The Mill on The Floss by George Eliot is a beautiful Victorian era novel. The focus is on the Dodson family who live at the Dorlcote Mill. Mr.Tulliver married to Mrs. Tulliver and being blessed with two children; Tom and Maggie. Even though both of the boy and girl were practically from the same blood, they were completely different from each other. In Victorian society, it was likely highlighted the notion of earning wealth, having high education and women were always in the act of being conservative, yet left behind one step from their men. But in this novel, Maggie Tulliver has been depicted in a very different way as she was lack of Victorian women’ criteria and she was moving ahead towards modernity.
As a Dodson, Tom inherited her mother’s side of the Dodson-ness. His fair complexion, like his mother, Bessy Tulliver proud of, as ‘she was thankful to have been a Dodson and to have one child who took after her own family’ (p.41), and his features as the Dodson was remarkably obvious within him. He was a blond, just like his mother, ‘a blonde comely woman (p.5). While Maggie was a black hair with tanned skin, ‘tall, brown girl (p.299); nothing likes a Dodson.
Other than the physical features, Maggie also brought up the sense of modernity in her behaviours. Maggie was an impulsive, expressive girl the Dorlcote Mill society had ever seen. Unlike her cousin Lucy, Maggie was rather unladylike girl as she hates patchwork and used to throw her best bonnet down (p.10). She was nothing like a Victorian girl who do patchwork, and she thought that patchwork was a ‘silly work,tearing things to pieces to sew ‘em together again’ (p.10). She was a smart girl and she was very fond of reading. When Mr. Riley came over and suggesting to Mr.Tulliver on concerning a school for Tom, Maggie was showing her deep interest in good books. However, she was drown in her excited moments as