George Eliot’s novels, The Mill on the Floss and Felix Holt: The Radical, construct relationships between families and nations; however, the relationships between the “family” and “national” structures vary from one another to the other. The Mill on the Floss primarily concerns itself with familial relationships. These include relationships between siblings, parents and children, and the matriarchy-dominated extended family. Some reference to the national structure by way of economics does occur in the novel; however, even these dealings relate back to the family. Contrastingly, Felix Holt centers itself around the national structure of people to their city, state, and nation. The familial relationships that appear in the texts present themselves as strained and often utterly broken, while the novel’s politics act as a form of social intercourse, central to the work’s theme.
The Mill on the Floss imagines the relationship between family members in a number of different ways, with the central relationship between siblings Maggie and Tom. The first book entitled, “Boy and Girl,” foreshadows the importance of the relationship of primary importance in the story. Maggie looks to her older brother Tom for guidance, support, and love. Eliot describes the siblings’ relationship for the reader as “still very much like young animals, and so [Maggie] could rub her cheek against [Tom’s], and kiss his ear in a random, sobbing way; and there were tender fibres in the lad that had been used to answer to Maggie’s fondling… he actually began to kiss her in return” (39). The nature of the siblings’ relationship appears eroticized in its many descriptions, with Maggie looking to Tom for a sort of unconditional love one might expect to find in a significant other. As a young child, Maggie does not understand where her physical and emotional relationship with Tom ends. Eliot utilizes this sexualized relationship of Maggie and Tom as a way of navigating her characters through this important familial life lesson.
As the story progresses, Maggie and Tom experience the usual sibling fights one would expect to see in a relationship consisting of young children. However, despite their differences, Tom’s mistreatment of Maggie, and his eventual condemnation of her when she runs away with her cousin, Lucy’s fiancé, Eliot ends the story of the two on a touching note that further imagines the novel’s familial nature. When the flood takes both Tom and Maggie down into the current, Eliot describes the tender, and somewhat sexualized, way in which the two die in one another’s arms by stating, “…brother and sister had gone down in an embrace never to be parted: living through again… the days when they had clasped their little hands in love, and roamed the daisied fields together” (521). Tom and Maggie’s relationship ultimately ends on a positive and loving note, stressing the importance of the family relationship no matter the situation.
Also extensively explored throughout the novel, the relationship that exists between the parent and child. Eliot describes the relationship between Maggie and her father as a very positive and loving one. Maggie, as the only girl and the younger of the two children, holds a special place in her father’s heart, and this relationship becomes apparent to the reader early in the novel. “Maggie jumped from her stool… and going up between her father’s knees… the father laughed with a certain tenderness in his hard-lined face, and patted his little girl on the back, and then held her hands and kept her between his knees” (17). The tenderness of Maggie’s father’s actions suggests the affectionate and adoring relationship held by the two.
Eliot investigates and elaborates on the relationships of, and between, extended family members in the text as well. Although, Eliot presents the relations of extended family as relationships in which one must bear. Eliot humorously states that, “Poor relations are undeniably irritating—their existence is so entirely uncalled for on our part, and they are almost always very faulty people” (83). The extended family of the Tullivers, the Dodson Clan, portrayed as rarely having nice things to say about, or to, their family members. Whether the aunts engage themselves in commenting on Tom and Maggie’s poor behavior, or the snarky condemnation of certain members of family when borrowing money, the extended family relationships do not necessarily appear enjoyable ones, but they exist and hold a special importance nonetheless, proving that one can love their family without necessarily liking them.
The national aspect of The Mill on the Floss becomes constructed through the economic implications presented throughout the novel. The mill, of course, acts as a revenue-generating enterprise, even if that revenue stays within the family. The lending and borrowing of money, and the talk of debt that plagues, and ultimately ruins, the Tulliver family furthers this economic theme. Tom’s decision to leave school in order to enter the workforce to regain his family’s financial stability also aids in the creation of the national structure present in the novel by suggesting the materializing middle-class. The need Tom feels to save his family and reestablish their social standing in the town lends itself to the national structure and sense of identity the family contributes to their hometown. Despite the presence of these subtle national structures, the overarching structure resorts back to that of the family.
Felix Holt: The Radical acts as the thematic opposite of The Mill on the Floss in terms of concerning itself with the political and national structure instead of that of the family. The setting of the novel, in a fictional English town, creates a world in which many commonalities become characteristic of the entire nation. The mere title and time period in which Eliot authors the text greatly aid in the contribution to making the novel one of national structure. The novel’s setting during the early 1830s, in the time of the Reform Act, adds to the political implications of the text. The “pleasant sleepiness” of Treby Magna makes it “quite a typical old market town” (45). This town, characteristic of the emerging middle-class, furthers the new national interests sure to surface with the creation of this new group of people living in England. The “radical” attitudes of characters like Felix, Harold, and the Reverend Lyon act as a commentary on this changing social structure—suggesting that new society warrants a new kind of attitude. Eliot adds to the importance of one’s own nation by incorporating international excursions into both of her most influential characters’ lives. Felix Holt and Harold Transome, who have just returned from Scotland and The Middle East respectively, expand on this element of national pride when returning from doing business in a foreign country. The men’s return to their own nation and families illustrates the way in which the family is the most basic unit of society, and the outside world is a world of impersonal speculation. Harold’s return functions as an especially interesting event in the way in which his mother receives him. Mrs. Transome selfishly ponders the way in which the return of Harold will allow her to “no longer [be] tacitly pitied by her neighbours for her lack of money, her imbecile husband, her graceless eldest-born, and the lonliness of her life; but to have to have at her side a rich, clever, possibly a tender, son” (15).
Despite Harold’s somewhat heroic return, Felix Holt acts arguably as the most “nationalized” character in the novel, suggesting that the idea of the “nation” has significantly expanded. Although he works hard, he is ultimately poverty-stricken. Despite this fact, Felix is earnest and actually prefers his life of a working-class man over a wealthy, comfortable life, much like the one Harold Transome enjoys.
The familial relationships present in the novel function in a dramatically different way than those that occur in The Mill on the Floss. Here, the family structure becomes so flawed that the family members do not rely on each other in a familial way. Eliot opens the second chapter with the comment that, “Harold Transome did not choose to spend the whole evening with his mother… He volunteered no information about himself and his past life at Smyrna, but answered pleasantly enough, though briefly” (32).
Eliot again explores the parent/child relationship in this novel, but does so in a way that creates a much more awkward representation of the Transome family unit, due in large part to Harold’s illegitimacy. “Mrs Transome thought with some bitterness that Harold showed more feeling for her feeble husband who had never cared in the least about him, than for her,” which acts as the polar opposite of the strong parent/child relationships she explored in the previous work (32).
The Mill on the Floss and Felix Holt: The Radical imagine two very different structures. The Mill on the Floss stresses the importance of having a relationship with one’s family members, while Felix Holt stresses the importance of having a relationship with one’s city, country, nation, and the politics associated with these relationships. Both novels’ structures benefit their respective characters and societies in a unique way. The familial relationships in Eliot’s work tend to come across as mutually beneficial, while despite the work Felix does in politics, he still suffers and must overcome personal and legal hardships. Eliot hides her morals for her readers in real-life-type scenarios that create these structures.
Works Cited
Eliot, George. Felix Holt: The Radical. Penguin Classics ed. Middlesex: Clays, 1995. Print.
Eliot, George. The Mill on the Floss. Oxford University Press ed. New York: Oxford UP, 2008. Print.
UT English Lit Major 