SOURCE: "The Social View: The Mill on the Floss," in The Novels of George Eliot, Columbia University Press, 1959, pp. 36-57.

In the following excerpt, Thale analyzes The Mill on the Floss as a sociological study.

The Mill on the Floss has been most often remembered as the idyl of Tom and Maggie Tulliver's early years; we recall the account of Maggie's enthusiasm and warmth, the powerful figure of Mr. Tulliver, and the remarkable gallery of aunts and uncles. We are inclined to think of The Mill on the Floss as among the very best of Victorian novels, with the characteristic defect of the type, imperfect structure, and its characteristic strength, an abundance of what the Victorian critics called life. The characters and the setting in The Mill on the Floss are first of all simply there, in remarkable fullness and immediacy. But for us vividness, fullness, sense of...