conformity vs. non-conformity (MILL ON THE FLOSS - GEORGE ELLIOT)

[Hafsah]

“We are half-ruined by conformity but we would be totally ruined without it.” Discuss with reference to the novel The Mill on the Floss.




“Our modern society is engaged in polishing and decorating the cage in which man is kept imprisoned.” ~ Swami Nirmalananda, Enlightened Anarchism.


Man is a social animal, requiring intimate relationships with other human beings around him in order to sustain himself and his desires. However, this interaction with his own species does not come alone but follows certain aspirations and the need for conformity. In order to delve into the matter further, we must have an insight into the meanings of conformity.

Scott, Foresman Advanced Dictionary defines “conformity” as:

“Action in agreement with generally accepted standards of business, conduct, or worship; fitting oneself and one’s actions to the ideas of others; compliance.”


The Dodsons have virtually starved feelings into submission. Among the fixities of preoccupation with impeccable wills, domestic economies, pills and potions, the tight rolling of table napkins, the danger of draughts, ‘the thorough scouring of wooden and copper utensils’, and the failings of neighbours, there is little room for their play. The ‘hereditary custom’ of family ritual, sufficient unto itself, keeps order as firmly as the locked doors in Mrs. Pullet’s housekeep rooms and wardrobes uncontaminated by human use. Mr. Tulliver is also governed by ‘traditional beliefs’ but it carried in ‘richer blood’, which races at real or imagined offence, causing the blind charge on issues of principle, in disregard of facts or consequences. It is no wonder that Tulliver and Dodson clash. One has passion clouding his sense of reality, while the other’s sense of reality neuters his passion.

Eliot admits that she shares the ‘oppressive narrowness’, but wishes to show how it acted upon the young souls immersed in it. Its religion was simply ‘blind acceptance of tradition’, and its morality adherence to establish customs. The religion meant going to church on proper occasions; being baptized because otherwise no one could be buried; taking care that there should be the ‘proper pall-bearers and well-cured hams at one’s funeral’. Mr. Tulliver shows a touch worthy of a ‘Northern Farmer’ when he orders his son to record in the Family Bible a declaration that he will not forgive his enemy and hopes that evil may befall him. There is a strain of the old Viking blood in him after all, and it is more or less shown in the morality. It his impulsiveness and his sense of righteousness that ruins him by making him take rash decisions regarding taking up a lawsuit. The Dodsons were ‘a very proud race’; no one should be able to tax them with a breach of traditional duty. Their pride was wholesome, as it identified honour with ‘perfect integrity, thoroughness of work, and faithfulness to admitted rules’. Eliot writes of the Dodsons, “Their religion was of a simple, semi-pagan kind, but there was no heresy in it...(consisting of adherence) to traditional duty and propriety”. Mrs. Glegg places all her trust and raison d’etre on family loyalties, ties and values, Mr. Deane is an enthusiastic participant in the new commercialism and puts all his faith in steam power. The purchase of the mill is not for sentimental reasons or out of family loyalty, but because it makes commercial good sense. There is a similar change occurring from the slow painstaking material accumulation of the Dodsons to the energy and risk-taking of Guest and Co, or Mr. Wakem. These events are creating changes, which leave no character untouched. Tom and Maggie may initially be made miserable by the Dodson obsessions, but it is this culture of punctilious sanctimoniousness that gives Mrs. Glegg the power and self-confidence to defend Maggie in her distress. The Dodson code is symbolized through keys, locks, closets etc and can only operate in a fixed and unchanging world. It is only through death that they triumph, through their funeral observances and strict adherence to the laws of inheritance. The Tullivers had warmer hearts and were more impulsive characters than their neighbours, and discharged their family duties from genuine affection as well as from a sense of traditional affection. However, the changes in economics and law are puzzling and destructive to the static characters like Mr. Tulliver. Deane on the other hand takes a ‘lively view of the present’ and places his hopes on technological change. ‘It’s this steam, you see, that has made the difference - it drives on every wheel double pace and the wheel of Fortune along with ’em’. As Deane and Wakem appreciate, capitalism is making great inroads into traditional ways of life. Their ploy is to put money to use and gain material wealth. They also represent the 19th-century people who in their pursuit of capitalization had moved far from the initial source of life – love.

Eliot thinks similarity of the emit-like Dodsons and Tullivers and concludes that their life was sordid, ‘irradiated by no sublime principles, no romantic visions, no active, self-renouncing faith’. However, their pride, she insists, was ‘wholesome’ in many respects, since it identified honour with perfect integrity, thoroughness of work, and faithfulness to admitted rules. Tullivers differ from Dodsons in being warmly affectionate, and sometimes generously imprudent or harshly hot-tempered. Naturally the Dodsons regarded faults in Bessy’s children as Tulliver traits, but the religion of the two families is similar, and it consists of revering what is customary and respectable, in being honest and rich, richer than expected at death, and in winning public esteem by their wills towards kindred, even those who had not been a credit to them. These they would not forsake or ignore; ‘would not let them want bread, but only require them to eat it with bitter herbs’. Both Dodson and Tulliver lack a sense of proportion, but one finds itself more easily accommodated into the society of the novel than the other does. The shortsighted, mercantile citizens of St. Ogg’s are not much out of step with Dodson values.

Character is destiny, but not the whole of it, and among the circumstances affecting the destiny of Tom and Maggie, nothing is more crucial than their father’s character. Proud, blundering, and litigious, Mr. Tulliver is blindly set on a disastrous course. Had he been less impulsive and stubborn, he would not have entangled the skein of his life financially; and chances are not only that he would have kept the mill and spared degradation and ignominy. Egoism, however, asserts that ‘a male Tulliver’ is ‘far more than equal to four female Dodsons’. Mr. Tulliver had a destiny as well as Oedipus, and in this case, he might plead, like Oedipus, that his deed was inflicted on him rather than committed by him. There are people in whom ‘predominance is a law of life’, and their tragedy ‘goes on from generation to generation’ in the conflicts perhaps of ‘young souls, hungry for joy, under a lot made suddenly hard to them’. The novel is the site of continual struggle between the masculine will to power constructed by patriarchy and desires it must repress to maintain its hegemony. The focus of this power struggle is the two children, Tom and Maggie Tulliver, whose positions within their family and society are over-determined by their gender. The “Dodson” life is what out of which the destinies of poor Tom and Maggie are developed.

Tom though inherits the feminine ‘pink and white’ complexion of his mother’s side and lacks allegedly masculine skill of ‘apprehending signs and abstractions’, remains able to fulfill his family’s expectations for him. Tom in particular, comes to represent, or embody, a set of inflexible obligations laid upon Maggie without her choice. He is Dodson in his unrelenting determination to do what is right and proper. Doing what is right, amongst Dodsons, follows a set of rigid principles, kept continually aired in their conversation; it does not end with death. Tom fails to make distinction between caprice and principle; he takes hold of his father’s hatred of Wakem, and turns it into a rule of life. In rigidity of his adherence to it, he surpasses the most rigorous Dodson. Mrs. Glegg herself could not be more immovably sure of her own rectitude, sanctioned by the tradition of generations, than Tom is of his in adopting his father’s resentment as a principle. He loves to have the upper hand, and can be cruel, even to his sister; he is Rhadamanthine, determined to punish everyone who offends him. The uselessness of Tom’s education makes him long for home, and does nothing to qualify him for a profession, though it gives him ‘a slight deposit of polish’; worse still, it fails to humanize him and make him more tolerant. The circumstances in the novel dictate that the atavistic revenge lust in Tom works on his inveterate will to dominate and hurt his sister. He had a laudable Dodson doggedness, consistency, and rectitude; but, though his subjugation of feelings to will is an asset in business, his self-assertion at the expense of sympathy and understanding over his sister is disastrous.

Tom’s way of life indicate that it is not entirely based on the Dodson tradition but his code seems a combination of the worst aspects of the Tulliver and Dodson ways of life. He has the Dodson strictness, severity, and ardent respect for property, and their strong feeling of kinship. Likewise, he has his father’s hard-headedness, and his belief in himself. Following his father’s footsteps, he believes that he is subjected to no wrongdoing and thus never feels resentment for past actions. He adheres to the social norms and codes that allow him to exercise his superiority over others that are dependent on him like Maggie or inferior to him Like Philip Wakem. His hard-headedness, chauvinistic qualities, his sense of righteousness and moral justice are moulded into permanent features of his personality, which will serve as the characteristics which will allow him to emerge not as a ruined person but only a half-ruined one, for he is able to move ahead with the superficialities of the world to a large extent. Thus, he is able to survive as Darwin points out: “conformity in a static environment learns to survive”.

The rift between the inner world and the outer world, which is a cause of Maggie Tulliver’s suffering, is the ultimate theme of the novel. Maggie is excitable, impulsive, and imaginative; her greatest need is to be loved, especially by her brother; when actuality displeases, she escapes into a world of make-belief, and the link between her inner world and the outer is broken like her escapade with the gypsies. She is cleverer than Tom, but leaves school ‘with a soul untrained for inevitable struggles’, ‘quite without that knowledge of irreversible law within and without her, which, governing the habits, becomes morality, and, developing the feelings of submission and dependence, becomes religion.’ Toms shows Dodson qualities unrelentingly and Maggie suffers in consequence. Her father is primarily responsible for the train of events, which lead to her tragedy, but the Dodsons represent the conventional society that condemns her.

In Mill on the Floss, the long treatment of Maggie’s early years is entirely necessary. It investigates the determining factors in the shaping of character-both the formative influences acting on the child’s life, and, through its emphasis on heredity, her inherent and perhaps unalterable characteristics. ‘The Dodson blood’ and ‘the Tulliver blood’, which seems as Maggie’s aunts talk to be the inherited fluids that entirely determine the personalities of children, according to the proportions in which they are mixed. Maggie’s clumsiness, which is both the cause and in part the effect of her failure to live up to the requirements of other people, is important both as large part of her experience of childhood, and as a shaping influence on her adult personality. The novel traces the conflict between, on one hand, individual impulse-all that makes Maggie Tulliver unique-and, on the other, the loyalties and obligations that she has incurred, more or less involuntarily, that have descended upon her. The second, the incurred duties, are embodied in her brother, who represents the family ands her earliest memories; the other forces shown in her relationship with Philip Wakem, who encourages her intellectual growth and recognizes her right to grow. However, a deadlock of conventions and customs makes it impossible for Maggie’s life to bloom in either way.

Raised in a family that adhere so strictly to patriarchal notions about gender difference, Maggie is continually confronted by her own conflicting desires. Her response is intermittently to punish and solace herself, just as she comforts her legless trunk of doll. One of the lessons that she learns, repeatedly, is that the needs and desires of her being cannot be satisfied without consideration of the needs and desires of others. Maggie is to learn to subdue the self and through ethical choice must strike a balance. Maggie, who alternates between extremes of self-sacrifice and self-indulgence, has difficulty finding the balance. There is undoubtedly no simple way for Maggie to find the wholeness and fulfillment she seeks. Maggie is seen as a ‘mistake of nature’ even in her biological family because she has inherited the characteristics of her father rather than of her mother and so has traits and desires running counter to those constructed by her culture as feminine. Maggie’s powerlessness depicted first in her relationship with her parents. Her mother sees marriage entirely as an investment of virginal household goods in exchange for sons. To such a woman, a daughter like Maggie-who fails to duplicate her own appearance, passivity and obsession with objects of domesticity-is a mystery and a burden. Maggie’s failure to conform to the standards for a marketable bride thus also diminishes her mother’s affections for her.

Gleaning ideas from the philosophers Comte, Feuerbach, and Spinoza, Eliot portrayed Maggie, who relies on intuitional knowledge, or ‘feeling’ as a basis and guide to moral duty. Newton writes of Eliot, “Instead of submitting feeling to an external authority separate from it, which had been the main difficulty during her Christian period, she discovers that in feeling itself she can find the basis for the larger moral vision she has been seeking”. Yet, this feeling is not selfish but based on one’s duty to one’s fellows. Society and the individual progress together and when these forces conflict, as in Maggie’s case, it is tragic. Eliot argued, “Tragedy consists in the terrible difficulty of the adjustment of our individual needs to the dire necessities of our lot”. Her choice to return to St. Oggs after her boat trip with Stephen and remain there is due not to outer influences but rather to her desire to remain true to her own moral ideals. Eliot tells the reader this choice is indispensable for Maggie’s spiritual growth when she writes, “That is the path we all like when we set out on our abandonment of egoism-the path of martyrdom and endurance”. Gifted women like Maggie cannot develop themselves because the societal structure will not provide them with a proper education and an opportunity to use it. Women in general have few choices beyond choosing a husband and raising a family. Maggie is treated the way she is simply because she is female, not because she lacks ability or intelligence. Moreover, ironically, Maggie is squashed because of ‘voluntary submission’ to the system that oppresses her; thereby mirroring the ideal of patient suffering back at the Christian societies, they live in. Maggie Tulliver struggles as she fights against the conventions of society and her ‘unwillingness to conform’. The novel starts with suspicions that Maggie may be a ‘witch’. It is said that if you submerge someone under water and he or she die then they are not a witch, but if they survive then they are. Either way they die! This is a no win situation for the person accused of being a witch and this is a fitting analogy of Maggie’s life.
While comparing the codes and ways of life of both brother and sister in retrospect, we find that though Tom represents the Dodson side that excels materialistically and is known as powerful and respected family among the town, he lack the loving kindness and warmth of heart that makes an unconformable and unruly character like Maggie dear to the readers. Tom internalizes the Dodson way of life and emerges as a successful person who is able to fulfill all his obligations and duty towards his family. However, during this process he becomes mechanical and looses all the warmth and love that a Tulliver exerts and thus becomes a person who only lives for the material instincts of his nature and negates the ‘religion of human kindness’. Thus, Tom is not fully ruined but partially ruined because lack of human feelings within him for others and becomes a part of the automated society. Maggie on the other hand is able to fulfill her desires and emotional needs but fails to conform to the norms of the society, which labels her as an outcast and puts harsh moral judgments on her. Thus, Maggie emerges as a character that the society totally-ruins because of her fight against compliance despite being a very warm hearted and loving person for society does not approve of those who challenge the laws it establishes. The Tullivers are shown to have perished because of faults in their own nature, yet it is the changed social circumstances that play a prominent role in the shaping of their destinies.

“The average man is a conformist, accepting miseries and disasters with the stoicism of a cow standing in the rain.” ~ Colin Wilson.