Engliterarium

The end is valid at the symbolic level, too, where River Floss stands for the cause of sustenance as well as ruin for the Tullivers. Some critics view that despite being drowned in the Floss, Maggie could have been killed by some other way. But it couldn’t have been credible enough. Had Tom killed Maggie, it would have been sensational and against the theme of the novel i.e. emotional self-control. Had Maggie committed suicide, she would have been reduced to a foolish sappy girl which Eliot didn’t like. Natural death would have been least artistic. Eliot also wanted to reunite the brother and the sister before death which would have been impossible in normal situation. She also wanted to show that the Floss which gave birth to whole of miseries, itself put an end to all the sufferings.

George Eliot is known as a modern novelist in spite of living in Victorian Age. She wrote in the fashion contrary to that of her contemporaries, Dickens, Thackeray, etc. She is not completely divorced from the traditions. She draws her picture in the Victorian style, but she develops it in a new direction.

The Victorians, on the whole, were instructive and they wrote what they wanted to write. Eliot, on the other hand, was an intellectual and she wrote what she should have written. She is known as the first intellectual novelist. Her novels are the embodiment of her ideas.

The main charm of the Victorians lies in the individual expression, whereas, in Eliot, our interest is kept up in the way she analyses and diagnoses problems. Eliot rejects dogma and wants to analyze the causes of every problem she comes across.

Her scenes are more real than those of the Victorians because her realism is not only documentary but also psychological. To other novelists, realism is an intellectual necessity but in her case, it is a creed and emotion rather ambition which follows avidly. Her picture is more realistic owing to her clear perception of realities. She draws her characters inside out.

The Victorians were satisfied with the apparent realities whereas Eliot penetrated deep into the phenomenon and brought to light the hidden causes.

The Victorians, too, were satirist but they satirize just to create humour so they were ordinary humorist, whereas, Eliot satirized as a serious thinker. Her humour was of a distinct type i.e. intellectual and psychological humour soaked into deep pathos. She fused together comic irony and mild satire to create humour and her end was to moralize. Her humour had a serious message underlying it. This kind of humour is employed by the modern novelists.

Other Victorians did have a moral touch but, in Eliot, we find moral earnestness. Like Fielding, she wrote to inculcate moral in the people. But her concept of morality was quite different from that of Fielding’s. She reshapes the consciousness of the individuals in order to remould the whole structure of the society. She believes in the presence of the moral code at the heart of the universe. She made novels the embodiment of her moral ideas. In “The Mil on the Floss”, she denounces the dominance of the self recklessness, loose-living etc and emphasizes on the absoluteness of duty, endurance, renunciation etc. her concept of morality is based on human values and the laws of human heart.

Her psychological approach also makes her modern. The clear sighted vision of the essential of character gives her a definite edge over the Victorians like Bronte, Dickens, Austen, etc. The grasp on the psychological essentials makes her draw complex characters better than the Victorians, because she draws them inside out.

The insight into human nature makes Eliot’s picture of human nature more homogeneous than that of Dickens, etc. She shows that saints and sinners are made of the same clay; however, the latter lack the necessary strength of mind. She has ardent sincerity which compensates for many of the feelings of her aesthetic judgment.

Eliot is revealer of the self. Characters like Maggie are the self-portraitures of Eliot. She unveils herself through her female characters.

Eliot broke away from the fundamental conventions of form and matter. She rejected the standardized formula. She conceived one idea and its logical development.

She is modern in inspiration, too. Earlier, novel was meant only for the entertainment of the middle class reading public. Eliot’s intellectual approach made novel a ‘meeting place of problems’. She studied Man in relation to higher aspects of life. Eliot was the first novelist to discover this particular track on which the modern novelists are treading today.

Though Eliot lived in the Victorian era yet she is modern novelist since she wrote in the modern fashion. But she cannot be called ‘Victo-Modern’. Eliot, in contrast, is exclusively orthodox and Victorian in her ideas and modern in her approach. She can also be differentiated from Hardy in the sense that he is peculiarly Victoria in his style and approach and modern in his ideas. To be curt, Eliot is a modern novelist living amongst the Victorians.

Eliot was not a psychologist. She didn’t have even the knowledge required by a psychologist; yet, she is called the first modern novelist since her approach is psychological. She is the pioneer of psychological fiction. With the transcription of the visible and real, she traces the ups and downs of the mental processes and the emotional states of complex character. Her sharp analysis helps her to come nearer to the truth of human nature, motives and impulses.

“The Mill on the Floss” is a psychological study of the state of an intellectual and sensitive girl in the English middle-class society, bound by convention. Maggie’s character is primarily the study of child psychology. Eliot’s psychological approach finds its best and main expression in characterization.

Stephen Guest is a vital character. There would have been no condition for him to make a moral choice, and Maggie wouldn’t have come across the greatest conflict which agitated her and caused her deep agony. Some critics accuse Stephen as a weakling for he was unable to allure Maggie. Stephen condemns himself as a mere “hair dresser’s block” and, to Swinburne, he was “a cur”. But, he did attract even Maggie like intellectual girl. The link between Stephen and Maggie and the moral choice that follows it together constitute a fine psychological study.

Though Eliot collared all her aspects as a novelist, her intellectual approach is more clearly found in characterization. She does not begin with the apparent personality but with the psychological forces and basics underlying the personality. Her portraits are ‘of the inner man’. Through intellectual and psychological approach, she traced virtues and sins to their causes.

Her characters are always consistent. Charlotte, who lays stress on the outer man, often fails to make the inner constant. There is a wide gap which even imagination can't fill up. The directing principles on which Eliot focuses and around which she construct her characters remain clearly understandable through every change. The insight into human nature makes her picture homogeneous that that of the Victorians.

She presents aspects of human nature which the Victorians cannot. She successfully describes how a character develops. Others cut a character into good and bad without explaining the essential causes that make a good character bad and vice versa. Eliot, however, portrays the evidences of this change with acuteness of observation.

She draws complex characters better than the Victorians because her method is inside-out. She shows the twisting of motives and gripping impulses. She shows that human mind is like a battle field where a tug-of-war between the two hostile forces ever persists. She shows how temptation comes, and leaves at the warning of conscience, comes back disguised and how it shows death to rise again and approach. As Maggie’s is tempted towards Stephen, she decides to resist it for her duty towards Philip and Lucy; temptation comes back when both declare love for each other, but decide not to pursue it; finally, the temptation, which shows death, rises again and attacks both Stephen and Maggie.

Because of the sharp and intellectual approach, she treats plain and living characters. Her characters are rather more life-like, for they are nearer to truth, outside as well as inside.

The world of “The Mill on the Floss” is of deceit, pride, vain glory, hatred, malice, cheap quarrels, etc. Eliot was a well-read and experienced person. She observed life minutely and deeply. She draws characters from her personal experience and paints them realistically. Moral conflict lies at the root of her chief characters. The conflict is possibly between duty and love, asceticism and sensuousness, the ideal and the real, or amid eternal forces and discipline.

Her portraits are characters and nature of men and their inner conflict. As her novels proceed, her characters grow to new dimensions. Maggie, who was impulsive, became matured and more balanced. Every character has tinge goodness and no one is thoroughly contemptible.

In “The Mill in the Floss”, she deals with child psychology and reveals it through action and words. She plans the working of child’s mind, his nature, imagination and impulsiveness. Child prefers to live in his own world and, for him, the forbidden things are the very apples for plucking. Maggie is a fine agent of child psychology. She is jealous, impulsive and has desire for Tom’s affection. Sensitivity, imagination and impulsiveness are linked together to make her suffer in a deep agony as a child, leading her into troubles and sufferings. Later, Maggie grows into a fine and matured woman.

Eliot presents a deep view of the problems of life relating the clash of hearts and emotions. Like Maggie, she shows that a child has more and more intellectual gifts. In the final analysis, Maggie’s character no longer remains the study of child psychology alone rather Eliot transforms it into a great study in characters, incited by complex impulses.

In a word, Eliot’s approach, intellectual and psychological, distinguishes her from other Victorians novelist and brings her on the brink of modern novelist.

George Eliot is known as a modern moralist despite living in Victorian Age. Other Victorians did have a moral touch but Eliot had the moral earnestness. She wrote to inculcate moral in the people. She reshapes the perception of the people to remould the whole structure of the society. She believes in the presence of the moral code at the heart of the universe. She made novels the epithet of her moral ideas. In “The Mill on the Floss”, she accuses the dominance of the self recklessness, loose-living etc and stresses on the absoluteness of duty, renunciation endurance, etc. Her concept of morality is based on human values and the laws of human heart.