The Mill on the Floss discussion

So obviously major spoiler warnings on this discussion.

Can anyone help me not loathe the ending? I absolutely loved the novel until then. But it felt like Elliot suddenly said "Well,it's been 500-some pages and this is the Victorian era where everyone dies tragically," so, boom.

And it feels like we are cued to believe that this somehow positively resolves tensions between Maggie and Tom. Which . . .no. Just no.

I read it almost a year ago and I'm still struggling with this. Insights welcom.

It's been a lot longer than a year for me, and I still don't regret hurling the book against the wall when I was done. Horrible ending.

That's why I only read it once and don't want to read it again. That ending. I can't take it.

The Mill on the Floss is definitely my favorite George Eliot book, even though it didn't follow what I would have liked to have seen happen. (I was always very sympathetic to Philip. I would have liked to have seen him get what he wanted so badly.) The ending didn't bother me, although I have read that the way the drowning was described in the book defied the laws of physics.

Personally, I haven't seen a strong tendency in Victorian novels to kill everyone off as an ending. I'm sure there are examples, but I don't see it as expected. Even if it were expected, I found the twist of the pairing of a brother and sister to be interesting. Maggie chose to go after Tom and rescue him. This might rankle some people right off the bat, because I think there is a tendency to want people to "deserve" the love and devotion that they get, and Tom doesn't fit that bill. I believe there is also a tendency to discount devotion to one's childhood family because I think now it is considered to simply be a stage that one passes through in life to be outgrown when one is an adult. I think these reasons might be why such an ending is difficult for modern readers. I don't know if that describes the difficulty you found with it.

As for why Eliot may have been amenable to such an ending, it might be due to the fact that The Mill on the Floss is considered to be her most autobiographical book. We know that she had a falling out with her own brother, whom she considered herself close to, and I think it might be a common fantasy, if there is a rift, to believe that you could do something heroic in order to show your loved one how much you care for them and to heal the rift.

I always thought that Maggie should have left that town and her family behind, instead of going back and getting comments on how she was a "Fallen Woman". Maybe the ending was a comment on how attaching yourself too much to people who do not support you is very much like drowning?

Extremely poor, disappointing ending. Wish I'd known beforehand. I wouldn't have wasted my time reading it.

This just made me recall why I have never read 'The Mill on the Floss' a second time; fabulous book but, the ending was morbidly depressing! I know it's the author's right to play god but, it just seemed such a waste. I saw it as almost divine retribution for her being a fallen woman, that after all she went through, there was only really one way she could redeem herself, by death. I think, had it been written even fifty years later, the ending may have proven even marginally more feminist inspired and offered some believable hope for the characters.

Adele, I so fell for Maggie Tulliver that I am determined to write her a 21st Century story where she can be happy being her bad ass rude and brown self.

Scott wrote: "Adele, I so fell for Maggie Tulliver that I am determined to write her a 21st Century story where she can be happy being her bad ass rude and brown self."

Now there's a thought! Scott, this news gives me hope. Maggie with 21st century attitude...YES! I'd definitely read it!

Try Middlemarch! WAY better. Currently 14% through it.

I didn't mind so much that then ending was depressing (honestly I mostly felt relieved for poor Maggie), but I did feel like the ending came out of nowhere. The whole book was pretty drawn out (how many pages were spent on linens??!) and then *pop* the end just whizzes by. If it was a modern writer I would probably accuse them of letting the story get too tangled to conclude in a reasonable way..

i can still sense that the ending has a secret to tell between the siblings and their really feelings for each other. i don't know but the ending seems the only truth about the story the needs to be a lie.