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Archived Group Reads - 2017
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Mill on the Floss: Part Five (June 11 - 17)
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Piyangie wrote: "Maggie and Philip meets; they fall in love."I read this part very differently. Philip loves Maggie--that is indisputable. I feel very strongly that Maggie does not love Philip in a romantic way. This went quite over my head when I first read this book 10 years ago. Now that I re-read it, after 10 more years of life on this planet, it is laid out with an incredible degree of psychological nuance.
On their first meeting, Philip walks away with the following observation: There was not the slightest promise of love towards him in her manner; it was nothing more than the sweet girlish tenderness she had shown him when she was twelve.
One year later, after Philip professes his love and begs it of Maggie, here is what's going on in her mind: ...anxious lest she should unintentionally [leave] some painful impression on Philip's mind. It was one of those dangerous moments when speech is at once sincere and deceptive--when feeling, rising high above its average depth, leaves flood-marks which are never reached again. I highlighted the sentence as it struck me with the force of a thousand thunderbolts: This is what is feels to really want to love someone to whom one can't really object and to whom one feels a close friendship--but whom one doesn't actually love.
Tom finds out and is irate. Maggie, rather than saying "I love him", simply says, "I told him that I loved him too."
Finally, when Tom forces the break up, George Eliot remarks with delicious irony: ...how was it that she was now and then conscious of a certain dim background of relief in the forced separation from Philip? Surely it was only because the sense of a deliverance from concealment was welcome at any cost.
What struck me after reading Part V is this--and I really want to celebrate it: This is the first time I've ever read of a loving girl rejecting a lover--not because he's a comical buffoon like Mr. Collins, not because she misunderstood him (as Lizzy Bennett does Mr. Darcy), not because of some misguided persuasion (as Anne Elliot does Captain Wentworth)--but because he's just not what her heart is after. This is the prototypical friend zone, portrayed from the girl's perspective with all the emotional turmoils it causes her. I'm hard pressed to even think of a chickflick movie that portrays this in so honest and realistic a light.
Mod
Interesting take.
Would you see a parallel with Anne Shirley of "Anne of Green Gables" (well, I am sure it is on one of the sequels), when she rejects Gilbert's first proposal because she is not ready?
Mod
"'Yes, Maggie,' said Philip vehemently, 'and you are shutting yourself up in a narrow self-delusive fanaticism which is only a way of escaping pain by starving into dullness all the highest powers of your nature. Joy and peace are not resignation: resignation is the willing endurance of a pain that is not allayed - that you don't expect to be allayed. Stupefaction is not resignation: and it is stupefaction to remain in ignorance - to shut up all avenues by which life of your fellow-men might become known to you. I am not resigned: I am not sure that life is long enough to learn that lesson. You are not resigned: you are only trying to stupefy yourself.'"Later she replies,
"I was never satisfied with a little of anything. That is why it is better for me to do without earthly happiness altogether."Maggie is a Tulliver, and just like her brother when he makes up his mind about something he will never relent, neither will she.
Kerstin wrote: Would you see a parallel with Anne Shirley of "Anne of Green Gables" (well, I am sure it is on one of the sequels), when she rejects Gilbert's first proposal because she is not ready?I've only read the first book of the series so can't really say! I recalled there being some chemistry between the two in Book I already--they liked each other, but just didn't know it yet. And didn't Anne finally end up with Gilbert?
I don't see Maggie ending up with Philip, unless it were in a she-got-her-heart-broken-by-another-and-"settled"-with-him like Of Human Bondage--although now that I think of it, the protagonist in Of Human Bondage ended up with a new girl rather than going back to the old flame who loved him and understood him but whom he didn't love romantically!
Mod
Philip on the other hand was much sure of his love for Maggie as he was wiser and mature to exactly know his feelings. And I would agree that his love for her was more romantical than her love for him.
I agree, Piyangie, I felt that Maggie had been so starved for love all her life that when someone came along and offered her love as well as friendship and a shared love of books and ideas she returned that love. I am glad that she has Philip to talk her out of settling for her ascetic and impoverished life. I find it sad that no one can accept (perhaps not even the author) that an apparently smart, kind and well-to-do young man who was not physically perfect could ever hope to win the love of a young woman. Philip's love seems true and generous, I would hope that he could find love.
Mod
I read this part very differently. Philip loves Maggie--that is indisputable. I feel very strongly that Maggie does not love Philip in a romantic way..."
I agree; her love is more of a sisterly/dear friend nature.
I love how you described his place in the prototypical friend zone! I think she loves him enough that she is willing to marry him if it ever becomes possible, but mainly to avoid hurting him. She tells him, "I should like never to part: I should like to make your life very happy." . . . Maggie smiled, with glistening tears, and then stooped her tall head to kiss the pale face that was full of pleading, timid love--like a woman's. She had a moment of real happiness then--a moment of belief that, if there were sacrifice in this love, it was all the richer and more satisfying," (333). I'm not really sure what Eliot is saying about Philip with this passage--that he is weak? Unworthy of Maggie? It's clear, though, that Maggie's lingering ascetic habits are part of the reason she has accepted the possibility of this match. This match would require her to sacrifice herself for the happiness of her dearly-loved and only friend, and possibly bring the two warring families together.
Mod
Throughout I got the opposite impression, Philip is too good for Maggie.
The Greeks distinguished between four types of love.
1) eros - physical love
2) sorge - family love
3) philia - brotherly love
4) agape - selfless love
Agape is considered the highest form of love, as you will the good of the other as other without expecting anything in return. Of course there is the reciprocal component where one becomes the recipient.
When Maggie declares she would like to make Philip happy she reciprocates his love in a stronger fashion than usual, and I think he is just cautious. He knows her too well. Eliot states correctly that Maggie had a "moment of real happiness then," because this is what agape does.
Another factor plays into this. Maggie's asceticism not only shuts out the world around her, she doesn't share herself either. In other passages he tries to draw her out of her selfish cocoon, and in this moment she actually opens up enough to do so. And the result: it makes her happy.
Philip's dilemma is not only the complicated family relations, but that Maggie doesn't trust herself enough to give of herself, to love.
Mod
I agree. I do think Maggie loves Philip, and her love is a pure and selfless love--I just don't think it's romantic. She loves him dearly and doesn't want to hurt him, which is why she feels relieved when the decision is taken out of her hands. I've never read this before so I have no idea whether they actually end up together, but at the moment, I still just get a sisterly vibe from her. She would be perfectly content to spend her life with him as a companion, but there is no attraction there. With Anne and Gilbert, there were always sparks flying, even though she did turn him down at first.
I do think Philip is a good man, but I just found Eliot's unflattering presentation of him at that moment rather odd. I think her sentence construction, tacking that last descriptive phrase on, setting it apart with a dash, is curious. Why compare him to a woman, and in what seems to be a negative connotation? She has said before that Philip is "by nature half feminine in sensitiveness, (328), which, to me, is a good thing, but when she compares him to a woman here, it does not come across as a compliment.
Eliot says goodness "was present in Philip in much strength," but that goodness needs "time to triumph; and it has rarely had time for that at two-and-twenty," (328), which says to me that he is a good person, but is also still young and can be selfish and impulsive like all young people. He's better than Maggie in many worldly ways, such as wealth, social status, and education. I don't think he's necessarily more intelligent than her, or has a better character. Eliot makes it clear that while his persuasion of Maggie to abandon her ascetic habits is beneficial for her, it is also clearly fueled by self-interest. Maggie has proven to be able to rise above self-interest, so she may have him beaten in the character department. ;)
I agree with you 100% Cindy. The quote you picked out really struck me at the time too. A "pleading, timid love"--whereas Maggie is frequently compared to the river which is anything but pleading and timid.I am fascinated, Kerstin, by your Greek love. Thank you for bring that piece of knowledge up. I can see how Maggie's love for Philip is more Agape. A thought I had, in pursuing that train, is: Does George Eliot agree with the Greeks that Agape is the highest form of Love? I'm thinking of Dorothea and her decisions in the second half of Middlemarch. It seems that Eros is just as important to her at the end.
I usually dislike autobiographical reads of books, but can't help doing that for this clearly autobiographical novel. There's clearly a strain of Eros in George Eliot's own life: hard to stick her marrying John Cross--20 years her junior and not an intellectual heavyweight from what I can tell--within 2 years of George Lewe's death to intellectual aspirations or Agape, in my mind.
Mod
Does George Eliot agree with the Greeks that Agape is the highest form of Love?
That's a great question! I am speculating "no." Wouldn't she have respected Lewe's marriage vows - regardless of his position - and not entered into an adulterous relationship? One always wonders how an author's personal experiences and outlooks influence the work. With Maggie she created a character who "was never satisfied with a little of anything." I don't think Maggie would have been satisfied one way or another, even if she'd been given all she wanted, because she was not at peace with herself.
One of my lasting impressions of Middlemarch was with all the couples Eliot introduces, there is not one that has a truly functioning marriage.
Kerstin wrote: "I am speculating "no." Wouldn't she have respected Lewe's marriage vows - regardless of his position - and not entered into an adulterous relationship?."Agreed. I love her for that--but it's not exactly selfless love no matter which way you slice it =)
Kerstin wrote: "One of my lasting impressions of Middlemarch was with all the couples Eliot introduces, there is not one that has a truly functioning marriage. "
Harsh! Although I get what you're saying. (view spoiler)
Fascinating discussion. Although I'm not sure I agree completely with the Greek divisions of love, I think there are definitely different kinds of love. I think, and I think most of us think, that Maggie had/has some form of strong affection for Philip that it wouldn't be wrong to call love. For me, it isn't romantic/sensual love that raises thoughts of marriage, but something other than that. I see in it partly gratitude for the attention Philip paid for her at Lorton and partly sympathy for the wounded such as my granddaughter feels for the birds who stun themselves on the windows. But whatever its elements, I think it's fair to call it love, but something less than Love.
Mod
Come to think of it, I've mostly encountered these designations in Catholic apologetics. They are usually mentioned to underscore Christ's complete and self-less love - agape - for us.
Mod
I agree with you completely, Everyman. Maggie's love for Philip is not romantic or sensual. But it is a love based on a sense of strong affection and sympathy. As you have said, there are different kinds of love and it is fair to say that Maggie did love Philip.
Perhaps the best description would be (to quote you) "it's fair to call it love, but something less than love".
Mod
Does George Eliot agree with the Greeks that Agape is the highest form of Love?
That's a great question! I am speculating "no." Wouldn't she have respected Lewe's marriage vows..."
A good point you have raised here Kerstin. Through out the book, I was wondering what exactly Maggie was looking for; what would make her happy and content. And the answer is nothing would, as Maggie was (to quote you) "not at peace with herself". From what I have read about the author, I felt she too was troubled by this same characteristic.
Piyangie wrote: "Through out the book, I was wondering what exactly Maggie was looking for; what would make her happy and content. And the answer is nothing would..."I've been pondering this, and I tend not to agree. I think that if Tom would come to love and support her in her relationship with Philip and respect her intelligence, and if she had a role in her life that gave her purpose and an outlet for her affection and intelligence, she could be happy. There is intelligence and soul in her, but she doesn't have the resources by herself to realize them.
Mod
I've been pondering this, and..."
I don't know if I can totally agree with you but you have a valid point here. I would like to place a question to raise a discussion on this point you have made here in the next thread if you would allow me.
Mod
That's a lot of "what ifs." :)
But I get what you are saying. Maggie hasn't been nurtured and supported for the person she is. But then, nobody really is in the novel, safe perhaps of Philip. It is more of a hit and miss as to whether or not you have the temperament to fulfill your role. Lucy seems quite happy where she is, and I don't get the sense she is missing something.
Mod
That was one thought that did cross my mind.
Mod
Some questions to consider:
1) Maggie continues her resigned life. Is she successful?
2) What happens when Maggie and Philip meet?
3) How does Tom improve on Tulliver family position?
4) What secret Tom finds?
5) How does this secret affect the relationship between Tom and Maggie?
6) What triumph and loss Tulliver family go through?