Heathcliff’s monstrous actions are a result of the ill-treatment he received by his surroundings. 

From the start of his arrival at Wutherings Heights, Heathcliff is treated like a worthless gipsy by his new family members.

Hindley’s jealous and abusive behaviour towards Heathcliff changes his character deeply and makes him vengeful.

Heathcliff’s unanswered love for Catherine harshly reminds him of his place in society and causes him to act monstrously. 

The Earnshaw family severely wronged Heathcliff during his life, catalysing his monstrous actions and therefore proving that Heathcliff is ill-bred (?)/ill-nurtured (?)

“Maggie’s rejection of Stephen Guest is not a final triumph of free will motivated by her developing moral compass, but a final yielding to her psychological need to be/feel accepted.” 

Foundation laid in her childhood and her being constantly rejected by her brother, mother and extended family and the communit/society she lives in. 

Also unfulfilled because she can’t get proper education and live a free life 

Obligation she feels towards Philip, her intellectual equal, and Lucy, her cousin and extended family who would reject her.---- not a moral obligation, but an obligation out of fear --- losing them would mean returning to an excluded lifestyle, without culture 

Immediately goes to see her brother to check whether he still loves/accepts her. Doesn’t want to be rejected by him.

 

Mary Ann Evans should have  used her own name, to make a case for women’s rights. She wanted to be taken seriously as a writer and chose to use a pen name to conceal the fact that she was a woman. In my eyes the message that she brings throughout the book ‘The Mill on the Floss’, is for women to be taken seriously, and using her own name would have broken a lance for that cause. 

 

Maggie loves reading and wants to study and learn just like her brother. She is not allowed to go to school, even though her father acknowledges her bright mind. It was just not appropriate in those times that a girl was taught beyond housekeeping and sewing. Throughout the book there are several remark her father makes about her that give away that he sees that she is  very clever, one of the first thing he says about her after her mother complains about her looks and her forgetfulness is; ‘I don’t know i’ what she’s behind other folks’s children; an’ she can read almost as well as the parson.’ But unfortunately the only one to get an education is Tom, Maggie’s brother. 

Tom and Maggie are brought up with the idea that a brother should take care of his sister, like their father still tries to help his sister, even after her marriage. Tom is urged by his father to always be good to Maggie and make sure she has what she needs. Nevertheless the women in the family have a better judgement in several occasions where the father and brother make bad decisions for the whole family and don’t want to listen to the women. The father ruins the family with his anger and bitterness towards Wakem, even though his wife and daughter attempt to turn him around and let it go. The men in the family make the decisions and they are adamant in them. 

Maggie still abides family rules, even up to point where she breaks off her relationship with Philip Wakem because her father and brother insist upon it. Maggie’s friendship with Philip gets a chance to develop in the years when her father and brother are too preoccupied with getting the Mill back, that they don’t know that Maggie is secretly meeting Philip in the woods, where they mainly talk about books they have read. After her brother finds out and threatens to tell their dad, she breaks off all contact with Philip, who sees Maggie as his future wife. 

In the last part of the book Maggie falls in love with Stephen and ends up as an outcast because of Stephen’s clumsy attempt to elope. The men in her life that make decisions for her, make bad choices all the time and she is victimised by these choices every time. Maggie does not seem to be able to free herself from these men and keeps following their lead until the very end of the book, where she makes the choice to take a boat and in an attempt to rescue her brother they both die.

 

Was there a reason why this tale had to end this way? Was there ever a way that Maggie could have freed herself from the men surrounding her, that made her life the prison that it was? Mary Ann Evans aka George Eliot, obviously thought there wasn’t. The only freedom seemed to be death. Mary Ann Evans, who stayed by her father’s side until he died, and his death was her ticket to freedom. Only then was she able to make life changing choices for herself, to live with a man who was already married, a choice that made her an outcast of her own family. So why did this strong woman, who changed her life completely after her father died, not use her own name to write her novels? Why did she choose to give in to the man dominated writing culture of that time and use a man’s name for her novels? Wouldn’t it have been a much stronger statement for all the Maggies of her time, if she would have published under her own name? 

 

 

Aukje