Transformation of Rage. Peggy Fitzhugh Johnstone

observes that unlike earlier novelists who presented details "incidentally, as part of the realistic picture," she presents them as "causally connected to the formation of the characters." He praises the "rich surface texture" and "abundance" of concrete detail that "convinces us that this world must be real" ("Sociology" 128, 129). U. C. Knoepflmacher emphasizes the scope of Eliot’s novel, which he calls "unquestionably the most ambitious of the seven works of fiction belonging to George Eliot’s first phase of development." He writes that "within three years, [the author] had moved from her rustic 'scenes' to a pastoral epic, and now she hoped to achieve an even greater scope and depth by writing a new kind of novel, a tragedy for her times in which she would try to relate the fate of individual characters to the forces of historical change" (Novels 162, 163).

      As in the case of Adam Bede, The Mill on the Floss was enormously successful. It was published on April 4, 1860; Blackwood wrote Eliot before the end of May that "all the reviews and notices of the book with exception of those of one or two obscure newspapers have been most favourable" and that the sales were "highly satisfactory" (Letters 3:296, 297). Despite the general acceptance of The Mill on the Floss, however, there were some notable criticisms, which foreshadow the criticisms of many twentieth-century critics. Although E. S. Dallas’s review in the Times was on the whole positive, his reference to the portrayal of the "odious Dodson family" (Maggie’s maternal relatives) in their world of "pride, vain-glory, and hypocrisy, envy, hatred and malice, and all uncharitableness" (Draper 57) provoked Eliot to respond that "I have certainly fulfilled my intention very badly if I have made the Dodson honesty appear 'mean and uninteresting'. … So far as my own feeling and intention are concerned, no one class of persons or form of character is held up to reprobation or to exclusive admiration. Tom is painted with as much love and pity as Maggie, and I am so far from hating the Dodsons myself, that I am rather aghast to find them ticketed with such very ugly adjectives" (Letters 3:299). Edward Bulwer Lytton’s April 1860 letter to Blackwood, also predominantly positive, contains criticism of the portrayal of Maggie’s "position" toward her suitors Phillip and Stephen as not following from Eliot’s characterization of her. Bulwer sees Maggie as treacherous to Phillip in allowing Tom to humiliate him in the scene in the "Red Deeps." Moreover, he believes that the involvement with Stephen is "a position at variance with all that had before been Heroic about [Maggie]. The indulgence of such a sentiment for the affianced of a friend under whose roof she was, was a treachery and a meanness according to the Ethics of Art, and nothing can afterwards lift the character into the same hold on us" (8:262). His remarks caused Eliot to respond through Blackwood that while she could accept as just the criticism that Maggie is too passive in relation to Phillip in the scene with Tom in the "Red Deeps," she held that "Maggie’s position toward Stephen is too vital a part of my whole conception and purpose for me to be converted to the condemnation of it. … If the ethics of art do not admit the truthful presentation of a character essentially noble but liable to great error–error that is anguish to its own nobleness–then, it seems to me, the ethics of art are too narrow, and must be widened to correspond with a widening psychology" (3:317-18). These early criticisms, taken together with Eliot’s responses, suggest a disparity, increasingly noted by modern critics, between what Eliot intended to portray, and what actually comes across to the reader.

      I will argue that the pattern of indirect expression of aggression that I have observed in the characters in Adam Bede also emerges in the actions of the protagonist of The Mill on the Floss. In Eliot’s portrayal, Maggie’s unresolved childhood rage, which results from her sense that she is devalued by her family and society, is transformed into her adult misuse of sexual power in her relationships with the male characters, Philip, Stephen, and Dr. Kenn. The author also rationalizes Maggie’s behavior with men, at the same time that she turns her into an idealized heroine in the last section of the book. Eliot’s apparent inability to see the aggression in her character’s actions seems to derive from her identification with her autobiographical heroine, and very likely reflects the patterns of her own relationships with men in her life as a young adult. Eliot’s portrayal also shows how childhood interactions with immediate family members can shape lifelong interactions between an individual and her society.

      Psychoanalytic literary critics have discussed the closeness between Maggie and her brother Tom, who, as Laura Comer Emery suggests, serves as a substitute in Maggie’s life for her rejecting mother and her weak father (17, 23). Emery’s Freudian analysis stresses Maggie’s need to identify with Tom, a male, in a family which devalues females. Bernard Paris’s Horneyan analysis emphasizes Maggie’s morbid dependence on Tom: Maggie, the "self-effacing person," is drawn to Tom, the "arrogant-vindictive person . . . because [she] needs to be protected by and to live vicariously through someone who can master life aggressively" (170). Both Paris and Emery emphasize Maggie’s childhood fear of being openly aggressive toward Tom because she needs him so much. Paris observes that "[Maggie] suppresses awareness of her vindictive drives and acts them out only in indirect or disguised ways" (171). Emery notes further that Eliot portrays as accidental some of Maggie’s aggressive actions toward Tom: letting his rabbits die when she has promised to take care of them while he is away at school (Mill 82), and upsetting his pagoda and knocking against his wine (147, 155) during a visit with their relatives (Emery 25-26).

      Maggie’s excessively close attachment to Tom reflects her underlying need to be accepted by her parents; yet at the same time, her recurring aggression toward him enacts her anger at her parents' rejection. Emery explains that because Maggie feels rejected by her mother, she "remains 'hungry' for love, and . . . her loving retains the quality of narcissistic need" (16). The intensity of her attachment to Tom, along with her repeated expressions of aggression toward him, reflect this hunger for love. Maggie’s later relationships with other men also combine the need for attachment with the need to express aggression, as she attempts to revive her childhood sense of closeness to Tom. Yet her involvements with Philip, Stephen, and Dr. Kenn only cause Tom’s rejection of her and cannot satisfy her voracious need for his love.

      Maggie’s expression of aggression follows the pattern of the Prodigal Son story, which is told in a series of pictures on the wall at Luke’s (the head miller's) cottage nearby, where she has gone for comfort after she learns that Tom’s rabbits are dead. Maggie’s behavior follows a cyclical pattern of impulsive and/or aggressive action and flight, followed by guilt and reparation. After she lets the rabbits die, she tries to persuade Tom to forgive her, but he rebuffs her, and she runs upstairs to the attic. When the family notices that Maggie is missing, Mr. Tulliver sends Tom to look for her. Maggie, seeking reparation, "rushe[s] to him and [clings] round his neck," and Tom finally kisses her and offers her a piece of cake (91). On another occasion, when Mrs. Tulliver’s visiting relatives make negative comments about Maggie’s skin and hair, she seeks revenge by running upstairs and cutting her hair (120). She soon feels sorry for what she has done, and when she returns to face her relatives' inevitable reactions, she seeks reparation by running to her father: she "hid her face on his shoulder and burst out into loud sobbing" (125). When Maggie pushes the family’s model female, Lucy, in the "cow-trodden mud" (164) as a way of getting back at Tom, Lucy, her mother, and her aunts, she runs off to the gypsies. One of the gypsies finally takes her home, and Mr. Tulliver once again rescues and comforts her (180). Thus Maggie’s aggression in all three incidents follows the pattern of aggressive action and flight, followed by guilt and finally, reparation with the father (figure).