The most tragic novel by George Eliot, this story is also her most autobiographical. It was published after her highly successful first novel, Adam Bede (1859), and it proved to be another great success, helping to establish Eliot’s reputation as an important novelist.
The protagonist of the novel, Maggie Tulliver, combines paradoxical aspects of the two main female characters from Adam Bede, Hetty Sorrel and Dinah Morris: like Hetty, Maggie can be self-indulgent and impetuous, but like Dinah, she does not shrink from self-sacrifice and is a deeply compassionate individual quickly touched by the suffering of others. Maggie’s brother Tom is also her closest friend, but Tom has a mean streak that comes out when he teases her or takes it upon himself to command her obedience.
Although Maggie is a bright and talented girl, she has been born into a world that offers only marriage and childrearing as a profession for her in adulthood; even as a child, she demonstrates her need for a larger sphere of activity and achievement. In contrast, Tom proves to be a reluctant learner when he is sent to study under the clergyman, Mr. Stelling.
Tom’s education indicates the ambition of the Tullivers to move up in the world, but Mr. Tulliver’s temper soon lands him in a dispute over water rights: his mill must have water if it is to function, but landowners upstream want to irrigate their property by diverting some of the water from the Floss. Ironically, Tom’s fellow pupil is Philip Wakem, the son of the lawyer representing Mr. Tulliver’s opponents. Philip is crippled, and when Maggie meets him while on a visit to her brother, she befriends him. By the time Maggie’s father is ruined in the lawsuit, Philip is in love with her.
After Mr. Tulliver swears an oath never to forgive or forget Mr. Wakem and his clients, Maggie and Philip must meet secretly. Tom had been coerced into joining in his father’s oath, and so in addition to bringing about the family’s financial ruin, Mr. Tulliver’s pride also contributes to the contortion of Tom’s emotions and to the duplicity of Maggie’s meetings with Philip. Tom in turn takes out his anger on Maggie, forbidding her to meet Philip any longer after he discovers their connection.
Tom comes home to work and earns enough money to pay off his father’s legal debts, but Mr. Tulliver dies after an enraged but ineffectual assault on Mr. Wakem. By the time the mortgage on Dorlcote Mill is lifted, Maggie has become a marriageable young woman. On a visit to her friend and cousin Lucy, she meets Stephen Guest, the young man expected to become Lucy’s fiancé; Stephen and Maggie are attracted to each other in spite of his courtship of Lucy.
Philip is also still in love with Maggie against his father’s outraged prohibitions. Maggie is in a quandary: encouraging Philip will alienate her from Tom, who is carrying his father’s hostile oath to the next generation, but encouraging Stephen, a man who would be acceptable to Tom, will hurt Lucy. A careless afternoon boating on the Floss with Stephen leads to Maggie’s unmerited disgrace in the local village. She refuses Stephen’s offer of marriage, and Tom shuts the door of the family home on her, forcing her and Mrs. Tulliver to lodge in the village.
When the Floss breaks its banks and rises in a flood, Maggie takes a rowboat to the mill to rescue Tom, hoping that he will accept reconciliation. She misjudges the power of the flood, and disaster brings them together in a watery death.
The autobiographical elements in this novel relate to George Eliot’s estrangement from her family upon becoming the common-law wife of writer Henry Lewes, a married man separated from his wife but unable to attain a divorce. Eliot’s father, Robert Evans, and her brother, Isaac Evans, repudiated her as an adulteress and cut off all contact with her. Just as the character of Adam Bede is a portrait inspired by Eliot’s father, so too is the character of Tom Tulliver a portrait inspired by her brother Isaac. The impossibility of Maggie making a love-match that is acceptable to her brother reflects Eliot’s own personal life. The tragedy that befalls Maggie and Tom suggests that perhaps only death can resolve the differences between George Eliot and her brother.
Critics have questioned whether the tragic ending suits the warm portrayal of family life and especially of childhood that Eliot develops in detail in the novel’s early chapters. The tragic end comes on suddenly and does not grow out of the novel’s structure: instead of resolving the conflicts that have developed in the plot, the ending terminates any possibility of resolution. Nonetheless, the richness of Eliot’s portrayal of a large and diverse cast of characters and the psychological realism with which she develops the personalities of her characters as they encounter the conflicts of the plot make the novel a satisfying and rewarding reading experience.
Bibliography
Hutchinson, Stuart, ed. George Eliot: Critical Assessments. 4 vols. East Sussex: Helm Information, 1996.
Pangallo, Karen L., ed. The Critical Response to George Eliot. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1994.
Rignall, John, ed. Oxford Reader’s Companion to George Eliot. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Categories: British Literature, Literature, Novel Analysis
Slave Narrative 
Analysis of Ford Madox Ford’s The Good Soldier 
Analysis of Molly Keane’s Good Behaviour 
Analysis of Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook
You must be logged in to post a comment.