On The Paradoxes In George Eliot's The Mill On The Floss

George Eliot, one of the distinguished representatives of English literature in the 19th century, has endowed British and even the world with splendid artistic treasure. Her semi-autobiographical novel, The Mill on the Floss, catches people's eyes over one hundred years of its existence.Numerous critics have explored it from various angles and have reached different conclusions. Although the research works on the novel have involved all-round approaches, there is still void of the fully and systematical study on the paradoxes in George Eliot in general and The Mill on the Floss in particular. Paradox, the essence of George Eliot's ambivalent thoughts, is also the typical feature of The Mill on the Floss which becomes the main concern of my thesis.The thesis consists of six chapters. The first chapter introduces George Eliot's self-contradictory life and the status quo of studies on The Mill on the Floss, both of which pave the way for putting forward for a new perspective of research, the paradox.The second chapter mainly introduces the definition of paradox and its usage.The third chapter expounds George Eliot's paradox-complex on religion, social morality and feminist issue and discusses respectively its embodiment in the novel. Growing up in the densely religious atmosphere, George Eliot shows aversion to the formalistic control of the conventional religion while deeply moved by its positive spiritual experience. Firmly carrying out the Victorian moral codes and ethical principles, she elopes with G. H. Lewes while his legal wife still lives on. Boldly rejecting the male-dominated society and opening up a brilliant path for her development, George Eliot assumes that motherhood and wifehood are the most valuable representations of women's femininity. All these self-contradictory thoughts form her paradoxical complex which is revealed clearly in the novel.The fourth chapter analyzes paradoxes in the character of The Mill on the Floss and concludes that Maggie's duality is in conformity with George Eliot's paradoxical thoughts. The conflict between the innate instinct and Victorian moral codes forges Maggie's duality. Her egoistic instinct always clashes with her altruistic behavior. The deformed patriarchal society forces people to rebel against the traditional restrictions and conceal their own inner nature. Under the mask of superficial rebellion, Maggie always shows her submission toward her father and her brother.The fifth chapter is devoted to discuss paradoxes in the structure of The Mill on the Floss by analyzing the controversial ending and explore that the seemingly inconsistent structure is in accordance with George Eliot's paradox-complex. The paradoxical structure-exterior inconsistent but interior organic unity serves the theme and vivifies the characters.In the last chapter, the author of this thesis concludes that with her strategic approaching of paradox, George Eliot extols the nobility of humanity and freedom, reveals the corrupted and hypocritical moral codes and exhibits the unjust restrictions imposed on women in the male-dominated society.