Women's Classic Literature Enthusiasts discussion

Book 1: Boy and Girl

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. On this mighty tide the black ships–laden with the fresh-scented fir-planks, with rounded sacks of oil-bearing seed, or with the dark glitter of coal–are borne along to the town of St. Ogg's, which shows its aged, fluted red roofs and the broad gables of its wharves between the low wooded hill and the river-brink, tingeing the water with a soft purple hue under the transient glance of this February sun. Far away on each hand stretch the rich pastures, and the patches of dark earth made ready for the seed of broad-leaved green crops, or touched already with the tint of the tender-bladed autumn-sown corn. There is a remnant still of last year's golden clusters of beehive-ricks rising at intervals beyond the hedgerows; and everywhere the hedgerows are studded with trees; the distant ships seem to be lifting their masts and stretching their red-brown sails close among the branches of the spreading ash. Just by the red-roofed town the tributary Ripple flows with a lively current into the Floss. How lovely the little river is, with its dark changing wavelets! It seems to me like a living companion while I wander along the bank, and listen to its low, placid voice, as to the voice of one who is deaf and loving. I remember those large dipping willows. I remember the stone bridge.

This is a beautiful description of picturesque countryside. Eliot based the setting on the town where she grew up.

So I'm listening to this in my car. Really liking the audio version.
I was driving home on Monday listening to the above pastoral passage. Part of my route takes me through an informal settlement on the Cape Flats. And there, running on the highway, were a dozen pink, curly tailed pigs. At first I thought I'd imagined them...

What fun! I can just see you imagining that you'd brought the book to life, or been displaced into it!

Chapter 1 is interesting not only for its lovely picture of the scene, but for the question it raises: who is this narrator who dozed off in her (his?) chair dreaming of leaning on a bridge by Dorlcote mill?

The same question we face in the early chapters of The Brothers Karamazov. There, we eventually learn. Will we here?

Good point Everyman. From chapter 2 onwards the narrator is third person.

I thought this may be a literary tool to make the story more personal.

The blurb on the back cover of the Penguin Classics edition describes Maggie Tulliver as "a heroine whose rebellious spirit closely resembles George Eliot's own". Like Lisa, I inferred the "narrator" in the early pages to be the author herself. (Remember the old quote about "emotion recollected in tranquility" ?)
This edition was edited by A. S. Byatt, a novelist herself. She wrote a 33 page introduction and provided textual notes and explanatory notes.

Reading along in Chapter 5, the reader finds that all of a sudden the author abandons the 'third person' and intrudes herself into the story: "We learn to restrain ourselves as we get older. We keep apart when we have quarreled, express ourselves in well-bred phrases.....etc, etc, etc. It's like the old days in the theater when an actor would abandon the scene, stalk to the front of the stage, face the audience and deliver an "aside", addressing them sorta still in character but sorta also as some kind of puppeteer behind the other players (puppets) in the play being presented. Note, too, the last two paragraphs in that chapter, and the pronouns "I" and "our". It's the author, intruding into the narrative again . . .

Happens in the last chapter of book I too.
I think that Eliot is reflecting on her experiences and upbringing within this social context.

P.S. After reading TMOTF, you might enjoy Possession, by A.S. Byatt, who wrote an excellent introduction to and provided two sets of very helpful notes for The Mill on the Floss. It was published in 1991 and is one of the 'juiciest' novels I've ever read, a regular smorgasbord of a story.

I am starting Chapter 7. My thoughts so far:

1) I feel sorry for Maggie and every other young girl who is smart, but not educated, because she is only a girl. She will be confined to society's strictures unless she has the courage to break those ropes. I fear that her need for "love" will sap her courage.

2) I despise Tom. His sense of justice is distorted and he has no one to teach him love, empathy and true justice. He is only interested in punishing those who offend him. I did not know what Rhadamanthine meant when Eliot used it to describe him, but it is an accurate word.

3) I do find some of the words and phrases obscure, especially in the first two paragraphs of Chapter 2. The reference to Old Harry and Manicheaism was way over my head.

I've just finished book one. I adore little Maggie and her acts of defiance. She's acting out against a world that refuses to take her seriously. Unfortunately her sensitivity, particularly in regards to her brother, usually cuts her defiance short. I can't say that I despise Tom. He annoys me. He does have a distorted sense of justice and is very self-centered. He's also terribly cruel to Maggie. However, I feel that his behavior isn't too atypical for a pre-teen boy. And despite his cruelty to Maggie, it seems that he is devoted to her. I think that they generally behave as siblings have almost always behaved toward one another.

I'm looking forward to seeing how Maggie and Tom grow and mature over the course of the story.

I'm assuming that Eliot meant for the aunts to seem ridiculous because that's how they're appearing to me. I believe they're meant to be sort of comical characters, especially Glegg.

The descriptions of the countryside are lovely, and I'm also wondering about the identity of this narrator.

I'm also finding some of the words and phrases obscure. Reading the dialogue requires some patience at times. Luckily, my copy has notes, which are usually helpful, but not always.

I feel so sorry for Maggie. She has bad luck all the time and is always misunderstood. Is it possible to be so unlucky?! Or is it an artistic feature?

When she has an incident with Tom, it may also be a question of seeing the same situation from different points of view. I feel the same as how Wendy describes him. And maybe he seems unreasonable just because he is an immature boy and not the same age and/or intellectual level as her.

I was just about to write about how difficult it is to remember childhood griefs. Then Eliot very appropriately describes the gap between grownups and children on page 72, in "Enter the Aunts and Uncles". It is bold of Eliot to try to put herself in the shoes of a child.

I love all the characters, how they behave and how they react. They easily remind me of different types of people nowadays.

Funny, that Eliot even describes the scenes, clothing etc. as how they were thirty or something years ago. For a reader in the 21st century it is all the same and old-fashioned, whether it was 1830 or 1860. To them it was two completely different eras.

Eliot must have remembered what it felt like to be a child. I remember thinking about running away when I was a child, but I was always too practical to ever do it. I love how she blends the reasons for running away with the ever active imagination that Maggie had. This imagination was enhanced by her reading books that were really above her comprehension and maturity level. All those ingredients made Maggie's adventures with the gypsies both scary and hilarious.

The chapter with the gypsies was really funny! I just finished it and thought that was the best chapter so far.

Eliot has these sharp comments to the difference between social classes that are so universal and true!

I hope that Maggie will find more happiness, now that she has experienced another life in contrast to her own.

Mizzou wrote: "Charlotte: Did you also get a kick out of the different attitudes toward money held by members of two different social classes revealed in the scene (Book 3, Chapter 6) where Bob Jakin has been giv..."

This comment should be in the book 3 section.