ridiculously bad. The Mill on the Floss wasn't a total failure as a work of art but suffers from an author at cross purposes with herself....much like its main character.

My Grade: B