Mill on the floss novel5/28/2023 ![]() ![]() Maggie is lulled by the river and the sleepy, romantic atmosphere it produces. (6.13.33) But the river always carries a darker edge with it. The river is often a place of romance, dreams, and even magic, particularly for Maggie and Stephen: They glided rapidly along, to Stephen’s rowing, helped by the backward-flowing tide on between the silent, sunny fields and pastures thought did not belong to that enchanted haze in which they were enveloped - it belonged to the past and the future that lay outside the haze. But water isn’t just a bringer of death and doom and destruction and other "d" words. Tulliver is always complaining that Maggie is going to fall in the river and drown one day. We often hear about water in direct relation to the Tulliver kids, which is sort of morbidly appropriate given the way they die. In fact, water and flood imagery is found throughout the novel, and the river itself is practically a character. ![]() ![]() Given the ending of this novel, it’s not really surprising that water and floods are an important symbol. ![]()
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