George Eliot's Attitude Of Love And Marriage From The Mill On The Floss

The Mill on the Floss, written by George Eliot (George Eliot,1819-1880), the famous British female writer of Victoria Time, is a tragedy describing the heroine Maggie's love story by her life original version. This paper will analyze and study marriage and love embodied in the her novel combining her own life experience and background.This dissertation contains four parts besides introduction and epilogue.Part One. Analysis and discussion of George Eliot's view of traditional marriage embodied in The Mill on the Floss. Maggie's mother– Mrs. Tariff and Maggie's cousin - Lucy are in line with the ideals of British women' standards in 19thcentury - beautiful, gentle and kind, but she is funny-looking and neither her appearance nor her character was in line with the aesthetic standard of that time, her character was rebellious. Mrs. Tariff had setbacks in life but she was happy generally, Lucy was loved from her childhood, finally won her love, but Maggie, was not loved,and was not accepted by her families when she returned after elopement. To save his brother finallyshe was buried in the flood. The fate of these three figures expressed Eliot's attitude toward traditional marriage , she held that only meet the social demands women would have a happy marriage in the end, and those female who got out of the tradition is bound to result in tragedy. Family status and money play a decisive role in the traditional marriage, As the Puritan idea of a significant impact on British society, family status and money still were important component of marriage in England in19th century . The mentality and behavior of Maggie's aunt, the performance and psychological changes after bankruptcy and re-emerging demonstrated that family status and money were the solid foundation of a happy marriage.Part Two. Analyze the major points and causes of the contradictoriness of Eliot's pursuing of free love. On one side, love is not the only factor to be considered of marriage but these external factors like religious beliefs, social customs, social status, age, the great change of British society in the 19th-century has prompted many changes and updates, Elliott accepted new social ideas, re-examine the traditional British value system, ethical values and religious beliefs. Eliott believed that the marriage based on the true love between men and women is in line with the requirements of human nature, people should be brave to pursue their love, These ideas was modern and rebellious at the time. In spite of her father's enemy's son, Maggie fell in love with physical disability and, regardless of a cousin's fiance of Stephen, the two options of pursuit of marriage embodied the feelings of the Maggi to the traditional concept of love and marriage fight and proved the desire to love as the basis of family happiness.Part Three. The analysis and discussion on interpretation of love responsibility embodied in The Mill on the Floss. Subject to strict religious traditions from childhood Eliot's thinking patterns and behavior were deeply religious influence by religion, she still adhered to some of the Puritan family values, love and marriage in her works The pursuit of true love is the spirit of the ideal orientation of Eliot's View of Love the affection, compassion, social responsibility is the value orientation of Eliot in reality. When the ideal of spiritual orientation and the reality values are mutually exclusive, she advocated abandoning the former and chose the latter.Maggie's love to Philip is sympathetic love, morals, love, to Stephen is a ungetable, dynamic spirit of love, Maggie has ever abandoned the love to Philip for the sake of her father and brother, and ever abandoned the love to Stephen for the sake of the sympathetic love to Philip and the love of sister and brother. Each choice of Maggie's feelings she was always considerate for others. The first place was his responsibility and obligation and these fully reflected Eliot's points of self-restraint,which emphasized social responsibilities and obligations in love.Part Four. Analysis of George Eliot's view of male chauvinism embodied in The Mill on the Floss , Eliot has had two surprisingly rebellious feeling experiences,She came out of the family to the community, into the male-dominated fields of writing, and received great success, her these actions are challenge male chauvinism. But in her work, she thought that women should follow their parents arranged marriage and play a "good wife and mother" role, while the ordinary rules of family life is the real life of women. Maggie's parents in the Mill on the Floss, comply with the allocation of traditional gender roles of men and women had happy life. Maggie, who loved her father and brother as the representative of male authority were very concerned about their attitude, although fought for her her love with the tradition, but eventually gave up her love and listen to the views of husbands and brothers. Eliot's own marriage experience and the marriage concept in her works rooted in the loyalty of the Puritan concept of love and marriage, rooted in the deep attachment of her family and father and brother, but also from the analysis of the women's limitations themselves.