The Mill on the Floss
CRITIQUE | THE TEXT | AT THE MOVIES
1885 editionFirst publication
1860
Literary form
Novel
Genres
Literary, psychological fiction
Writing language
English
Author's country
England
Length
Approx. 202,000 words
Notable lines
First line
A wide plain, where the broadening Floss hurries on between its green banks to the sea, and the loving tide, rushing to meet it, checks its passage with an impetuous embrace.
Passages
"What does that signify? We don't ask what a woman does; we ask whom she belongs to."
But it's bad—it's bad," Mr. Tulliver added, sadly, checking this blamable exultation, "a woman's no business wi' being so clever; it'll turn to trouble, I doubt."
We could never have loved the earth so well if we had had no childhood in it, if it were not the earth where the same flowers come up again every spring that we used to gather with our tiny fingers as we sat lisping to ourselves on the grass, the same hips and haws on the autumn hedgerows, the same redbreasts that we used to call "God’s birds" because they did no harm to the precious crops. What novelty is worth that sweet monotony where everything is known and loved because it is known?
Mrs. Tulliver, as we have seen, was not without influence over her husband. No woman is; she can always incline him to do either what she wishes, or the reverse....
Last line
The tomb bore the names of Tom and Maggie Tulliver, and below their names it was written,— "In their death they were not divided.".
CRITIQUE | THE TEXT | AT THE MOVIES
