Familial Connections In Helen Edmundson's The Mill On The Floss

Tom: Tom is the most important character, yet he is not a flawless figure. Tom is irritated and annoyed easily, impatient and ignorant. His anger is clearly displayed in scenes with Gwen who expresses illiterate and disrespectful comments towards Tom’s family. Tom develops to acquire his own appealing death, during the course of the play. He has been hesitant to speak about his death, as he ignores Meg’s attempt to begin a conversation on the matter: “Are you afraid? / You coming to the concert tonight?”. Gow signifies Tom’s acceptance by giving him King Lear’s lines about crawling towards death.

Maggie feels terribly unloved in her marriage with Brick. Because of her unfulfilling marriage with Brick, she seeks affection and attention with someone close to Brick. In addition, when Mae interrupts Maggie and Brick from conversing by talking about her own children and how adorable they are, Maggie says, “why did y’give dawgs names to all your kiddies... sounds like four dogs and a parrot”(29). Maggie has a grudge Mae because she has many children with Gooper. Maggie feels insecure about having children, so she mocks Mae and her offspring to reassure herself and make her self feel better. Margaret has a dreadful relationship with Brick and also with Mae and her kids.

Her actions are caused by the mixture of genuine love towards Brick and the desire to ensure her own future. There is a threat that if Brick does not stop drinking, he will not inherit Big Daddy's property. Maggie lived in poverty most of her life and she is not willing to give up the fortune. Her catty attitude grants her success at the end of the play, and although she lies about being pregnant in order to obtain the plantation, it is hard not to sympathize with her. Even Williams himself wrote in the explanatory note to the play that she “had become steadily more charming to me as [he] worked on her characterization” (1976: 106). She constantly feels “like a cat on a hot tin roof” (Williams, 1976: 31), but she refuses to leave it, for she believes that the victory is “just staying on it (…) as long as she can” (Ibid., 26). Her determination may also stem from her understanding of Brick's emotions. He has rejected her so she knows exactly how it feels to lose the love of one's life. Still she is desperate to persevere, because “life has got to be allowed to continue even after the dream of love is all over” (Ibid., 42). She is the complete opposite of her husband. In spite of being undoubtedly miserable, she fights against the odds to provide for them both. She is fully aware that if they were left without the plantation, they would be doomed. And, unlike Brick, she still

On the first day of school Nash (who is gay) sees a new guy on the school bus and points him out to Maggie. Nash calls “dibs” over the new guy, Tom, which in their friendship would mean that he would “get” the thing without fighting over it. But in this case even though Nash called “dibs” Maggie struggles with letting him “have” Tom to himself. Maggie lets Nash have dibs on Tom at first because she thinks Tom wouldn’t like her anyway cense she is overweight. However, she can’t stop thinking about how much she likes him and also wonders if Tom might not like

Maggie comes from a very strained family life, living in poverty. She lives in a horrific tenement in the Bowery neighborhood of New York’s Lower East Side, with her two younger brothers, Jimmie and Tommie. Jimmie is hardened against any sympathy due to the years he spent on the streets fighting with gangs and is currently working as a truck driver. Tommie was the infant of the family who passed away at a young age. The tenement is filled with argumentative feelings amongst her parents. Mary Johnson, Maggie’s mother, is an alcoholic and very aggressive. She has been noted for torturing Maggie with hateful words over actions that she has done. Mr. Johnson, the father, was also very aggressive with his children and an alcoholic like his wife, he too passed away. Maggie had a relationship with a friend of

I read the Realistic Fiction novel, Faithful by Janet Fox. The book is told from the point of view of 3rd person. It uses pronouns like, he, she, they, it, etc. I think it’s from 3rd person omniscient because, the narrator knows the thoughts and feelings of all the characters

As the play opens, the reader is led to believe that Maggie is mistreated and verbally abused by Brick. Although she is beautiful and states that she wants relations with Brick, he tells her he no longer loves her and to “take a lover.” (40). Brick states, “You keep forgetting the conditions by which I agreed to stay with you.” (35). “He adds” --But how in hell on earth do you imagine--that you’re going to have a child by a man that can’t stand you?” (63). The reader never learns the conditions but is led to believe it is associated with the death of his best friend, Skipper and the relationship between the three of them.

For Maggie, “a small ragged girl,” tears, blood, and cursing are more normal than not. Granted, the character of Maggie knew that there did

In witnessing this scene, Tom quickly realizes that his disappearance really hurt Aunt Polly. Tom later then becomes emotional at the thought that his aunt really does love him, though she is always hard on him. As a result, he comes to value his dear Aunt Polly, a woman who has served as a mother to him for all his life. Before he was about to leave, Tom “bent over and kissed the faded lips” of Aunt Polly (Twain 127). This highly emotional response that was brought out in Tom clearly shows that he quickly learned to value Aunt Polly. If he did not feel loved, Tom would have simply left the house, dejected as ever. Though he knew this action was unknown to her, Tom still does so because he has learned to truly value Aunt Polly Upon learning that his actions have the power to hurt his aunt, he comes to value his mother-like

He introduces himself to the girl. Her name is Grace, and she is the most beautiful girl he had literally ever laid his eyes on. He agrees to help her, and later tells her that there is a place for her here, and that he would convince the townspeople to let her stay. She is still shaken from the latter events, but agrees. It comes as a bit of a surprise for the first time Viewer, that Grace ends up setting the whole town on fire, and ordered the killing of all of the townspeople, personally dispatching Tom. In this essay, we will be looking into the actions of Tom that lead up to

TThis essay will discuss the metaphors associated with the characters in The Glass Menagerie and how each of these metaphors represents a fragment of the American Dream. She is like a piece of her glass collection, too fragile to be brought into the real world without being devastated.

To be fair, Tom was a child who had just found out his pets were killed, so it’s understandable that he would be angry and lash out. However, this was the first of many times throughout the novel that Maggie displease Tom in some way, be swiftly and harshly punished for it, and return to Tom wholeheartedly whenever it suited him to apologize.

The sharp and unruly main character of The Mill on the Floss is Maggie Tulliver. She is a “‘gell gone nine,’” at the outset of the story, the daughter of the miller Mr. Tulliver, and lives with her family on the banks of the Floss (Eliot 8, 9, 12). When Mr. and Mrs. Tulliver begin discussing the issue of Tom's education in their first conversation of the story, they segue into discussion of his sister. While Mrs. Tulliver derides Maggie for being unsensible, brown-skinned, and altogether unlike her side of the family, Mr. Tulliver defends her, saying “‘she's a straight, black-eyed wench as anybody need wish to see. I don't know i' what she's behind other folks's children; and she can read almost as well as the parson,’” (Eliot 12). Maggie's parents further describe her physiognomy for the reader later in this conversation. From Mrs. Tulliver's perspective, her daughter's hair exemplifies the issue with Maggie's character. “‘But her hair won't curl all I can do with it… an' there's her cousin Lucy's got a row o' curls round her head, an' not a hair out o' place,’” Mrs. Tulliver frets (Eliot 12, 13). Maggie’s mother feels that her daughter is a comical mistake, with her “dark, heavy locks,” “air of a small Shetland pony,” and likeness to “‘a Bedlam creature,’” (Eliot 12, 13). Because of this dissatisfaction, Mrs. Tulliver is forever attempting to make her daughter more similar to herself and to “‘other folks’s’” respectable, curly-haired children. Later in the story, Maggie’s character is further established by juxtaposition to her brother Tom. Tom Tulliver differs from Maggie not only in appearance, but also in garnering motherly affection: Mrs. Tulliver continually speaks of him with great approbation and pride, greeting him as “‘my sweet lad!’”on his return from school (Eliot 30). In addition to this contrast in affection, a contrast in physical character is evident between the siblings. Tom is described as “a lad with light-brown hair, cheeks of cream and roses, full lips, indeterminate nose and eyebrows… the generic character to boyhood,” while Maggie is “moulded and colored with the most decided intention,” a “dark-eyed, demonstrative, rebellious girl,” though it is noted that these physical appearances

We first see Tom and Maggie’s relationship in Chapter 5. Here, Tom comes home from his first term at school and Maggie dotes on him excitedly and affectionately. Tom has saved up all term to buy her a fishing line so they could go fishing together; after sharing how he had to fight some boys over the money, Maggie has nothing but adoration and affection for her brother. Tom, indifferent towards her praise, decides to go and see his rabbits that Maggie had been taking care of for him; Maggie tells him that she forgot to feed them and they passed away. Despite Maggie being a little girl, Tom tells her he doesn’t love her and cruelly reprimands her, reminding her of how she has done bad things in the past. He later accepted her apologies and they share cake, her getting the bigger piece, and they cuddle with each other. But, even then Tom has an issue with Maggie; she tried to give the bigger piece to him, he refused, then proceeded to get upset at her anyway. The next day the siblings went off to go fishing and Maggie is impressed by Tom’s practical knowledge of the outdoors and his superior presence; she is also respectful

She is spontaneous and natural, her impulsive nature is illustrated when she cuts her hair following a casual remark by her father that she should have it cut short. She immediately regrets it when her brother Tom and other members of her family ridicule her. During her childhood Maggie's numerous frustrations are vented by hammering nails into a fetish doll in the attic. Maggie is imaginative, well read and very intelligent, however she is denied the education afforded to her brother Tom who is not nearly as clever as she is. Mr Stelling her brother's tutor recognises her potential but scorns the serious education of women: