Although I read this novel over a year ago, its ending still pops into my mind occasionally. It is not even a great ending, but it is extraordinary and has what some may call "staying power."
By all account The Mill on the Floss is George Eliot's most autobiographical novel. It follows Maggie Tulliver's life from childhood. She is a head-strong child in a family of four. Her father, owner of the titular mill, has an explosive temper that caused his and the family's downfall. Although Maggie and her father have a special bond, Eliot unflinchingly lays out the patriarch's faults, which struck me as unusually analytical for an autobiographical work. Maggie's character is unmistakably based on Eliot's own, minus the education and depth of thought.
The theme of female rage is again circling around the public consciousness in recent years. Whether it is yet another fashionable trend that will be intentionally forgotten remains to be seen. I only know that I felt it when I read how Maggie's free soul is confined by her provincial life, including every normal person around her and all the circumstances of her life. It is fucking suffocating and chillingly realistic. A female central character does not need to actualize herself by fighting in wars or slaying dragons; her enemies and obstacles are sitting at the dinner table with her every day, and she has to fight for the most mundane things like going to school or dating anyone she likes. But that's a topic for another time.
The ending, yes. Throughout her life, one of the main and direct oppressors is Maggie's older brother Tom. While they loved each other as children, their father's bankruptcy threw them into a harsher life, in which Tom became obsessed with his standing in society, and Maggie's impulsiveness and disobedience continually grated on his nerves, until a morally ambiguous incident caused their complete estrangement. (The incident itself is something wholly unique. I have never seen this kind of a story before or since in literature. The fact that it is not well known or well analyzed by literary criticism --- even feminist criticism --- is interesting.)
This family estrangement is also autobiographical. Eliot's own choice of life-partner, George Lewes, was a married (but separated) man, and their partnership caused a scandal in society. Her brother, a country landowner just like Tom Tulliver, was greatly offended and never forgave her. They never saw each other for the rest of their lives. When she wrote The Mill on the Floss, Eliot was probably able to foresee this outcome, and I could feel her sadness and need to process and analyze their irreconciliation.
Hence we come to the ending. When the river Floss flooded the town, Maggie rowed a boat to her family house, now occupied by Tom. They reunited in the perilous water and drowned. Afterward they were found holding each other in death, something they could not do in life.
Obviously, the ending is Eliot's own way of making peace with her relationship with her brother. Reconciliation is impossible in life, but she hopes for it after. What struck me is not how much a woman has to struggle and sacrifice and sometimes renounce her humanity, just to take up a spot in the world for herself; the fight is not news. Rather, it is the love and regret. Tom is both the enemy and the brother. Both love and hate coexist and must do so, as neither can eliminate the other.
