The Mill on the Floss

If you had to choose between the love of a lifetime and your relationship with your family, who would you pick? In „The Mill on the Floss” by George Eliot, the author draws on her own experiences when writing the tale of the complicated relationship between a young woman Maggie and her brother Tom Tulliver during a time when women had limited choices. Maggie’s often tormented battle to do her duty and belong on the one hand, and to be herself, wild and natural on the other, propels her from one crisis to another. As the Tulliver fortunes decline and fall, the rift between Maggie and her family becomes almost irreconcilable. But Maggie’s biggest mistake of all is to fall in love with Stephen Guest who is engaged to another woman. This novel is a masterpiece of ambiguity in which moral choice is subjected to the hypocrisy of the Victorian age.