Entre reverencia e irreverencia de géneroGeorge Eliot como Némesis sobre las aguas del realismo literario en The Mill on the Floss
- 1 Universidad Complutense de Madrid. España
ISSN: 1579-7902
Year of publication: 2014
Issue: 13
Pages: 129-146
Type: Article
More publications in: Clepsydra: Revista de Estudios de Género y Teoría Feminista
Abstract
In The Mill on the Floss, 19th-century writer George Eliot incarnates a God-like figure with authorial authority, who struggles between the streams of the Realism —thus, duly revering the masculine literary Establishment of Victorian England—, and the artistic reflection of herself in her heroine Maggie Tulliver. Partly modeled after her own image, this character embodies a new, embryonic paradigm of femininity in aesthetic and public spheres that is adorned with noble virtues and epic undertones. However, her genetic propensity for sexual curiosity and intellectual self-realization, which her creator did embrace in her life, is thwarted by this creature’s indecisiveness, educational deficiencies, oppressive family values and the prevailing social determinism of the 19th century, which lead her to the victory of death, as the only sign of female autonomy and empowerment.
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