The Mill on the Floss: A Girl’s Drowned Dream
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The Mill on the Floss, George Eliot’ novel of 1860, traces the process by which a girl with rich potential meets a tragic end, caught in a circumscribed society and denied the opportunity of education and self-realization. The present thesis is intended to elucidate female education as represented in the novel, focusing on the ways in which the heroine’s identity and behaviour are shaped by the institutions of family, school and society. Maggie’s caliber puts her at odds with the social codes of her community. Her survival depends on whether she could come to terms with them to accommodate herself within the community. But she fails. The social forces, in conjunction with her internalized values, compel her to take self-denial, the moral choice which leads to an impasse from which she is only delivered by an untimely death. The catastrophic ending can thus be construed as a protest against the restrictions imposed upon women. In sum, the novel presents a critique of the social system which accords no space for women. It makes a sociological inquiry into the defeat of the heroine and the condition of women at large and discloses the ways in which female education―its institution, practices and conventions―functions as a key mechanism which hinders women from attaining a morally and socially fulfilled existence.
Abstract
The Mill on the Floss, George Eliot’ novel of 1860, traces the process by which a girl with rich potential meets a tragic end, caught in a circumscribed society and denied the opportunity of education and self-realization. The present thesis is intended to elucidate female education as represented in the novel, focusing on the ways in which the heroine’s identity and behaviour are shaped by the institutions of family, school and society. Maggie’s caliber puts her at odds with the social codes of her community. Her survival depends on whether she could come to terms with them to accommodate herself within the community. But she fails. The social forces, in conjunction with her internalized values, compel her to take self-denial, the moral choice which leads to an impasse from which she is only delivered by an untimely death. The catastrophic ending can thus be construed as a protest against the restrictions imposed upon women. In sum, the novel presents a critique of the social system which accords no space for women. It makes a sociological inquiry into the defeat of the heroine and the condition of women at large and discloses the ways in which female education―its institution, practices and conventions―functions as a key mechanism which hinders women from attaining a morally and socially fulfilled existence.
참고문헌 (22)
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