The Mill on the Floss is a realist novel, as evidenced by the fact that it doesn’t focus on the lives of the wealthy elite, but on the stories of middle-class, working people. It can also be categorized as an example of realism because it depicts the sorrows and struggles of its characters rather than romanticizing their lives. Eliot also pays close attention to setting, class dynamics, and politics, as other realist novels often do. Even though Eliot depicts romantic relationships between her characters, this is not a “romantic” novel. In fact, it could even be considered a tragedy, given the mournful ending in which Maggie and Tom drown.
The Mill on the Floss is also a bildungsroman, or a coming of age novel, telling the story of Maggie’s transition into adulthood. The novel starts when Maggie is an open-hearted, innocent child and shows the process of her maturing into a young adult who must face adult challenges like starting to work and navigating romantic relationships.
Unlike most bildungsroman novels that show the transition of male protagonists from dependent boys to independent men, The Mill on the Floss depicts the challenges of the coming-of-age process for women at this time, which features struggles related to diverging from certain feminine norms. Ultimately, Eliot turns the coming-of-age genre on its head by having Maggie die at the end of the novel (at only 20 years old) rather than reach full maturity.
The Mill on the Floss is sometimes considered a work of historical fiction because Eliot published the novel in 1860 and it takes place in the 1820s. That said, some scholars argue that 40 years is not enough time to render it a historical novel.
