# Outside Dorlcote Mill explained — The Mill on the Floss

> Chapter companion for The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot.

## What happens

The narrator describes the landscape around Dorlcote Mill and the River Floss on a February afternoon, then reveals it was a dream before introducing Mr. and Mrs. Tulliver talking by the fire.

## Themes in this chapter

### Nature and the Individual

The narrator's deep immersion in the natural landscape and the river as a living companion.

## Character check-ins

### Maggie Tulliver

The little girl in a beaver bonnet watching the mill wheel.

### Mr. Tulliver

Mentioned as talking with Mrs. Tulliver by the fire in the left-hand parlour.

### Mrs. Tulliver

Mentioned as talking with Mr. Tulliver by the fire in the left-hand parlour.

## Key lines

> I have been pressing my elbows on the arms of my chair, and dreaming that I was standing on the bridge in front of Dorlcote Mill, as it looked one February afternoon many years ago.

The narrator realizes they were daydreaming about the mill scene from the past.

_Reveals the chapter as a dream sequence._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_mill_on_the_floss_se/chapters/i-outside-dorlcote-mill
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_mill_on_the_floss_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_mill_on_the_floss_se/chapters