| Many of George Eliot's novels attempt to reform inequalities of nineteenth century society, such as the inferior social positions of women and minorities. In Mill on the Floss, Maggie Tulliver represents the contemporary woman's struggle between the desire for freedom and fulfillment of traditional expectations. Romola presents a similar situation, though the title character's situation is complicated by marriage to a seemingly ideal foreigner. Romola's marriage marks an attempt to unite the majority of English society with minority groups on the margin of that society and returns not only in Middlemarch but perhaps most clearly in Daniel Deronda. Eliot appears to achieve social reform in these novels and in The Spanish Gypsy, a verse drama wherein she presents an entirely new social order, where minorities become the leaders of society. Despite this appearance of reform, it seems that Eliot, in each of these works, undermines that reform, showing it to be impossible. |
