The Readers Review: Literature from 1714 to 1910 discussion

Book VI: The Great Temptation

1. A Duet in Paradise
2. First Impressions
3. Confidential Moments
4. Brother and Sister
5. Showing That Tom Had Opened the Oyster
6. Illustrating the Laws of Attraction
7. Philip Re-enters
8. Wakem in a New Light
9. Charity in Full-Dress
10. The Spell Seems Broken
11. In the Lane
12. A Family Party
13. Borne Along by the Tide
14. Waking

On a fun note, because I have this on my current reading list, I'm getting comments on feed from other discussions on the Mill on the Floss. One of them has a thread that takes off on the Twilight series discussions: instead of Team Edward/Team Jacob, they have Team Stephen/Team Philip. :-)

I actually found this to be the most interesting part of the book, even though I really enjoyed the book up to this point.

Here is where I think that Eliot subverts the "fallen" theme. Maggie seems to be taking the route of the fallen woman, just like her family has fallen from society's grace. But at the end of the day, she walks away and leaves Stephen.

In other words, Maggie is tempted, she even holds the apple in her hand. But at the end of the day, she does the right thing.

Even though I like Philip, I had problems with his relationship with Maggie. He's a bit too controlling of her, and rather than treating her like an equal intellectually, he is a bit condescending. There's always a superior/subordinate dynamic between the two. For example, rather than having discussions, he is always trying to teach her, point out what she should do, etc.

The one thing I could not help but notice, and found quite irritating in Stephen's alleged "love" for Maggie (as I am of the opinion, that rather than genuinely loving her, he was taken in by an infatuation with her because she was new, different, exciting.) is the fact that he never truly considers Maggie's own feelings. His feelings for Maggie are completely self-involved. He puts everything in terms of his own feelings. With him it was always "What are you doing to me. Look how much I am suffering, If you loved me as much as I loved you. Everything in relation to Maggie was about how he was feeling. He constantly tried to make Maggie feel guilty and to manipulate her feelings for him. If he had truly loved her, than he should have actually taken her own feelings into consideration and have seen her own agony and despair at what they were doing and how he was only making her suffer more.

There is a lot of sexual imagery in Chapter 6 where we see the teenage Maggie/Eve seduced by the 'advancing Spring'. The luxury of her surroundings have an 'intoxicating effect' upon her. Music excites her, it is 'pregnant, passionate language' and an outlet for her 'passionate sensibility'. Eliot uses it as a metaphor for her sexual feelings. Water imagery is used to express the danger of her lack of control which is a foreshadowing of what will happen in the future. Like the river, the feelings between Maggie and Stephen also get out of control.

Silver wrote: "The one thing I could not help but notice, and found quite irritating in Stephen's alleged "love" for Maggie (as I am of the opinion, that rather than genuinely loving her, he was taken in by an in..."

Silver, good post - definitely agree.

But to play devil's advocate, I wonder if Maggie is Stephen's way of rebelling. He seems to live a life that has been prescribed for him; Maggie is the opposite of everything in that life. Even Lucy was a type of rebellion, since her family doesn't have the wealth or pedigree of his own family.

I came across some interesting ideas about Tom in "The Critics and the Bildungsroman" by Susan Fraiman.

The first was the idea that Tom severs himself from Maggie's society right from the beginning (and really to most of the Tullivers).

She cites a number of examples. When Tom first arrives, he pays more attention to the dog than to Maggie and his mother. When Maggie hugs him, he's thinking about going fishing. When he cuts the pastry in half, he says half is "mine", half is "yours."

Also, she talks about how Tom looks to inferiors rather than to Maggie, "demonstrating his (gender and class) superiority" (38): Lucy, Luke, and Bob. I might argue the point about Bob. While class-wise Bob is "inferior," Bob teaches Tom how to invest money.

Nice observations Lyn, thanks.

Lynnm wrote: "But to play devil's advocate, I wonder if Maggie is Stephen's way of rebelling. He seems to live a life that has been prescribed for him; Maggie is the opposite of everything in that life. Even Lucy was a type of rebellion, since her family doesn't have the wealth or pedigree of his own family."

I also think that Maggie herself may simply have been taken in with having finally acquired the sort of admiration she had longed for all of her life.

However open minded, sympathetic, and non-judgmental Maggie might be, there is a big difference between having the admiration of a hunch back, and of having that of a handsome, wealthy young man, whom also happens to be nearly engaged to the girl whom all her life has been praised as being perfect.

On both sides I just do not think there "love" is really of the nature that would have led up to a happy marriage even if they could have married without being plagued by guilt. I think once that first phase of infactuation and the excitement of the forbiddiness of their relationship began to wear off Maggie would have come to find Stephan dull, or at least not as intellectually inclined as herself and Stephen would begin to regret that he had not married Lucy.

Our discussion seems to have fizzled out:(:(

MadgeUK wrote: "Our discussion seems to have fizzled out:(:("

I will be posting more tonight. I ran out of steam last night.

But yes, it is difficult to sustain a discussion with only three people. :-(

Here's I'll help a little bit even though I read the book years ago. Maybe Eliot's point about the love/marriage is that the two are not truly related. How many marriages in this time were because of finances or family relations? I think very few were made for love.

W/regard to Steven's selfishness. I think that's real life in a lot of marriages even today. For some reason the man in the relationship doesn't do a lot of the relationship work to keep things going. A good example was when my hubby was sick. I went out got special things he needed, brought him some movies, and pampered him. I got the same bug - he went to the drug store and got the one thing I asked for. No pampering, no movies, nothing to make my sick time more comfortably. Regardless of sex, I also think that some people naturally put themselves in other peoples shoes and some don't. Maybe Steven is just a don't.

Good points Deborah, we can all empathise with that:(.

It is true that Victorian marriages were rarely made for love. That became a new idea in the Romantic era which came later.

MadgeUK wrote:It is true that Victorian marriages were rarely made for love. That became a new idea in the Romantic era which came later."

In the case of Stephen and Maggie though, any marriage created between them would be purely based upon whatever Stephen's alleged feelings for Maggie are, be it love, lust, infatuation.

As he gains nothing from the marriage beyond his desire to possess Maggie, there would be no finical or societal advantage for him within this marriage, it would not be a political/or marriage of convenience. In marrying her, he would be marrying down and to his disadvantage. I hardly think his family would approve of Maggie as a proper bride for him.

BunWat - Here is just my opinion. Everybody is entitled to like or dislike what we're reading. Their reasons as to why they dislike it are just as valid as anybody's opinions on why they like it. Besides your reasons for disliking it may open up things that the ones who like it never thought of. That's my two cents. So as far as I'm concerned, you can say what you what as long as it is done respectfully(which you always do).

I agree Deborah. Constructive criticism based on dislike of a book/character is as good as any other kind of criticism and Bunwat's comments are always worthwhile.

Sorry Bunwat, I got my dates wrong although I wouldn't place the Romaentic Movement as early as 1700. I would put it nearer to the mid-18thC when it was a rebellion against the Industrial Revolution and the Age of Reason/Enlightenment. Romance novels such as Samuel Richard'son Pamela came earlier but the artistic, literary, and intellectual movement in England known as the Romantic Era was characterised by the Lakeland poets and the pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood of the 1830s.

I can't quite see MofF as a Romantic novel because there is so much anti-romance in it and too much pragmatism. I don't see Eliot as a Romantic at all although there are elements of the 'sublime' in Maggie.

I'm still lurking away, following the discussion although I haven't participated of late. Part of the problem for me, I think, is that I wanted to finish the novel more quickly than the reading schedule provided for. Once I've finished reading a novel, I move on to other things and sometimes forget the details of a book quite quickly.

I know what BunWat means about Maggie. There were times when I wanted to slap her. However, I also empathised with Maggie a lot more I do with many other Victorian heroines (I'm talking about you Tess Durbyfield!). I wonder if that's because the link between Maggie and her creator is such that Maggie seems more real to me than many other heroines of the same period. On the other hand, I may be exaggerating the autobiographical aspects of the novel.

The river and water imagery in Chapter 13 is very strong. Here is a map of the part of England where the River Trent/Floss flows into the Wash at Hull. I know this part of the river well as my father and I often canoed up the Trent from Nottingham (just south of Leicester) to Scunthorpe where we had relatives. It was a favourite weekend camping jaunt:-

http://www.communitywalk.com/the_mill...

Here is an old picture of the tidal bore (Aegir) which takes place at Gainsborough and which is very exciting to 'ride':-

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tatrasko...

From Gainsborough onwards into the North Sea the river is wide and deep enough to support light seagoing vessels and it is here that Maggie and Stephen catch a Dutch steamer to Hull/Mudport, like this old one:-

http://www.thisislincolnshire.co.uk/S...

In Chapter 13 Book 6 the river is 'benign' and there is an 'enchanted haze'. The beginning of the chapter expresses Maggie's moral and emotional turmoil is expressed by Eliot's use of fragmented sentences, question and exclamation marks. The moral danger that Maggie and Stephen were in is expressed by their drifting down the river and by the change in the weather. Stephen's desire is betrayed by the allusion to the music of Song to Celia:-

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/...

On board the steamer Maggie's moral irresponsibility is expressed when she feels a 'soft stream' flowing over her but in Chapter 14, when she awakes after a highly significant dream, she realises the 'terrible truth' about the moral danger she is in. The images in this chapter are reminiscent of The Fall and perhaps signify an end to her passions, maybe the end of her life. they also show how circumscribed the life of a Victorian young woman really was, as these moral considerations did not affect the dalliances of men - of which Eliot was only too well aware.

I definitely agree that everyone should be allowed to express their opinion about a book or character. And if someone disagrees, I also enjoy a good debate...reminds me of my college days. :-)

BunWat wrote: "I'm sorry I dropped out of the discussion. I got frustrated with Maggie, because I feel like she's developing into yet another self abnegating Victorian heroine, and I don't like them very much. ..."

I'm not sure if she is self-abnegating or merely denouncing the world after she read Thomas a Kempis.

She checks her emotions even though at times she longs to be free and let her emotions go. When she leaves with Stephen, she allows those emotions to run wild. But eventually, that renouncation comes back to her and she turns her back on Stephen.

I don't think she is doing it for someone else in particular; it might be some type of penitance for her family's misfortunes? I'm not sure it is in a religious sense, but to something higher than merely society's opinion?

According to my anthology, from the course I took on the Romantics, the age of Romanticism is considered to have emerged in the 1780s and the period closed in the 1830s

Bunwat and Silver - I stand corrected. You are most definitely right. Must have had a brain cramp last night, because this morning I realized immediately that all my literary knowledge momentarily fell out of my brain when I posted last evening.

She just goes on looking for someone to take charge, someone to lean on and submit to. She goes on subordinating her perfectly good judgment to that of others- with tragic results.

Good points Bunwat and isn't this just what Eliot herself did - broke away from home at great cost but 'leaned' on men all of her life? If MotF is autobiographical, this may be her recognising her own weakness.

I think Maggie is actually pretty good at standing up for herself. She does so with Stephen at the end of this section, and to a lesser degree with Tom in regards to Philip. My problem with Maggie is that she seems to stand up for herself too much, to the point that she won't let anyone get truly close to her. She has this ridiculous idea that she needs to sacrifice her own happiness for the happiness of others, which doesn't exactly make everyone else any happier.

Actually, the more I think about it the mote I realize that Maggie doesn't really stand up for herself with her brother Tom. He is the one person that appears to have almost complete control over her. But she lets him, because she wants to please him. She stands up to others not so much for herself but so that she can obey and thus please her brother.

BunWat wrote: That's what I mean by self abnegating. She erases herself, she makes herself unimportant. "

I think that this self-sacrificing aspect of herself stems from that deep down need she has had since a child to be accepted. I do not know if it is so much that she thinks her own happiness does not matter (though that is how things work themselves out) but I think that is more of just the side affect of her not wanting to do anything of which others would disapprove of in her. So I wonder if it is really so much of being motivated by the need or desire to place the feelings of other people above her own, or does she simply act out that way because she fears doing anything which will make her look bad in the eyes of others. While the two things can be seen as one in the same because they create the same end result I think there is a subtle difference.

I am not sure it is so much that she thinks Lucy's happiness is more important than her own happiness, but that she does not want her beloved Lucy to think ill of her, she does not want to loose Lucy's love and friendship. While it is true she also does not want to hurt Lucy, but I think more than anything she cannot bare the thought of not being thought well of.

Her entire relationship with Tom is also characterized by her constantly seeking Tom's approval and Tom's love. She means only to do what will make her look well in his eyes, but of course all of her efforts in this attempt end up having the opposite effect and disastrous conclusions.

I thin this is part of why she gets so taken in with Stephan initially, because she gains approval, acceptance, admiration with him. He gives her that which she has strived so much for through her life, but unfortunately the possibility of a relationship with him comes in conflict with the opinions other people may have of her, mainly being Lucy and Philip.

And I do not mean this in any way to make her sound shallow or vein, but she has gone through so much of life being criticized and made to feel like an outcast, that she will grasp at any form of love and acceptance and compassion that is given to her, and when she does find such things she does not want to expropriate them which has the effect of ultimately making everyone miserable including herself because she often finds herself pulled in more than one direction and in the effort to try and appease everyone, she makes no one happy.

She wants to be thought well of, but because of her impulsive emotional nature, she can never quite manage to succeed in this which oft leads to dire consequences.

BunWat - I understand where you are coming from. Maggie was such an audacious child and so obviously intelligent, that I had hopes that she would grow up to be a strong, independent woman.

But that is not the case. I wouldn't say that she was meek, but she seems to have lost her pluck and courage.

However, I agree with Silver's comments: "she has gone through so much of life being criticized and made to feel like an outcast, that she will grasp at any form of love and acceptance and compassion that is given to her, and when she does find such things she does not want to expropriate them which has the effect of ultimately making everyone miserable including herself because she often finds herself pulled in more than one direction and in the effort to try and appease everyone, she makes no one happy."

I think that it is easy to be critical of Maggie, but she has had a difficult life. The constant criticism when she is younger, feeling like she didn't somehow live up to everyone's expectations. Tom pushing her away. Her father's fall. Etc.

Also, I think that when we look at the constructions of female characters pre-WWII, we have to keep in mind the constraints on women, and the fact that it is difficult to completely break free of societal expectations for women. It takes time, and we can't expect a depiction of a modern day woman in a 19th century novel.

You mentioned Woolf - Woolf writes about "contrary instincts" - i.e., the extremely negative - and even dangerous - environment that oppressed people have to deal with that makes standing up to those in power very difficult. Woolf understood very well that each generation of women could only go just so many steps forward. And then the next generation goes a few more. And so on and so on. Women today still don't have full equality, and we still need to keep moving forward towards full equality.

An interesting sidenote that is related: Alice Walker picked up on Woolf's ideas in "In Search of our Mothers' Gardens." Walker was considering African American women, and in particular, Phillis Wheatley, a slave in the 1700s who was a poet. Wheatley was mocked by scholars for decades. But Walker stood up for her, citing those contrary instincts. Here is the link: http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/webtexts/Wh...

That's what I mean by self abnegating. She erases herself, she makes herself unimportant.

I think it is those around her and the life she has to lead which erases her and make her seem unimportant. It is a commentary on how women of her time had to live. However bright and audacious they might be they were generally ground down and forced to be dependent on their menfolk, just as Eliot herself was. Even today, as Lynn points out, many women have that struggle.

Lynnm wrote: "BunWat - I understand where you are coming from. Maggie was such an audacious child and so obviously intelligent, that I had hopes that she would grow up to be a strong, independent woman.

But ..."

I think both you and Silver make good points. Even modern day women who have so many more rights fight with this as evidenced by a book from the 90's (or was it the 80's?) called In A Different Voice. The research showed that as girls became adolescents they lost confidence and self-esteem. So much has changed and yet so much hasn't.

I agree that there were a number of Victorian women, usually from the upper class, who led unconventional and brave lives, especially the explorers.

However, I am not so sure that Eliot was courageous after her initial 'elopement' with Lewes. She called herself Lewes (except in pint) and referred to him as her husband. She lived a fairly conventional life in other respects and was anxious to get married when the opportunity presented itself later in life. So, given that the novel is supposed to be autobiographical, perhaps Maggie's lack of courage is reflecting Eliot's own and what she felt about herself?

BunWat wrote: "It is true that Maggie is suppressed by the ideas and strictures of her time and place. However just because I want her to have more grit does not mean I'm seeking a depiction of a modern day woma..."

I don't think I was very clear. I wasn't saying that you were seeing a modern woman in a Victorian novel, and I agree whole-heartedly there were many extraordinary Victorian women. What I was trying to say is that the loss of confidence seen in Maggie is still true in many cases today.

Good point BunWat. I hadn't thought about Maggie in those terms before. Thanks for helping see a different point of view. I just love that ;-)

@BunWat -

While you have a good point, you are using the exception to the rule to argue your point. Yes, there were women in the past who break through the barriers. But they were few and far between.

Maggie tried to be independent, was "punished" for trying, and then retreated under the pressure. I'm sure just like many women of her time. As Woolf talked about, those contrary instincts that repressed women (and other people who are oppressed).

I think you are being far too hard on Maggie and Elliot, but at the end of the day, we can go back and forth, but I think we'll just have to agree to disagree. :-)

BunWat wrote: "But for me, she's frustrating. Not unrealistic, just frustrating. In the same way as my good friend who wont stand up to her domineering mother in law is frustrating. Or my accquaintance who plays the martyr card a lot is frustrating. .."

I also found Maggie frustrating. But for all I wanted to shake her, I also ached for her. She somehow seemed more real to me - with all her flaws - than do a number of other Victorian heroines in their acceptance of victimhood.

I tend to like rebels too Bunwat but I sympathised with Maggie because the constraints against her becoming a Jane Eyre were greater, not least because she was a lower middle class country gel. And in some ways, having a loving home mitigated against her rebellion. Jane Eyre and other Victorian heroines had more to struggle against.

This is a dark novel and I wonder if Eliot meant us to be frustrated bty Maggie and to see the heavy weight society put upon both her and her female protaganist. The dark, brooding, dangerous river flows through the novel as a metaphor for life and as a foreshadowing of what was to become of Maggie.

It may also be significant that the tidal bore on the Floss/Trent, which caused the flood, is called the Aegir, who is the god of the sea in Norse mythology. He was both worshipped and feared by sailors, for they believed that Aegir would occasionally appear on the surface to take ships, men and cargo alike, with him to his hall at the bottom of the ocean. Sacrifices were made to appease him, particularly prisoners before setting sail. Maggie and Tom could be seen as sacrifices, both to the river and to society itself.

This article spells out the similarities between Eliot's life and those of the families in MotF and tells how she cried when writing the final chapter. Maggie and Tom were reconciled in death but she and her beloved brother Isaac never were:-

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/...

BunWat wrote: "Well my goodness Lynnm, if we are going to require novelists to write about the rule rather than the exception then Maggie should be a domestic servant or a farm laborer. ;)

My point is not that M..."

BunWat, you can like or dislike any character that you want to like or dislike. We are merely disagreeing. Isn't that what discussions are about? If we all agreed, it would make for a fairly boring discussion.

LOL. Calm down gels:D.

This entire thread has been interesting to read, and I think that all of you have the right of it. First, I think that TMotF is an incredibly autobiographical novel for Eliot. One can easily make the argument that Tom is a decent enough stand-in for Eliot's own brother who largely rejected her once she moved in with Lewes. Second, I think Maggie is the representation of the female condition in the Victorian period that Eliot lived in and wrote about. Any woman that showed a spark of creative genius or expressed herself in an independent fashion was almost immediately stifled--and becomes 'damaged goods'.

What happens to Maggie is absolutely a reflection of how the Victorian patriarchal society treated women, and really there's nothing left for this wonderful free-spirited young woman after her family, lovers, and the community are done with her but the 'solace and redemption' of the Floss.