The Mill on the Floss Lesson Plan

How do Maggie and Tom's relatively unremarkable "traumas" in Book 1 compare to the more "real" trauma they endure in Book 2?

In the first book, Maggie and Tom have plenty of small childhood traumas, and the narrator insists that though they may seem silly to an adult, to a child they are truly tragic as they occur before both experiencing and overcoming deeper adult trauma. A child's pain is constantly fresh and seemingly unending. However while these traumas predict later troubles, none is so grave as to force them out of childhood.

In this second book we see the loss of innocence that creates the divide between child and adult - a father's ruin and illness. This is...