Maggie Tulliver, like her father, is affectionate, headstrong, and rebellious. Her brother Tom, like his mother and aunts, is self-righteous and self-satisfied. When she is befriended by Philip Wakem, whose father helped ruin Mr. Tulliver's business, Tom self-rightiously banishes Philip from Maggie's life. Along with Philip goes her interest in art, music, and literature. She turns to religion in an attempt to stupefy her faculties and to banish all wishing from her life, while Tom works off the debts that have resulted from his father's bankruptcy and death. She becomes attached to Stephen Guest, her cousin's fiance, and, accidentally drifts away with him in a boat until it becomes too late for them to return home the same day. Tom, now the model of a successful St. Ogg's businessman, repudiates her as a lost woman. "You shall find no home with me - you have disgraced us all." When the river Floss floods and Tom is trapped at the mill, Maggie rows out to save him. In the boat with his sister, Tom re-evaluates his actions and their lives.