Currently Reading (Apr 2011): The Mill on the Floss by Eliott

The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot

I'm reading this, my third Victorian literature, as part of the KC Public Library's 'A Taste of Victorian Literature' reading group. I'll be reading this throughout the month of April 2011 and will join the group at the Plaza Branch on Wednesday, April 27, 2011 at 6:30 p.m. for a lecture and discussion.

The following were provided in handouts from the Kansas City Public Library, emailed to the participants in the reading group.

About the Book:

The title of this novel is a succinct description of both the setting and the chief external conflict: the Dorlcote Mill located on the River Floss, which is operated by the Tulliver family. The business creates conflict within the family as Mr. Tulliver sends his doltish son Tom for schooling (in preparation to run the mill) rather than his bright and bookish daughter Maggie. After a lawsuit threatens to bankrupt him, Mr. Tulliver asks his son to swear an oath of enmity on the family Bible – an oath that soon changes Maggie’s life as well.

The nuanced relationship between Tom and Maggie is the novel’s foremost concern as the siblings unintentionally create a snowballing series of tragedies. Meanwhile, Eliot applies a keen moral sense to all her characters. Few are left unscathed.

The Mill on the Floss presents one of the finest portraits of domestic life in the early Victorian era, offering readers insights into the rituals of meals as well as the procurement and preparation of food. Eliot’s acute eye for village life also manifests in colloquial dialogue.

A true Victorian novel given its time period, The Mill on the Floss is also a distinctly modern novel in that Eliot gives all the characters true minds of their own: psychology trumps plot and narrative convenience and even reader expectation.

About the Author:

George Eliot (1819 – 1880) took up her career as a novelist later than most. Named Mary Ann Evans, she grew up in a modest home and attended school under the influence of an evangelical spinster. She left school as a teenager in order to care for her father, who would be her near constant companion for the next 15 years until his death. During this time, she struggled with her own concept of moral duty as well as religious notions that nearly compelled her to forsake reading for pleasure.

At 35, Eliot fell in love with George Henry Lewes, a married man prevented by Victorian law from obtaining a divorce from his wife despite her infidelity, which produced four children. Rejecting respectability and social custom, Eliot lived with Lewes as his unmarried wife. This happy union proved the catalyst for Eliot to take up the pen.

Eliot published her first novel Adam Bede in 1859, adopting at that time the convention of female authors taking male pseudonyms. Widely hailed by critics and the public alike, only Charles Dickens immediately identified this debut author as an incredibly talented woman. The Mill on the Floss (1860), her second novel, proved part autobiographical in its depiction of a close brother-sister relationship.

Eliot wrote several more important novels: Silas Marner (1861), Romola (1862), Felix Holt (1866), Middlemarch (1871), and Daniel Deronda (1876). She passed away in 1880, two years after Lewes died.

In her time, Eliot was known as the greatest living English novelist. She is praised for her focus on the psychology of her characters as well as the moral force of her fiction and its intelligence. Virginia Woolf would later defend Eliot against disparaging attacks by declaring Middlemarch as “one of the few English novels written for grown-up people.”

Discussion Topics for The Mill on the Floss

1. Childhood and falling in love are two main themes of Mill on the Floss. How do the provincial values and customs of St. Ogg’s stunt the main characters’ growth and frustrate their romantic relationships?
2. Eliot believed that the art of fiction told truths of its own, through invention. What truths about life does Mill on the Floss get at? Which of these truths might be considered timeless?
3. The word “respectable” comes up repeatedly in this novel. What does it mean, within the context of early Victorian society?
4. What do we learn in this novel regarding Victorian attitudes towards children? What role does class play in these attitudes?
5. Water is the novel’s most important motif or recurring symbol. How does Eliot use water to foreshadow the plot, to highlight certain themes? What does water symbolize?
6. Who is the narrator? What role does this narrator play?
7. What is the importance of family in this novel? In Victorian society at large?

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Book Review, Lecture and Discussion: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I skimmed through this prior to attending the lecture and discussion sponsored by the Kansas City Public Library as the second of four novels in their 'A Taste of Victorian Literature' series. For a full report on the event, please visit my blog post entitled 'Charlotte Bronte Burns Through the Cool Veil of Jane Eyre' (warning: it's four pages long, so don't forget to click through to the rest of the post when you reach the bottom of a page).


Visit my review from May 2009 for my thoughts, insights and first impressions into Jane Eyre.

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Toasting (or Roasting) Fanny Price

Last year, the Kansas City Public Library, through the Waldo Branch, embarked on a journey through 19th century literature with an adult reading program entitled 'A Taste of Victorian Literature.' I could only attend one of the group sessions last fall, the first one, on D.H. Lawrence's novel The Rainbow. To my relief, the Library provided an encore this spring, hosted by the Plaza Branch (conveniently located on the first floor of the building my employer resides in) and I happily attended last night's lecture and discussion led by Andrea Broomfield, Associate Professor of English at Johnson County Community College.

I received my reading guide for Mansfield Park by Jane Austen via electronic mail on Monday, Valentine's Day, February 14, 2011. The guide included a few brief paragraphs about the book and Ms. Austen (about half a page for each). Never having read an Austen novel, and being at least half finished with it by the time I received the guide, imagine my chagrin when I learned Mansfield Park is sometimes referred to as Austen's 'problem novel.'

However, I had no qualms while reading the novel, expecting a slower pacing when compared to 20th or 21st century literature. I appreciated the circumstances surrounding of Fanny's life, family and friends, as presented by the author. Austen's third novel falls under a broader definition of Victorian Literature; to me it's a precursor to that era, a transition from the Regency era, and more pleasantly readable prose than later Victorian didactic sledgehammer-esque efforts. The guide also included a brief biography of Jane Austen (1775- 1817), stating she wrote as she lived, with nuance and realism.

I arrived fifteen minutes early to the Plaza Branch, seeking directions to the appropriate gathering place, in the 'large' meeting room between the non-fiction section and the children's area. By 6:30 p.m., I was one of a packed room of thirty people, all of them female with the exception of one besieged stalwart male who participated graciously and gallantly. I should have spoken up in his support; first, because, while female myself, I suffer under the auspices of a gender-confusing name (yes, it's pronounced just like "John" not some strangely misspelled "Joan") and, second, because I rarely ever read anything of a romantic nature, unless it happens to slip in as a subplot to an epic fantasy, space opera or science fiction novel.



Andrea Broomfield began her lecture (complete with dimmed lights and a PowerPoint), of which I will briefly recap from my illegibly scribbled notes. First question up for discussion involved why Mansfield Park would be considered a Victorian novel. Queen Victoria ascended to the throne in June of 1837, twenty years after the death of Jane Austen. Yet transformations to society began prior to the 1830s, burgeoning in the late 18th century, during the life of Jane Austen and as expressed in Mansfield Park's internal chronology (roughly thirty years spanning 1783 to 1813). Professor Broomfield related that Punch magazine actually coined the phrase "Victorian" sometime in the 1840s.

The time span encompassing the reign of Queen Victoria, from 1837 to her death in 1901, provides a frame of reference to discuss the impact of industrialization on society. Industrialization transformed the existing land and power structures and encouraged the rise of the middle class as society transitioned from an agrarian based (i.e. cottage industries) economy to an industrialized one. The Evangelical movement within the Church of England helped to abolish slavery and became the foundation for promoting what we now refer to as Middle Class Values (more on that later).

But who are the Middle Class? They are well educated (engineers, accountants, lawyers, professors, bankers, merchants, etc.) and well paid, but non-aristocratic in origin. This fostered unrest, as only the aristocracy (those who owned land) were allowed to vote, and essentially a small group of people (approximately 5,000 families) controlled the government and the church. With such examples as the American and French Revolutions to fuel the fire, the established gentry felt threatened by the burgeoning wealthy middle class, who, in turn, began to demand a voice in their destinies.

Queen Victoria not only accepted middle class values, she championed them, including piety, sobriety, morality, monogamy, hard work. At this point, I should have spoken up, because I saw a parallel hear between middle class values and Wesley's Methodist Means of Grace. Mary Crawford scathingly referenced Methodism when she showed her true colors to Edmund's unveiled eyes late in the novel. Austen, a village parson's daughter, should have been aware of her contemporary, John Wesley (1703 - 1791), even though he died while she was but a teen.

Professor Broomfield continued with a bit of history around the time Mansfield Park was written and published (1813-4), often referred to as the Regency era, or the period when King George III went mad and his young son ruled as Prince Regent. A dominance of aristocratic values are portrayed in Austen's characters of Mr. Yates (idleness), Mr. Rushworth (waste of money/resources), Maria Bertram (laziness) and Henry Crawford (flirtation). The only obligation the aristocracy had was to maintain the status quo, which meant siring a male heir to secure the land for the next generation. Thus, they did as they pleased and set their own standards of conduct. The rest of society, the working class and rising middle class, viewed the aristocracy with contempt, as corrupted and completely depraved.

One of the slides from Professor Broomfield's presentation displayed Austen's home at the Steventon rectory, exemplifying the typical middle class modest home with divided rooms (in contrast, the working class often lived, dined and slept in a single or at most two room homes). The Reform Act of 1832 let off the steam of the bubbling boiling uneasy middle class, averting bloody revolution by changing the electoral system of England and Wales.

The crucible of Austen's life and times included the rise of evangelicism, the abolition of slavery (see William Wilberforce for more information), the ascendancy of the British Navy and the accentuating of class differences. Professor Bloomfield gave an apt illustration of those differences using poetry as her example. Poetry (and poets) comprised an 'elite' art form, reserved for the aristocracy. Yet an educated middle class yearned for entertainment of a more accessible flavor, creating a void for literature that authors like Austen eagerly filled. Victorians are idealistic, always in earnest, convinced they can solve all the world's problems and most assuredly not cynical.

With less than thirty minutes left for our five discussion questions, Professor Broomfield opened up the floor with the following:

1. If you have read other Austen novels, then you likely see some differences between Mansfield Park and Austen's other works. What are those differences? Why might critics consider this novel to be the most 'Victorian' of Austen's novels, even though the novel was published before Victoria became Queen of England?
2. Mansfield Park is considered a 'Condition of England' novel. In these types of novels, the author uses fiction as a means to critique the culture around her/him. What aspects of English culture come under Austen's scrutiny? How does Austen use her main characters -- the Crawfords, the Bertrams, Fanny and William, Mr. Rushworth and Mrs. Norris -- to comment on what people should and should not value?
3. Do you find Fanny to be a likable heroine? Do you find Edmund to be a likable hero? Why or why not?
4. What is the purpose of the attempted play at Mansfield Park, both before and after it is aborted?
5. Consider any dramatized versions you have seen of Mansfield Park and how they differ from the actual Austen novel. Are the plot, narrative voice, and characters of Mansfield Park simply too old-fashioned or outmoded for a contemporary audience's sensibilities?

We only managed to tackle three of these questions. In response to the first question, comments included a feeling that Austen was just coming into her voice, a more mature voice as compared to her other more popular titles. Fanny's reticence and control upheld and exemplified.

With respect to the second 'Condition of England' novel question, the disparity between rich and poor as seen through Austen's characters in Mansfield Park began with Mr. Rushworth, described as a 'rich boob' or a 'buffoon,' a terrifying thought since his like were ruling England, the figure of a man with little or no substance. Many readers enjoyed Mary Crawford, despite her faults: wanting to marry for money, position, privilege, power; self-absorption.

This led to a discussion of the philosophical debate contemporaneous to Austen's times on why people marry. Fanny (as well as Austen) believed marriage should be made for love while Mary Crawford stood for opportunistic marrying for position. Edmund wants to blame her upbringing as a rational explanation for Mary's lack of a moral compass. Mary epitomized the 'Old England' while Fanny portrayed the 'New England' as it 'should be.'

Austen uses her characters to force her readers to think and her novels always have an economic component to them; jockeying for position, especially among the women. Professor Broomfield took a few minutes to read Edmund's dialogue on pp. 424-6 of the Penguin Classics edition, where Austen attempts to teach us why we should like Mary. Mary is telling Edmund that if Fanny had married Henry, none of the scandal would have happened. Edmund realizes he fell in love with an imaginary Mary. Mary's sarcasm and cynicism clashes with Victorian ideals, and appears to us (in the 21st century) as a very modern attitude. Edmund, blinded to Mary's un-virtues for much of the novel, is now disgusted by her, yet he is always sincere. Fanny, poor neglected and ignored Fanny, might as well have been an orphan, curtailed by her ambiguous class position throughout most of the novel. In contrast to the pale, wispy Fanny, Marilyn Flugum-James, seated next to Julienne Gehrer (a representative of the local Jane Austen Society), likened Mrs. Norris and Mary Crawford to 'bright colors on the canvas of this novel.'

With only five minutes left, Professor Broomfield quickly skipped to the final question about any dramatizations we may have seen of Mansfield Park. I vaguely remember watching the much maligned 1999 film version, but only remember it as a period murder mystery (so perhaps I need to re-visit that film now). Many readers touted the 1980s era Masterpiece Theatre mini-series. The A&E version was also mentioned, but not as highly regarded.

And thus ended my second evening foray into the 19th century literature I managed to avoid both in high school and college (engineering and mathematics not lending studying time to the finer arts). I had a very enjoyable evening and look forward to next month's discussion of Jane Eyre, published in 1847 by Charlotte Brontë under a masculine pen name. Professor Broomfield posed these questions in closing to ponder as we read (or re-read) Jane Eyre:

• What makes this novel radical (when published, it created a huge scandal)? 
• What makes it Victorian?

I read Jane Eyre last year, not for this group, but rather as a prerequisite to reading Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair. Ironically, Mr. Fforde headlines the signature event for the other winter adult reading program sponsored by the Kansas City Public Library on Thursday, March 17th. Look for a future blog post on my progress through some of the Altered States suggested readings.