The Master of the Mill

Lore & Background

The novel's plot centers on Senator Samuel Clark, a respected humanitarian and botanist nearing the end of his life. His father started a small mill in an isolated town, powered by the river. Clark feels guilty about creating a mechanized flour mill, which led to his father and son becoming dominated by service to the company and its machines. He is saddened that automation, intended to reduce work, turned people into parts of a machine, removing their independence and leaving them with cold, empty lives. By the novel's end, Clark finds a spark of hope that the human spirit can be rekindled.

Reader's Guide

The Master of the Mill is significant for its prophetic examination of industrial mechanization's effects on individuals, societies, and civilization. The Canadian Encyclopedia calls it 'a painstakingly researched, prophetic attempt to trace the effects of industrial mechanization on individuals, societies and civilization,' though it has been criticized for being technically demanding due to its shifting time frame, points of view, and complicated subplots. Grove researched the novel in 1928 with a detailed study of the flour-milling industry. Robin Mathews' 1982 article found that 'Nietzsche's will in history is manifested in various ways' in different versions of the novel. The work describes a 'pastoral ethos' where people give up worldly striving for a simpler life, but shows that this ideal cannot be realized in an 'expansionist and Jeffersonian industrialized version.' Salvator Proietti, writing in Science Fiction Studies, calls the novel an example of pastoral utopianism.

Did You Know?

• The novel is set in northwestern Ontario in 1938.
• Grove researched the flour-milling industry in detail in 1928.