Debt shows up many times throughout The Mill on the Floss, forming a motif. For example, Mr. Tulliver starts out in debt to his sister-in-law Mrs. Glegg while, simultaneously, his sister Mrs. Moss is in debt to him. Rather than force his impoverished sister to try to pay him back, Mr. Tulliver decides to go further into debt, which is only compounded when he loses the lawsuit with Mr. Pivart (represented by Mr. Wakem), leading him to have to declare bankruptcy.
Though Tom is able to eventually get the Tulliver family out of debt by investing in a shipping business with his friend Bob Jakin, the residue and resentment of debt persists in the Tulliver family, inspiring Mr. Tulliver to attack Mr. Wakem and, ultimately, to die from the strenuous effort involved.
In her use of debt as a motif, Eliot both captures the financial realities of middle-class people in England in this time period and also raises questions about family and forgiveness. When Mr. Tulliver forgives his sister’s debt to him even though he is in debt himself, it shows that he values family and is willing to suffer so that his sister does not. Because Mr. Tulliver is unable to forgive Mr. Wakem for winning the lawsuit, he ends up dying from the resentment. Debt is also what fuels Tom to go into business—he wants to provide for his parents who, for so many years, provided for him.
Rivers appear throughout The Mill on the Floss, forming a motif. For example, the “Floss” mentioned in the title is the River Floss, the body of water that runs through St. Ogg’s and beside which the Tulliver family mill is located. It is via this river that Stephen and Maggie run away (or, rather, row away) together when they are considering eloping. It is also the river that ultimately kills Maggie and Tom during the flooding.
In addition to the literal River Floss, river imagery appears in the novel as well, as seen in the following passage:
Maggie’s destiny, then, is at present hidden, and we must wait for it to reveal itself like the course of an unmapped river: we only know that the river is full and rapid, and that for all rivers there is the same final home.
Here the narrator compares Maggie’s destiny to a river that is “full and rapid,” yet, at the same time, “unmapped” and unknowable. This language indicates that rivers as a motif are meant to highlight the unknowability and unpredictability of the human experience—rivers (like life itself) can lead to love, regret, and death in any given moment. No matter how much knowledge one has of oneself or one’s goals, life is inherently mysterious, as Maggie and Tom discover before their untimely deaths.
Music shows up repeatedly in The Mill on the Floss—particularly in relation to Maggie—forming a motif. When Maggie is a child, for example, she is overwhelmed by the beauty of her uncle Mr. Pullet playing a song on his music-box. Additionally, Philip woos Maggie through singing her songs since he knows how much it affects her. Later, Stephen also sings to Maggie during their courtship and Maggie is entranced by the music (which Philip notices, tipping him off to her feelings for Stephen), as seen in the following passage:
When the strain passed into the minor, she half-started from her seat with the sudden thrill of that change. Poor Maggie! She looked very beautiful when her soul was being played on in this way by the inexorable power of sound. You might have seen the slightest perceptible quivering through her whole frame as she leaned a little forward, clasping her hands as if to steady herself; while her eyes dilated and brightened into that wide-open, childish expression of wondering delight, which always came back in her happiest moments.
As the quote makes clear, music brings Maggie back to her childhood—she leans forward, clasps her hands, and her eyes “brighten into that wide-open, childish expression of wondering delight.” She returns to her “happiest moments” when she was young and unburdened by adult matters.
It is also notable that Maggie is always witnessing men play or sing music—she is drawn to the men making the music, of course, but is likely also desirous of how men are allowed access to art, culture, and education while she, as a woman, is not.
Gossip amongst people in the town of St. Ogg’s propels the plot of The Mill on the Floss forward at several points, forming a motif. For example, gossip about Maggie and Stephen having an extramarital affair after running away together (which they did not) leads Maggie to be rejected by Tom as well as her community as a whole. Later, rumors about Maggie’s employer Dr. Kenn considering proposing to her leads him to fire her, as seen in the following passage:
Dr Kenn, at first enlightened only by a few hints as to the new turn which gossip and slander had taken in relation to Maggie, had recently been made more fully aware of it by an earnest remonstrance from one of his male parishioners against the indiscretion of persisting in the attempt to overcome the prevalent feeling in the parish by a course of resistance. Dr Kenn, having a conscience void of offence in the matter, was still inclined to persevere […] an “appearance” that is always dependent on the average quality of surrounding minds. Where these minds are low and gross, the area of that “appearance” is proportionately widened.
Here the narrator shows how Dr. Kenn is aware of “the new turn which gossip and slander had taken in relation to Maggie” (that he was interested in her romantically) and he decides to fire her because he is worried about the “appearance” of continuing to employ her with this rumor going around.
This passage also shows how Dr. Kenn is aware of the fact that the “quality of surrounding minds” is “low and gross,” meaning he sees how the town is overwhelmingly made up of people who gossip and act from a place of ignorance. It is notable that the primary examples of gossip in the novel are not based in truth, highlighting how the people of St. Ogg’s believe themselves to be well-informed when they are actually acting ignorantly.
The gossip in the novel also underlines how much social pressure is put on women in this time period—Maggie is expected to behave properly and, even when she does, people still assume she hasn’t. In St. Ogg’s (and provincial 19th century England generally), Eliot is indirectly arguing, women were not respected or believed.
