ABSTRACT
In The Mill on the Floss, Maggie Tulliver's growth serves almost as a recapitulation and miniaturization of human evolution. Nineteenth-century scientists frequently used observations of an individual's growth (ontogeny) as a model for understanding a species' development (phylogeny). As a supplemental study, they also investigated how evolutionary processes might be condensed or "recapitulated" in an individual's life cycle. 1 The Mill on the Floss investigates these issues in the person of Maggie, and music highlights aspects of her growing process and maturation as an individual within her community. In particular, Maggie's musicality makes her both exemplary and undesirable; it leads a society first to embrace and then to ostracize her.
