乔治•艾略特被誉为英国维多利亚时代三大女性小说家之一。她半自传体小说《弗洛斯河上的磨坊》自发表以来便受到了读者的广泛关注。本文就小说中的水意象展开专门讨论。第一部分简单介绍了近年来国内外学者对于乔治•艾略特的研究现状，以及关于《弗洛斯河上的磨坊》这一作品的不同解读，尤其是对于洪水结局的褒贬不同的观点。在此基础上本文提出了对小说中的水意象，即弗洛斯河进行专门探讨的必要性，并且回顾了目前学术界对小说中水意象的作用的一些研究成果。第二部分具体分析了水意象在本小说中的重要作用，主要有以下三个方面：弗洛斯河作为故事发展的主要线索，推动着情节的发展，是洪水结局的重要预兆；弗洛斯河作为故事中圣奥格镇居民生活的主要场所之一，象征着小镇的历史和传统，从某种意义上弗洛斯河也对应着小说中的人物性格；联系《圣经》中诺亚方舟的神话故事，小说的洪水结局本身也具有重要的宗教含义。乔治•艾略特通过水意象揭示了女主人公玛姬在社会传统，家庭以及自身性格的束缚下，悲剧的发生是不可避免的，同时她也寄托了自己对故事中人物的同情和美好希望。在最后部分，本文总结了故事中水意象的巧妙设置，并肯定了其对该小说艺术价值的贡献。

George Eliot is one of the three most famous women writers of Victorian Period. Her autobiographical novel The Mill on the Floss has been quite popular since it was published. And the literary world has visited this story from different perspectives, among which the tragic flood ending of the story has been given much attention. This paper tries to evaluate the novel by analyzing the symbolic functions of water imagery in The Mill on the Floss and the fateful ending of the flood. This text centers on the following three parts: part one reviews the literature researches on George Eliot’s works and some studies on water imagery in women writers’ literature works. The second part focuses on the analysis of the water imagery in The Mill on the Floss. Three main points are given in this part, respectively seen as the water imagery’s function as plot and foreshadowing of the flood ending, the symbolic function and the religious meaning of the water imagery. Based on these analyses, the very flood ending is due to happen just as all the rivers will flow to the sea. The third part arrives at a conclusion that George Eliot delicately set the element of water to indicate her view about tradition, family, society, religion, etc. Finally, this paper summarizes the value that the water imagery adds to this masterpiece’s artistic achievement.