Chapter 2
Maggie Tulliver’s Bildung
The problem of female education seems to be submerged in the novel, in particular in the last scenes, by Maggie’s love problems but it is however noteworthy in Maggie’s childhood. Although she expresses the desire for intellectual knowledge, for ‘more instruments playing together’, it will be Tom to be sent to school and study Euclid and Latin. George Eliot chose to tell the story of ordinary people and Maggie’s story could stand for other girls, whose description could have been similar to her, with their unfulfilled desire for learning.
2.1 Maggie Tulliver’s thirst of Knowledge
The first approach Maggie ever does to books is to be found in the very beginning of the novel, when Mr Tulliver invites Mr Riley to talk about a suitable …show more content…
But she was not reading, because she was thinking about the great misfortune that had just happened to her family: the bankruptcy of Mr. Tulliver and his consequent and, soon to be lethal, depression. The book she has on her knees is Tom’s school-book, that she began to read to fulfil the need to broaden her cultural baggage when she had been left at home while her brother Tom alone was trying to resolve the difficult situation in which their family was living. She found herself of none use in helping him or her mother at home and she was left alone to find something to do. After the bankruptcy Maggie’s books had been taken away to pay her father’s debts and she had only her schooling books, which she already knew by heart and gave her no comfort at all. It can be seen in this scene her need of knowledge and her fantasies, with which she built her ‘dream-worlds’ as she used to do since she was little, as I have already explained. Now Maggie has not found any satisfaction in her imagination, because she had been looking for some real explanation to the things she was experiencing at the
Maggie Tulliver’s Bildung
The problem of female education seems to be submerged in the novel, in particular in the last scenes, by Maggie’s love problems but it is however noteworthy in Maggie’s childhood. Although she expresses the desire for intellectual knowledge, for ‘more instruments playing together’, it will be Tom to be sent to school and study Euclid and Latin. George Eliot chose to tell the story of ordinary people and Maggie’s story could stand for other girls, whose description could have been similar to her, with their unfulfilled desire for learning.
2.1 Maggie Tulliver’s thirst of Knowledge
The first approach Maggie ever does to books is to be found in the very beginning of the novel, when Mr Tulliver invites Mr Riley to talk about a suitable …show more content…
But she was not reading, because she was thinking about the great misfortune that had just happened to her family: the bankruptcy of Mr. Tulliver and his consequent and, soon to be lethal, depression. The book she has on her knees is Tom’s school-book, that she began to read to fulfil the need to broaden her cultural baggage when she had been left at home while her brother Tom alone was trying to resolve the difficult situation in which their family was living. She found herself of none use in helping him or her mother at home and she was left alone to find something to do. After the bankruptcy Maggie’s books had been taken away to pay her father’s debts and she had only her schooling books, which she already knew by heart and gave her no comfort at all. It can be seen in this scene her need of knowledge and her fantasies, with which she built her ‘dream-worlds’ as she used to do since she was little, as I have already explained. Now Maggie has not found any satisfaction in her imagination, because she had been looking for some real explanation to the things she was experiencing at the