A study of characterisation in the novels of George Eliot

imagery. Similarly, she was concerned
the proble:! of adaptation;
this concern is most manifest in Th~ 'iIi: .2£ ~ Flo.:~ and her trE.atment
of Tom and especially Maggie Tulliver. ~~~en...ry
James may have felt that
"Middlemarch is too often an echo of llessrs. Darvr.in r,nd Huxley" 43 but
The Millon the Floss is rich in animal imagery and ecological analogues,
and contains in addition the basic theffi of a~~ptation to environment.
With her passionate, sensitive nat1"li~e,
Maggie cor;,es into collision
ruth a resistant, unfavourable environment. If she were to adapt herself
to the demands of this environment she would lose he?:' moral super;.ority,
which would be a tragedy; on the other l:'>.and, her faL,ure to adapt oauses
her untold suffering and only the converient flood s::,ve's her from a lifetime
of isolation and rejection, which '.,ould h~we be~n another ld.::;d of
tragedy. Maggie quite definitely does not belong in~~er
environment, and
she herself is aware of this. Her abort5.ve attempt t) live with the
gypsies is described ironically as the "only way!! sr.'~
could devis,:; "of
escaping opprobrium, and being entirely in harmony Y' .th circumstances. 1\
44-
Her early childhood is shown as one COL3tant battle 0 be acoeptetl; her
hair, her complexion, her impulsivenese;) her dreamix18-s are all'r:;garded
by her mother and her Dodson aunts and uncles as un6~sirable.
Eve-::l her
intelligence is suspect and she is utts::,ly mortifieC when Mr SterLing,
Tom's tutor, describes girls' intellig;;we as IIguicl and shallow." 45
On the one level _Th_e @l _o~_n
t_h_e ~]