From the start of The Mill on the Floss, the narrator makes it clear that Mr. Tulliver has sued a lot of people over land issues and is, as a result, not a fan of lawyers. (His experience of them is that they only care about money and have no moral backbones of their own.) At one point, the narrator communicates the depth of Mr. Tulliver’s hatred for lawyers using a hyperbole, as seen in the following passage:
Mr Tulliver was, on the whole, a man of safe traditional opinions; but on one or two points he had trusted to his unassisted intellect, and had arrived at several questionable conclusions; among the rest, that rats, weevils, and lawyers were created by Old Harry.
The exaggerated language here—that Mr. Tulliver believes “rats, weevils, and lawyers” were created by the Devil—captures Mr. Tulliver’s rage (which will be a theme throughout the novel via his enmity with Mr. Wakem) and also his ignorance , as the devil did not create lawyers; rather, humans seeking a justice system did. Including lawyers in a list that features rodents and beetles effectively, and humorously, communicates how little Mr. Tulliver thinks of those who choose the legal profession.
