The Mill on the Floss tells the devastating story of young Maggie Tulliver, and how her struggles against the constraints of her community nearly destroy her relationship with her beloved brother Tom. The novel spans a period of ten to fifteen years and details the lives of the two siblings growing up at Dorlcote Mill on the River Floss at its junction with the more minor River Ripple near the English village of St. Ogg’s in Lincolnshire. Like other novels by George Eliot,
The Mill on the Floss articulates the tension between circumstances and the spiritual energies of individual characters struggling against those circumstances.