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Gender Tragedy In George Eliot's "Mill On The Floss", Elizabeth Anne Nielsen

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

This thesis centers around the gender roles present during the Victorian era and how George Eliot examined these roles in Mill on the Floss. She did so through her representations of Tom and Maggie Tulliver and by examining how each of these characters deal with the respective roles for his or her gender while living during the Victorian age. Tom strictly follows the imposed roles for his gender, while Maggie refuses to live within the social boundaries set for her own. The societal restrictions and how each deals with them is symbolically represented in their physical descriptions as well. Each …