An analytical study on the value of humanity of Maggie Tulliver in the face of repression

Abstract

George Eliot, a journalist and a leading writer in Victorian era through her narrative ‗The Mill on the Floss‘ created the character of Maggie Tulliver bringing forth a destiny of a female being whose existence and the individuality are defined and molded through the impact of the conventional social taboos and the authoritative cultural constraints which overshadow the individual expectations. Thus, the study has focused on analyzing the female literary portrayal of Maggie Tulliver with the objective of bringing to the surface the socially determined fatal end and the symbolic disappearance of the feminine figure. In analyzing the perspectives which are discussed within the research paper the theoretical perspectives of Simon de Beauvoir (‘The second sex’), Sigmund Freud, (‗Civilization and its Discontents’,) and Slavoj Zizek, (‗Looking Awry‘) are referred with a thorough consideration. During the journey towards the destination of her self-emancipation, Maggie Tulliver follows a traumatic path and encounters an unsettling emotional conflict through which her self-love is replaced by the compassion towards the social other whose emotional satisfaction and the survival become a source of spiritual victory in her life. Being confined to a narrowed space where several religious and communal taboos surround her existence, Maggie‘s character has become the focal point upon which the repression cultivates its domination thus obstructing her inner strength and self-determination that she possesses in advancing towards her liberation of identity. Though social discriminations which are created by the cultural concepts on gender induce her to abandon the pursuit of fulfillment of the innate desires and the independent motives Maggie Tulliver strives to stand as a determined female whose self-strength and spiritual victory recognize her as an independent woman since her sacrificing and the negation of her expectations induce her to turn away from the materialistic and physical pleasures and embrace humanity and spiritual enhancement of the self. In that sense it can be identified that her self-sacrifice leaves behind something to admire implying a more psychological vitality without being just a physical deterioration