THe Mill on the Floss

[Wilfred]

I have finished reading this book for the forty second time, and have closley analyzed the characters and their relationships with one another and their enviornment. I have come to the conclusion that the relationship between Maggie Tulliver and her brother Tom Tulliver seems to be unreasonable. Maggie loves her brother Tom to a fault, which would be her tragic flaw. I find this a sad thing since Tom most certaintly does not love Maggie as much as Maggie loves Tom. However, it was best int he end when Maggie died. Death was the only answer for her sorrows in her life.

[I hate Jane Austen]

I agree with Wilfred. Death is the only answer to the sorrows in her life, although I think "drowning" was a shallow and unimaginative conclusion. I have always had the strong conviction that this was a death caused by a flood of emotional turmoil. It was as though Tom's final embrace of brotherly love was so tramatic and so intense that her fragile soul succumbed and departed leaving her physical body to be crushed in the strong currents of the Floss.