A Reinterpretation of The Mill on the Floss

Abstract

Recent interpretations of The Mill on the Floss distort the novel's emphasis in two principal ways. According to one, it is a tragedy of repression and regression; Maggie is responsible for her downfall because she is flawed by her acceptance of Kempis' philosophy of renunciation and by a fixation upon her father and brother, both of which fatally pull against her legitimate desire for wider fulfillment. According to the other interpretation, however, this desire is itself Maggie's flaw, whereas her acceptance of Kempis and her family devotion are good; thus, the main subject of the novel is not her downfall, but her spiritual development, which is climaxed by her two rejections of Stephen and her attempt to rescue Tom from the flood. Although both contain valid insights, neither of these readings is satisfactory, for each oversimplifies George Eliot's complex outlook, which presents Maggie's frustrations and her ultimate defeat as springing from both the fact that she has intense and legitimate desires for a full and rich life which Tom and Tulliver cannot comprehend, and the fact that she is, at the same time, bound to them by an equally legitimate, indeed noble, love which makes her renunciation of those desires morally necessary.