No Delight Of Life, No Misery Of Death

George Eliot has endowed British and even the world with splendid artistic treasures by her brilliant achievements in literature. Maggie, the heroine of her semi-biographical novel—The Mill on the Floss, catches many scholars' eyes. Maggie's tragic drowning has long been a controversial issue. Numerous critics have explored it from various angles and reached different conclusions.Traditional critics tend to regard Maggie's death as the author's blunder, for it is too sudden and too illogical. This thesis focuses on Maggie's psychology from her birth till early death and is intended to answer the riddle of her death by adopting Freud's theory of death instinct, which is another try to solve this controversial issue. This thesis contends that the internalization of the dominant patriarchal ideology enforces a tremendous psychological effect on Victorian women, which is an essential factor that contributes to Maggie's morbid personality, with which Maggie, stimulated constantly from the ruthless icy society, has a strong desire to return to the inorganic state—death.By comparing the author Eliot's realistic life with that of her heroine Maggie in a detailed way, this thesis also points out that both of them are confronted with similar life predicament in the patriarchal society. While Maggie literally dies in the flood, the author George Eliot survives and gains a rebirth, becoming more mature and more valiant through Maggie's death, from which we can note the great significance of literature to life.