How is Maggie portrayed?

Maggie Tulliver is the protagonist of The Mill on the Floss. Right from the outset, we're aware that she's a very unusual character for her time and place. For one thing, her skin color is notably swarthy, and her eyes and hair are similarly dark and exotic looking. This gives Maggie the appearance of an outsider, someone who doesn't fully belong in her narrow and restrictive social world. In turn, her exotic physical appearance reflects the free-spirited soul within. This often manifests itself in behavior at times childish, rash, and irresponsible.
Maggie goes through many changes in the novel in terms of her priorities and how she lives her life, but her underlying character remains largely intact. It's simply that she chooses to express herself in a number of different ways. For instance, after reading the works of the Christian mystic Thomas a Kempis, she goes through an ascetic phase, pouring her very soul into a life of penance and deprivation. Yet she still retains the enormous pride and passion that are hallmarks of her personality. There is a sense that she's not so much embracing asceticism as rejecting a world full of emotional pain. And despite her new ascetic lifestyle, she still has powerful feelings for Tom and continues to seek his approval.
Throughout the book, Maggie is torn between the conflicting claims that duty and passion make upon her soul. As the story progresses, however, she gradually develops a greater degree of maturity, realizing that leading a sensuous life, one in which she and the people around her will continue to get hurt, is ultimately not for her. Maggie will remain a unique woman, someone with a yearning for the full richness of life. Yet such a life will only now come to her through leading a more isolated existence, one from which all possibilities of emotional pain have been expunged.

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