ABSTRACT
In contemplating George Eliot’s children and animals in the context of posthumanism, this chapter discusses Eliot’s depictions of children who have animals and who grow to adulthood in the course of the novel. These include Caterina in “Mr. Gilfil’s Love Story” and Maggie, Tom, Lucy, Bob Jakin, and Philip Wakem in The Mill on the Floss. Each of these characters is associated with animals both in childhood in ways which suggest their moral characteristics as adults. Fulmer also identifies children who Eliot compares to animals in various ways and who are treated like animals and animals who are treated like children. The chapter analyzes scenes from “Amos Barton,” Adam Bede, Silas Marner, Romola, Middlemarch, and Daniel Deronda. It also deals with adults whose relationships with animals anticipates the “child within” which has been retained from childhood and includes scenes from “Amos Barton,” “Janet’s Repentance,” Adam Bede, Silas Marner, Felix Holt, Romola, Middlemarch, and Daniel Deronda.
