A comparison of love in The Mill on the Floss and Atonement Particular emphasis upon social context

1. EROS VS PHILIA

2. Greek Love

3. Philia
• Philia (/ˈfɪljə/ or /ˈfɪliə/;
Ancient Greek: φιλία),
often translated
"brotherly love", is one
of the four ancient
Greek words for
love: philia, storge,
agape and eros. In
Aristotle's Nicomachean
Ethics, philia is usually
translated as
"friendship" or
affection.

4. As Gerard Hughes points out, in Books VIII and IX
Aristotle gives examples of philia including:
"young lovers, lifelong friends , cities with one
another, political or business contacts, parents and
children, fellow-voyagers and fellow-soldiers,
members of the same religious society, or of the
same tribe, a cobbler and the person who buys
from him.
All of these different relationships involve getting
on well with someone, though Aristotle at times
implies that something more like actual liking is
required.

5. Eros

6. • Eros was the Greek god of
love, or more precisely,
passionate and physical
desire. Without warning he
selects his targets and
forcefully strikes at their
hearts, bringing confusion
and irrepressible feelings
or in the words
of Hesiod he ‘loosens the
limbs and weakens the
mind’. Eros himself is a
carefree and beautiful
youth, crowned with
flowers, especially of roses
which were closely
associated with the god.

7. • According to Hesiod in his Theogony, Eros was
one of the primeval gods who, along with Chaos
and Gaia (Earth), were responsible for the
Creation. Here he perhaps represented a
universal love.
• In other traditions he was the winged acolyte or
assistant of the goddess Aphrodite, goddess of
Love and Beauty. He was also sometimes
regarded as the child of Aphrodite, with Ares as
his father, and his brothers were Deimos (Fear),
Phobos (Panic), and Harmonia (Harmony).
• In some traditions Eros also had a younger
brother - Anteros - who was a much darker figure
and avenger of unrequited love

8. EROS
VS
ANTEROS

9. Contexts
• Victorian
• Angel in the House
• 1930s
• Roaring twenties
• D.H. Lawrence –
class and
transgressive love

10. The Flappers

12. Whether married or not, Victorian women
were expected to be fragile, innocent,
modest, polite, obedient, chaste,
submissive, delicate flower incapable of
deciding anything except menu and her
evening attire.
In order to find a suitable (rich, noble and
accepted in the society) husband girls were
polished head to toe. Victorian women’s
knowledge consisted of singing,
painting/drawing and embroidery skills,
playing an instrument and dancing.
Besides all this it was also good for a girl to
know a little bit of French or Italian, but her
most valued skills were the domestic ones.
Women were expected to be ”Household
Angels”; taking care of their children and
learning them proper values but also
keeping eyes on the servants and arranging
a menu for the day. The ideal Victorian
women were tirelessly patient and
sacrificing.

13. D.H. Lawrence
• Lady Chatterley's Lover is a novel by D. H.
Lawrence, first published in 1928. The first
edition was printed privately in Florence, Italy,
with assistance from Pino Orioli; an unexpurgated
edition could not be published openly in the
United Kingdom until 1960. (A private edition was
issued by Inky Stephensen's Mandrake Press in
1929.)[1] The book soon became notorious for its
story of the physical (and emotional) relationship
between a working classman and an upper
class woman, its explicit descriptions of sex, and
its use of then-unprintable words.

14. Significance
• Richard Hoggart argues that the main subject of Lady Chatterley's
Lover is not the sexual passages that were the subject of such debate
but the search for integrity and wholeness. Key to this integrity is
cohesion between the mind and the body for "body without mind is
brutish; mind without body... is a running away from our double
being.
• Lady Chatterley's Lover focuses on the incoherence of living a life
that is "all mind", which Lawrence saw as particularly true among the
young members of the aristocratic classes, as in his description of
Constance's and her sister Hilda's "tentative love-affairs" in their
youth:
So they had given the gift of themselves, each to the youth with
whom she had the most subtle and intimate arguments. The
arguments, the discussions were the great thing: the love-making and
connection were only sort of primitive reversion and a bit of an anti-
climax.

15. Philip and Maggie
• Philia: actually
played out in the
terms of brother
and sister
• The kiss is chaste,
affectionate,
supportive

16. Eros: Robbie and Cecilia
A moment of Eros irrevocably joins them through prison and a war

18. Mill vs Atonement

19. Comparative SWEATY paragraph
• Whereas Eliot presents the love Philip and
Maggie in Mill as ……………………., this sharply
contrasts with McEwan’s depiction of the love
of Cecilia and Robbie as …………………..
• Both the relationship of Philip and Maggie in
Mill and Cecilia and Robbie in Atonement have
an element of sibling love to them.

20. Structure Paragraph Level
• Linking statement connecting the texts
• Mill
• Evidence woven
• Analysis of Language
• Form/ Structure/ Context
• Linking statement to Atonement
• Evidence woven
• Analysis of Language
• Which compares and contrasts Language
& Form/ Structure/ Context

21. 1. Sibling nature
 Robbie is a sort of adopted brother
 Philip asks to be treated as a brother
2. Absence of courtship
 Relationship is Platonic
 Too sudden for courtship
3. The Nature of attraction
 Admires intelligence, sensitivity, ‘feminine’ qualities. Strong elements of pity
 More mysterious, erotic, elemental
4. First contact
 “earnest” kiss
 Passion unleashed
5. Obstacles to love
 The bitter feud, small elements of class?
 Social class, incest taboo?
6. The pace of the relationship
 Evolutionary and gradual
 A strike of lightning?
7. Both relationships involve an element of betrayal
 Tom/ Mr. Tulliver
 Briony feels betrayed by Cecilia