? Reading Experience: Maggie Tulliver’s Confrontation with Victorian Patriarchy in The Mill on the Floss I. Introduction Maggie Tulliver, heroine of George Eliot’s celebrated novel The Mill on the Floss, is portrayed not only as a passionate and loving girl, but also as a non-conforming individual. She struggles to rebel against stifling social conventions, but falls victim to her tragic experiences of a ruined family, the maligned reputation and the eventual drowning. From girlhood to womanhood, she is faced with different kinds of patriarchal oppression: as a girl, she has to put up with ladies’ behavioral codes imposed upon her mainly by her mother and maternal aunts, while as a woman she is more troubled by her father’s ill-judged hatred for lawyer Wakem. Different from a significant number of modern critics who tend to view Maggie as a victim to her excessive passion or to the stifling social environment around her, this thesis considers Maggie as a rebel instead of a passive victim, who struggles against Victorian patriarchy. Instead of submitting to the requirements for a Victorian lady, she strives to break through her limited social role and actively participate in the male-dominated world in various ways, one of which is book reading. This activity lasts from her childhood to her womanhood, representing her confrontation with Victorian patriarchy on the spiritual level. In her childhood readings, she attempts to win admiration by asserting her quick-wittedness that is no inferior to her male counterparts; later, as she enters her trouble-inflicted womanhood, she seeks spiritual guidance by reading Christian doctrines or the books lent by Philip, so as to free herself from the constraints of patriarchy and family narrow-mindedness. This thesis analyzes Maggie’s reading experience, to examine how it changes over her spiritual “Bildung” and how it reflects her confrontation with patriarchal values. This thesis observes that although reading marks her departure from conventional expectations of the female role, it nevertheless has manifest limitations, rendering her struggles fruitless, if not totally meaningless. Her remarkable achievement in book learning proves that she is by no means inferior to men in terms of intellectual genius, but she is constantly frustrated in her attempt to win approval from her brother Tom and the elder generation. Also, while book reading gives her a sense of triumph about her understanding of masculine wisdom, she eventually fails in her search for spiritual guidance during her intense emotional struggle. The disappointing outcome of her reading experience shows a lamentable limitation of choices for Victorian women whose nature is discordant with social expectations. II. Literature Review A. Maggie’s predicaments and struggles in the context of Victorian patriarchy Although not much is said directly about Maggie’s reading experience, there are abundant scholarly discussions concerning certain related issues, such as Maggie’s intense emotional suffering caused by patriarchal suppression and her extreme self-denial under the influence of Christian-feminine doctrines. It is observed by a significant number of critics that Maggie suffers immensely from a dearth of familial affection because of her unladylike behavior. As Eva Fuchs observes in her article “‘The Pattern’s All Missed’: Separation/Individuation in The Mill on the Floss”, “[Maggie] has endured her mother's long-standing rejection”, and as a result, “Maggie transfers to Tom much of the libidinal need which has been left unfulfilled in her relationship to her mother” (Fuchs 424). Furthermore, as Kelly Winters points out in her “Critical Essay”, few people around Maggie provide her with unconditional affection, with a few insignificant exceptions such as Bob Jakin, Philip and Lucy: “there is almost no one in the world who loves Maggie as she is, rambunctious behavior, intelligence, and all; everyone around her is constantly trying to mold her and withdrawing from her when they are unable to do so” (Winters). Some critics even go so far as to adopt a Lacanian reading of Maggie’s strong attachment to Tom, seeing it as a sign of her “Oedipus Complex”. In the light of this Lacanian perspective, Maggie unconsciously regards Tom as a substitute role on both maternal and fraternal sides, and shows submission to and rebellion against his authority as a “symbolic father”, as Ranjini Philip observes in his “Maggie, Tom and Oedipus” (Philip 35). These psychoanalytical readings are no doubt valid and profound, but they largely focus on Maggie’s emotional response to the lack of unconditional love rather than her active pursuit of its solutions. As this thesis will point out, Maggie’s intellectual pursuits, especially those during the early phase of her family misfortunes, are her way of seeking spiritual guidance that can help her face the cruel, loveless r