Mill on the Floss

Stephanie writes:
Mill on the Floss by George Eliot is a novel about the childhoods of the brother and sister, Tom and Maggie Tulliver, who live on a river in a village in England during the early 1800’s.  Maggie is an emotional girl, who is attached to Tom.  She is very intelligent and imaginative, although her family members overlook this intelligence.  Maggie makes many rash decisions and is constantly chided by her aunts and mother because of this behavior.  However, she does not care what anyone in her life thinks, the only exception to this being Tom.  Tom is a boy who enjoys the outdoors.   He believes that common knowledge is more important than scholarly education.  He always acts in a fair and dignified manner.  Tom’s father decides to send Tom to a good school at the request of a family friend, in hopes that his only son would help the family’s economic situation if they had someone smart enough to deal with their financial needs.  Tom is not interested in school and his teacher thinks he has poor learning abilities.

The novel begins with Maggie waiting for Toms return from his old school.  She is anxious and excited for his arrival.  Meanwhile, her father has come to the conclusion that Tom will go to a new school next year.  The brother and sister bond together when he comes home from school.  Soon after, the Tulliver family hosts Thanksgiving at their house.  All Mrs. Tulliver’s sisters are invited, along with their husbands.  After many comments from her aunts about the state of her hair, Lucy decides to cut part of it off.  She is self conscious of the haircut but is comforted by her father.  A little while later, Tom is off to school.  As the only student of Mr. Stelling, his progress is closely monitored.  Tom is terrible at Latin and her wishes for Maggie’s presence during this tough time for him.