The Conclusion of the novel—after Maggie and Tom drown in the flood—opens with a personification and evocative imagery, as seen in the following passage:
Nature repairs her ravages — repairs them with her sunshine, and with human labour. The desolation wrought by that flood, had left little visible trace on the face of the earth, five years after. The fifth autumn was rich in golden corn-stacks, rising in thick clusters among the distant hedgerows; the wharves and warehouses on the Floss were busy again, with echoes of eager voices, with hopeful lading and unlading.
Here Eliot personifies nature (turning it into a woman who “repairs her ravages”) and uses imagery to capture how the land has healed in the five years since the flood (such that it was “rich in golden corn-stacks” and filled with “echoes of eager voices”).
This figurative language combines to paint a hopeful picture—though Maggie and Tom died, the earth is now healing and life is moving forward (such as Lucy and Stephen eventually getting married and settling down). The descriptions of the land here echo the descriptions early in the novel, when Maggie and Tom were carefree children and felt more connected to the earth.
