Study with the several resources on Docsity
Earn points by helping other students or get them with a premium plan
Prepare for your exams
Study with the several resources on Docsity
Earn points to download
Earn points by helping other students or get them with a premium plan
Community
Ask the community for help and clear up your study doubts
Discover the best universities in your country according to Docsity users
Free resources
Download our free guides on studying techniques, anxiety management strategies, and thesis advice from Docsity tutors
In The Mill on the Floss, by George Eliot, we are told the story of a young girl who leads a very troublesome life filled with passionate emotions and unfair ...
Typology: Schemes and Mind Maps
1 / 31
This page cannot be seen from the preview
Don't miss anything!
of not knowing what the next day would bring, was exciting. But there was also the notion of fear and distrust connected to them; several rumors surrounded them; they were said to be criminals and liars who could not be trusted. Nobody could control them, they moved as they pleased and refused to adapt to the rules of society. People found them intriguing and repulsive at the same time. Through them, people could live out their own inner fantasies of adventure, sensuality and mystique, but the polar emotions of hate and fear was also present, in the numerous stereotypes that emerged about them (202). Maggie, the protagonist in The Mill on the Floss , is on numerous occasions described like a Rom. The members of her family have light complexion, light hair and eyes. She, on the contrary, has dark skin, black hair and dark eyes. It is not only her appearance that evokes the likeness to the Roma, but her manners as well, which are far from appropriate. She is compared to her brother Tom, who has the advantage of being a boy and is courteous, and her cousin Lucy who is her polar opposite; she is fair-skinned and well-mannered; the ideal young girl of that era. Maggie’s life is filled with hardship; her family loses the ownership of their mill to Mr. Wakem and they are forced to sell most of their valuable possessions, which is overwhelming for her mother who becomes indifferent and depressed. Her father is forced to work for Mr. Wakem, which causes him to grow increasingly bitter over time. Maggie becomes submissive in order to please and ease the burden on her parents. She begins having secret meetings with Philip Wakem, the son of her father’s worst enemy, where they discuss music and art, the things of most value in her life. Philip has, due to a deformity on his back, also been the subject of cruel treatment by people. His friendly intentions soon turn into love for her, and she is confused how to respond to this. When Tom learns about their secret meetings he is furious and confronts her. Her dear father turns ill and eventually dies, which is devastating for Maggie; she loses her only ally in the family. Tom is now the head of the family and he declares that Maggie should answer to him. Maggie’s troubles with the male
inhabitants does not end at that; she gains another admirer in her cousin Lucy’s fiancé Stephen, whom she finds herself falling for, and in a moment of weakness she elopes with him. On their return, she is despised and discarded by the people in the village, including her brother Tom. Still, in the end, when the village is subject to a great deluge, it is Tom she tries to rescue, yet the two siblings are drawn down below the surface by the strong current and in a last embrace they face death together. Many of the rumors that were circulating about the Roma’s customs and lifestyle are also present in Maggie’s life. In this essay it will be argued that she embodies the stereotypes of the Roma in her interaction with different characters throughout the novel. She represents the romantic adventurer with Phillip, whom she has secret meetings with although they belong to rival families. She signifies the seductive Rom woman with Stephen, who, despite the fact that he is engaged to her cousin Lucy, cannot resist falling under her spell. Lastly, she symbolizes the “Other” in connection to her family and foremost in comparison to her brother Tom, who is obedient and well-mannered, her opposite. She is also described as a wild animal, a worshipper of witch-craft, and a force of nature. She, as well as the Roma, does not concur with society, and she is also rejected by it. Her relatives ridicule her appearance and behavior, and compare her to an animal or a Rom when they describe her. I will thus argue that Eliot uses the associations connected to the Roma when describing Maggie. She applies powerful words that have obvious schemata attached to them; one word or small phrase can trigger a certain feeling or paint a clear picture in our mind. She plays on fears of the unknown, or “otherness”; she uses words like “demons”, “fetish”, and “wild” to display that Maggie is far from the ideal of a young woman. With these powerful words she creates the very eccentric character of Maggie and through all of her links to the Roma, the mystery of her being is intensified.
evidence when confronting something unknown in order to obtain some sense of familiarity and safety. People put great trust into what has been written to the point that it precedes reality, and there is great reluctance in questioning a text; there is a consensus in that the author is an expert in his or her field. The status of intellectuals, establishments and regimes is of higher value than that of the actual people, the reality it describes (Said, “Crisis” 272-73). Thus, the numerous reports concerning the Roma in the Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society had a very negative effect on how they were viewed by others. In my study of The Mill on the Floss , a feminist critical analysis will furthermore be carried out to indicate the impediments that Maggie has to face in a patriarchal society. Feminist criticism includes a variety of approaches and the area of focus for this essay is the Anglo-American version of feminist criticism, where the focal point lies in examining portrayals of characters, textual ideas and intention. One also explores how gender plays a part historically, culturally and politically (Barry 124). Deepika Bahri states that focus lies in the study of gender differences and the power struggles that occur and how these affect the lives of men and women in different times and parts of the world (200). In feminist criticism, the representations and experiences of women in literature are compared to real life, and not as fabricated and untouchable and the thorough examination of the text is the most important aspect of the area (Barry 124). The intention is to uplift women’s experiences from being subordinate to men’s, to reveal oppression and dominance of women (Dennis 100). Maggie is not taken seriously and she tries to resist the presupposed position she is to have in life simultaneously as she struggles with her passionate emotions that control her. Moreover, she is strongly influenced by the men in her life that try to control her in different ways. However, it is not only men that try to transform her into a compliant woman; the women are equally guilty of this.
Whenever Maggie is described in the novel, it is with words that have a close connection to the wild and mysterious, and she is described like a Rom on numerous occasions. She is described like an animal instead of a human being: “Maggie was incessantly tossing her head to keep the dark, heavy locks out of her gleaming black eyes – an action which gave her very much the air of a small Shetland pony” (Eliot 10). The Roma were also compared to animals on several occasions: “The intention, then, was to place the Gypsies on the lowest possible level of human existence. They were said to eat more like beasts than men, subsisting on animals that had died of disease and the discarded refuse of settled society” (Mayall 80). Giving Maggie the resemblance of an animal serves as a means to belittle and alienate her especially from her mother. It is a way for her mother to distance herself from her child. Her mother does this in order to avoid taking responsibility for Maggie’s actions and having to defend her to the relatives. The secure feeling of being superior to the “Other”, in that the Western ideals are right, is a way of justifying the right to suppress the “Others”. This brings a sense of security; they cannot be seen as a real threat, and thus no struggle of power will arise. As Said mentions, knowledge is power and the more “truths”, as in the numerous stereotypes, one can state about a certain people, the more one can control them ( Orientalism 32). Maggie’s mother often informs Maggie of how unfortunate she herself is; having to struggle with her hair and having Maggie often sabotage her work. On one occasion, while wetting her hair after her mother has been trying to make it curl, Eliot describes her to be “shaking the water from her black locks as she ran, like a Skye terrier escaped from his bath” (24). Thus, in the novel Maggie is given the likeness to an animal, something uncontrollable. Moreover, the long black hair represents the feminine in the erotic fantasies of the non-Rom males. It is a symbol of passionate emotion that needs to be controlled. An uncontrollable woman with her hair hanging down was seen as a threat to the normative ideal of a woman. A woman should
crudely and deterministically, to explain the characteristics of the group…more was written about language and etymology than about the people themselves” (9). Thus the stereotype of the Roma was given confirmation from professionals. Since Maggie is considered to be a Rom, she is a victim, like the Roma, of how people will emphasize how alike animals a minority group is, to justify the inhumane treatment of them. It validates that what is being decided about them is in their best interest; stating that they are too primitive to understand the matters themselves. It serves as a means to achieve a clear conscious and the sentiment of acting morally correct. Said states that the assumptions being that the white Westerner has a right to power, unlike the Oriental, because he is more human then they are (“Crisis” 284). The need to control the Roma came from two directions; the state wanted to control their work force, to gain economic control, physical control. Secondly, religious forces wanted to control their beliefs, their minds and their spirits. “Those who confront the prevailing order, be it in small ways, those who demonstrate alternative possibilities in economic spheres, in ways of being and thinking, those who appear as powerful symbols, must, it seems, be contained and controlled” (Okely 2). The struggle to take bodily control over Maggie, of the way she wears her clothes and her hair, is eventually too much for her to bear, and she tries to free herself from social restraints by cutting her hair off. Tom is eager to help, anticipating the outcome, and while he is cutting, a sense of liberty comes over Maggie, a sense of cutting the ties that hold her down. She is attempting to emancipate herself from the social ideal of a woman, she desires normative femininity. Maggie believes that with her hair gone, which has been the focus of much of her mother’s complaints and worries, the comments about it will end, but the outcome is not what she would have liked, instead, matters turn worse and the things said of her are all but comforting: “She’s more like a Gypsy nor ever”, and “She’s a naughty child, as
’ll break her mother’s heart” (Eliot 65). Maggie’s tie to the Roma is not only her resemblance to them, but her actions as well. Nature has a strong presence in Maggie’s life, it is often where she reconciles with her emotions, and Eliot often refers to nature in her descriptions of her. She describes her as a “wild thing” (9), and “a small mistake of nature” (9), unmanageable, just like the Roma. People try to control Maggie’s body, mind and spirit, to transform her into the appropriate model of a young girl. She is seen as a person who is possessed by greater forces because she very often lets her emotions take charge of her and she does not try to oppose them, thus being true to her own self. Such references to nature can be related to the notion that the Roma had Mother Nature as their home; they lived in the woods (as did, in fairy-tales, dangerous animals and monsters), and the forces of nature were seen as mysterious and hazardous. This gives us a sense that Maggie is, as well, a little bit dangerous and out of the ordinary. She, along with the Roma, represents the wild, the unfamiliar, the “Other”, in that they could not be placed in a category, hence the connection to the untamed and treacherous. The mystique around Maggie is deepened by the fact that she has her sanctuary in the attic where she exercises the fetish of piercing nails into the head of a doll, an act closely reminiscent to the ones found in the practice of Voodoo. Here, the narrator uses rumors that the Roma were practicing witchcraft, to give Maggie yet another connection with them. They were said to, by choice, stand outside society, refuse to follow laws and regulations and in its place conduct secret rendezvous where they would perform mysterious rituals (Mayall 76). As Mayall mentions, there was no interest to further examine the reasons for their rituals, as the rituals were condemned as strange and dangerous per se. Mayall explains: “Most commentators ignored the practical reasons for such practices – fear of infection, prevention of quarrelling over inheritance, the impracticality of a nomadic group accumulating material possessions – and instead favoured superstition and mysticism” (77). Furthermore, Okely
opposite of the good faith. She is seen as a person possessed by great evil. The Roma were also said to have a history of evil; rumors about their origin suggested that they came from Egypt but had been banished after the finding that they had manufactured the nails that were used when crucifying Jesus (Mayall 75). Again, there are strong links between the representation of Maggie and the stereotypes of the Roma. Maggie does not do well in social gatherings, to her family’s disappointment. The Tullivers have to present a family that resembles the standards of society; else it could damage their good name. It was essential to present a beautiful home, including expensive furniture, china, and well-behaved children. When the relatives are visiting, it is one of the occasions where Maggie needs to be on her best behavior, but she cannot help to feel uneasy and she struggles to be still. She listens and enjoys Mr. Pullet’s music box and lets the delight of hearing the music take control of her and throws herself at Tom with such ecstasy that it causes him to spill his wine. She is then told she is not suited for social interaction and that she should try to behave in an appropriate manner. “Poor Maggie sat down again, with the music all chased out of her soul, and the seven small demons all in again” (92). It is reminiscent of something less than human that takes control over her, and when Tom departs with Lucy without asking Maggie to accompany them, she observes them in anger: “Seeing this, Maggie lingered at a distance, looking like a small Medusa with her snakes cropped” (Eliot 97). She is compared to the Goddess who, when looked at, could turn people into stone, and when she later pushes Lucy into the mud, she is conducting an act which will be seen as pure evil. Making Lucy, with her fair complexion, perfect hair and beautiful clothes, bathe in mud, is a performance of repressed frustration. Maggie displays her hate and despise for people’s unfair treatment of her. Lucy is a symbol of everything that Maggie is not; in body and mind she represents the ideal of how a girl should appear and behave and thus, everything that Maggie tries to resist. As Said states: “When one uses categories like Oriental and
Western as both the starting and the end points of analysis, research, public policy … the result is usually to polarize the distinction – the Oriental becomes more Oriental, the Westerner more Western – and limit the human encounter between different cultures, traditions and societies” ( Orientalism 45-6). Lucy symbolizes the normative in society, the western norm that all women should strive for, whereas Maggie represents the “Other”, an outcast of society that should be avoided. Maggie knows that this act of defiling Lucy will not go unpunished, and she sees no other choice but to run away and since she has been frequently compared to the Roma, it is with them she seeks refuge. In the Rom camp, Maggie sees the resemblance between her and one of the women in particular with her “bright dark eyes and the long hair” (Eliot 106), but she observes, to her annoyance, that the woman is dirty. Here, the fantasy starts to discolor; Maggie has secretly been making up a story in her head about how her life with the Roma would unfold, but she slowly realizes that the truth is something quite different. They seem to have no manners and they do not possess anything she can eat. They offer her old bread from a bag, and this gives the reader the idea of waste that one would feed an animal. Evidence that the Roma are indeed thieves is also displayed; as Maggie is first approaching them, she notices how one of the young girls is feeding a donkey “excellent stolen hay” (Eliot 107), and one of the first things that happens to her is that someone empties her pocket without her awareness, showing the reader that they are in fact the most disgusting people, who would not hesitate to steal from anyone, not even a child. The Roma were said to steal because it was in their nature to do so: “They were accused of stealing everything from sheep, horses and children to grass for their horses and bracken to make fires” (Mayall 81). In Romania, the Roma were taken as slaves and whole families were auctioned out and children were given away as presents (UNHCR 23), and the Roma who were dedicated parents tried to steal their own children back, this might be how the rumors of them being child-abductors started (Brearley 589).
recognized in the eyes of others; she has been described as someone who is dirty, poor, a thief, and an animal, someone primitive that has a close connection to the devil and should be banished. She carries this notion with her for the remainder of her life and projects this notion onto others. The need to separate people into “us” and “them” derives from the notion that “they” are considered deviant, people who differ from the norm, someone who can be seen as a threat to the values and beliefs, the foundations of society. When these values and beliefs are threatened or questioned the feeling of safety and stability lessens and the need of defense arises. The weapons for such a challenge are definitions of what is right and wrong in society; how to act, dress and behave, and if not followed, one will face rejection and segregation. The “Others” are silenced and people speak for them; they are described by observers who do not hold an insight into their everyday struggles, the only interest is to label them according to Western tradition. When the rules are obeyed and followed one is not challenged to rethink matters, nothing poses as a threat to the ideology that is present, the ideology that might include some weakness if given another angle. One major figure that added to the numerous stereotypes of the Roma was the philanthropist George Smith of Coalville. In his book Gipsy Life: Being an Account of our Gipsies and their Children, with Suggestions for their Improvement (1880), he includes facts that are not supported by evidence, but based on rumors. Mayall states: “…his distorted arguments remained convincing to an audience wanting to be convinced” (9). The people that were hostile towards the Roma now had an excuse to drive them out of their land. Mayall continues to explain how Smith contributed to the stereotype of the Roma: “His numerous publications in newspapers, articles and books portrayed the travellers not only as idle, beggarly and parasitic but also as unclean, uneducated, unhealthy and amoral conveyors of infectious diseases. And if this was not sufficient, they were also highly prone to criminal acts” (90). The stereotypes were often a stark distinction to the Roma’s beliefs and principles.
For one; the Rom woman was said to have great sexual powers and was associated with prostitution and anyone in her presence should be alert to these dangers. This idea stands in contrast to the Roma’s own ideology, where she is expected to be submissive to men, to be a virgin until her wedding night, and to remain true to her husband. She is not allowed to be in another man’s company, or to engage in conversation with him, without the presence of another woman, unless she wants to endanger her status. She is to follow her husband’s will and not question him in his decisions. She is to give her husband several children and is accountable for their upbringing and wellbeing along with tending to the house-hold. Above that, she should also find the time to go into town to work in order to provide for them. It is her responsibility to grant the family’s survival; it depends on her ability to endure everyday encounters with people who are hostile and suspicious of her. She is to act against her beliefs and rules in order to achieve this (Okely 203-5). However, what is written down is seen as authoritative. Smith was a man of education and of knowledge about people of different races, hence no one would think to question his proficiency.
Maggie lives in the shadow of her older brother Tom, and in comparison to him she is seen as the “Other” who (like the Roma) deviates from the norm; she is seen as a criminal in the sense of transgression; she challenges and breaks the principles set by Western society. She adores her brother and wants to be his equal, and she constantly tries to impress him, in order to gain his love and respect. She wants to experience all that he does, which is not appreciated by everyone. She despises the woman’s role in society which is dedicated to domestic tasks; instead, she prefers to be occupied with matters appropriate for a boy; to play or to study. She also believes that she is very clever and she challenges the patriarchal society by interfering and interrupting the discussions of the adults, whereupon she is quieted and put in her place. Her father alone is aware of her knowledge and often praises her, but he is also aware of the
being to take care of the domestic world; the house, the domestic labor and the children. Tom means to take care of his sister, in supplying shelter and food, but in return he expects her to take care of his household and work for him, and he believes it is his responsibility to discipline her when she has faltered. Maggie does not want to be dependent on any man, including her brother; therefore she continues to educate herself. Her situation is comparable to the Roma’s; they were independent and had only themselves to depend on in order to survive, which also made them segregated from society (Mayall 14-5). Tom knows that Maggie adores him and he uses her love to control her. He teases her and frequently calls her stupid and when she does not obey his will, he declares he would rather prefer Lucy for a sister over Maggie. He is aware of how deep these words hurt her, and he causes the exact effect he is looking for; causing her to lose control. As mentioned above, Lucy is everything Maggie is not; she is beauty itself, she has a small figure, hazel eyes, and light brown hair that never seem to uncurl. Her manners are also what are desired of a young girl; she is quiet and does not interfere with the adults; her body and her mind are quiet. Mrs. Tulliver complains over the fact that Maggie is the cause of much grief in her life, and how she wishes she would be more like Lucy: “And there’s Lucy Deane’s such a good child – you may set her on a stool, and there she’ll sit for an hour together, and never offer to get off. I can’t help loving the child as if she was my own” (Eliot 39-40). Maggie has brought nothing but trouble for her mother, and she has always known her mother loves Tom more than her; firstly, because he is a boy, secondly, because she does not resemble her mother’s side of the family. Tom is jealous of Maggie’s passion, which has been her drive in life, for good and bad; it has lead to many sorrowful moments, but also to great affection, foremost from her father, something Tom has never been the object of. He envies their relationship, of the open display of their love; he can never be seen as needy of such superficial matters, it would damage his
status. He covets her want for a fuller life; he does not have that same courage to rebel against what is expected of him. When Tom hears of Maggie’s secret rendezvous with Philip, the siblings are even more estranged. He is no longer the focus of her love, to his distress. His rage is a verification of his hidden feelings for her; he adores her, but has rarely shown it, being the older sibling and a boy made this impossible. Very few moments of affection have been showed to Maggie. When done so, it was always in hiding, with no witnesses to condemn his actions. He is aware of the power he has over his sister and he uses his knowledge of her most vulnerable sensation, namely her respect and love for her father, to dominate her. Tom has always been a role-model for Maggie, but she realizes all the wrong-doing he has done her. He has never defended her in hard times, he has always been quick to judge and punish her for any misbehavior. He has always relied on and used the power he has over her. When he forces her to choose between him and Philip, she pleads for his understanding, he replies: “But I have no confidence in you…You’re always in extremes – you have no judgement and self-command; and yet you think you know best and will not submit to be guided” (Eliot 401). Tom plays the martyr of the family; he has sacrificed plenty in order to support the family. He was the one who went out to seek a situation, he was their hope of regaining the family honor, it is with him the hope of a brighter future lies. Little acknowledgement is given to the labor Maggie contributes with and he accuses Maggie of having no honor, no feelings for her family. He makes her appear like a person eager to turn on her own kin, in order to fulfill her desires. He knows that Maggie would not deliberately hurt anyone and with this knowledge he accuses and manipulates her to get the result he wishes for.
