E. M.

FORSTER'S MAURICE
 A STUDY OF MAURICE
IN RELATION TO THE
OTHER NOVELS BY
EDWARD MORGAN FORSTER

By
MALCA JANICE HALPERN, B.A.

A Thesis
Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies
in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
for the Degree
Master of Arts

McMaster University
November, 1975.
Does the new fragment add anything to what went
before? Does it carry our theory of the author's
talent, or must we alter our forecast?

Such questions ruffle what should be the smooth

surface of our criticism and make it full of
argument and interrogation.

Virginia Woolf in "The

Novels 0 f E.M. Forster",
Collected Essays (Toronto:
Clark, Irwin & Co. Ltd.,
1925) p. 342.
MASTER OF ARTS (1975) McMASTER UNIVERSITY
(English) Hamilton, Ontario

TITLE: A Study of Maurice In Relation To

The Other Novels by Edward Morgan
Forster

AUTHOR: Malca Janice Halpern, B.A. (University of Toronto)

SUPERVISOR: Professor Alwyn Berland

NUMBER OF PAGES: ~\\_;- 2.o~

ii
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

As this paper nears completion, I have a sudden

desire to thank everyone in sight. Since this is silly,
I shall attempt to satisfy myself by thanking only a few.
First of all, grateful acknowledgement is made to
Professor Berland, who listened and listened. Secondly,
my parents deserve a special note of appreciation for
encouraging me so faithfully. Finally, I must thank
my friends at McMaster, the high-school teacher who
introduced me to the novels of E.M. Forster, and
Martin Halpern.

M. J. H.

iii
 A BIBLIOGRAPHICAL HEADNOTE

In 1965, Miss B.J. Kirkpatrick published an

extensive bibliography of the works of Edward Morgan
l
Forster, and it has already been carefully revised.
Despite her admirable work, plus the subsequent efforts
of ather scholars, a complete list of his writings is
not yet possible. Back issues of various periodicals
and newspapers still contain his forgotten contributions;
furthermore, upon his death in June 1970, a great num-
ber of unpublished materials fell into the hands of
his literary executors, and much of it remains to be
edited. !he Af?_Jp.~e.r Edi:t.ion, for example q will include
these findings, and should eventually be definitive:
2
its editor expects it to consist of over twenty volumes.
These few facts alone should completely dispel the once-
popular notion that Forster wrote very little. In his
forward to Kirkpatrick's Bibliographyo he remarks:
I am both surprised and glad to discover
that I have written so much. 3
It is quite likely'that his admirers will feel much the
same way, as the corpus of published works gradually
expands.
To date, three full-scale works have been
published posthumously. Albergo Empedocle and Other
writings (New York, Liveright, 1971) edited by George
H. Thomson makes available the earliest group of uncol-

iv
lected writings identified by Miss Kirkpatrick. It
consists of thirty-six miscellaneous articles which
Forster wrote and published between 1900 and 1915, and
then excluded from further publications. As the editor
himself points out, "not everything in this collection
is of equal in·l:erest II r 4 the author vlas probably justi-
fied in allowing some of it to lie dormant. However,
the time is now ripe for this collection, as scholars
are currently taking an interest in Forster's early
I::
J
development, and in his long career as an essayist.
In addition, these essays can be read quite profitably
in conjunction with his novels, since they were written
at the same time. As Thomson's excellent divisions of
the materials reveal, they deal with typically Forsterian
topics: Cambridge, India, culture, and England's upper
middle-class are each given due attention.
The various pieces found in Thomson's collection
were all written at the same time as Maurice, the
second of the posthumous publications. According to
Forster's own dedication, it was written from 1913 to
19l4~ However, unlike the former work, this novel was
not published during the author's lifetime. When it
appeared in 1971, a good deal of literary controversy
ensued. The author himself, it seems, had been duly
confused about this novel. According to an In·troduction
by P.N. Furbank, the novel was revised in 1919, in 1932,

v
and I'once more, fairly drastically, in 1959 - 1960."7
Forster scrawled "Publishable - but worth it?" on the
cover of the neatly-prepared 1960 manuscript, and most
reviewers have tried to answer him. 8 My own answer to
this question would be an emphatic "Yes:", and a
repetition of one of Forster's remarks about Jane Austen:
The novels are good - of that there is
no doubt, and they are so good that
everything connected with the novelist
and everything she wrote ought certainly
to be published and annotated. 9
The publication of this novel has opened wide
the gates of literary and non-literary speculation.
First of all, one might consider the work's suppression
during the author's lifetime. The novel is concerned
with illustrating the thesis that homosexuality is
normal, and can lead to happiness. In 1914, this idea
was unacceptable, except perhaps in very sophisticated
circles. Philip Toynbee states the situation succinctly
in his review of Maurice:
The Wilde case was still reverberating
and English homosexuals were living in
greater fear, shame and distress than
they had done even in the middle of the
nineteenth century. 10
The lightest sentence for the "crime" was still ten
years in prison. Furthermore, the author was very close
to his Victorian ancestors, and his middle-class relatives.
If one considers his high regard for tradition, and his
love of others, censure of his refusal to print becomes

vi
impossible. The good he may have done the world in
speeding a change of laws and attitudes would have been
negligible in his eyes, if it involved dire immediate
consequences for the Forsters and Thorntons.
By 1967, his mother and other near relatives
were dead; furthermore, the Wolfenden Report revising
the sexual laws had been accepted, and he could, if he
wished, have published the novel. His biographer
Furbank accounts for the situation as follows:
Friends actually suggested it, but he
firmly refused. He knew the endless
fuss and brouhaha it would lead to.
Also, the book had become rather remote
to him. He said he was less interested
now in the theme of salvation, the
rescuer from lotherwhere l ; he thought
it was a Ifake l • 11
This explanation does not seem completely satisfactory;
he could have destroyed the manuscript, instead of
preparing it so carefully for publication. One is
tempted to speculate that the "eyes of the world", the
conventionality that Forster denounces in each of his
works, also affected his own view of the world. The
bourgeois values associated with "Sawston" in itlhere
Angels Fear to Tread and The Longest Journey are just
as much a part of Forster1s world-picture as the "Cam-
bridge" ideals of "eccentricity" and freedom that these
same two novels present. Thus, it is quite possible
that he could never quite resolve his feelings about
vii
his strange little thesis-novel. The rest of his fiction
suggests an even more tantalizing explanation of the
posthumous publication. Coupled with a reminder that
Forster loved secrets and surprises,12 an interesting
theory can be developed.
In a sense, Forster is reborn through the post-
humous publication of a flawed, semi-autobiographical
novel. For the reading public, at the point of his
death, he stops being a cozy old Cambridge don, and
becomes once again an uncertain young author, still
doubtful of his talents.* Doubtless, he would have
enjoyed this result. The themeof inheritance, survival
through one's offspring, a "divine hope of immortality:
'I continue'" runs through all of his major works of
fiction. 13 In Where Angels Fear to Tread, much of the
plot involves Gino's desire for a son, and the future
of that child. In The Longest Journey, Rickie and his
deformed daughter both die, but their name and memory
live on in the form of Stephen Wonham's child. In
Howards End, the house preserves both the life of
England, and the memory of Mrs. wilcox. Similarly,

* Philip Gardner. suggests that the promptitude of

Maurice's publication may imply Forster's "prior
wish not to slip into that temporary oblivion that
has overtaken so many writers after their obituaries".
cf. E.M. Forster: The critical Heritage, ed. Philip
Gardner (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1973) p. 35.
viii
in A Passage to India, Mrs~ Moore lives on through her
children, and in the memory of those she befriended in
India. A Room with a Vi~ is the only novel in the canon
in which the theme is not readily observab1e~ however,
the happy marriage of George and Lucy seems to ensure
that their line, too, will continue. In any case, if
Forster thought of his own life as a story - and many
authors do - Maurice provides it with an excellent
conclusion.
The Life To Come And Other Stories, which appeared
in 1972, is the third of the posthumous publications.
It consists of fourteen stories, only two of which
have been published before~ the latter are entitled
·'~.1ber3:.Q".EmE~g.Q.c15:~:' (Temple Bar, 1903), and " ~h~§.~. ~qu:r.§l_es.

~.I}.¢l."A.pessert.'I (Wine and Food, 1944). Of the remaining

twelve, four were written between 1903 and 1906~ thus,
they are from a period preceding the publication of
Forster's first novel, ~fuere Angels Fear To Tread (1905).
These were not suppressed due to their content, but
because the young, un-established Cambridge graduate
could not command a publisher's attention. These stories
are similar in quality to those in The Collected Tales
(1947), and were probably excluded because they were
not commonly known. On the other hand, the remaining
eight stories were suppressed because of their themes.
Written at a later period of time, mainly after the

ix
publication of A PasS2ge To India (1924), their failure
to appear in print was not due to Forster's lack of
popularity. The editor suggests they were written from
1922 to 1958, and adds:
().) ny editor who rej ected a story by
E.M. Forster would have done so only
for the very reason that deterred him
from offering them, and caused Maurice
to remain unpublished for fifty-seven
years: their homosexual content. 14
The content of these stories will clearly interest
Forster's readers i furthermore, some of 'them reveal a
maturity of style unequalled in his other short fiction.
Thus, they are fascinating in terms of Forster's techni-
que, as well as from the standpoint of the light they
shed on his attitudes toward homosexuality.*
In conclusion, I must add a note of explanation
about the thesis that follows. Initially, I intended
to discuss each of the posthumous works described
above. Thus, this opus was to include a thorough
investigation of The Life To Come in connection with
The Collected Tales, as well as an analysis of how and
why Albergo Empedocle and Other Writings differs from
Forster's considerably finer essays, published in ~

Cheers For Democracy and Abinger Harvest. Since I

* I am indebted to the Introduction to E.M. Forster,

The Life to Come and Other Stories, ed. and intro.
Oliver Stallybrass (London: Edward Arnold (pub.)
Ltd. 1972) for much of the information recorded in
this paragraph.
x
wanted to begin my study with Maurice, however, I turned
my attention towards the novels in the canon. To my
surprise, I found that there was a great deal more to
think about than I had expected. Thus, the topics I
had imagined I would discuss in one chapter provided
me with ample material for three, and there my project
had to end. The omitted areas of research referred to
above would undoubtedly have proved rewarding. Short
fiction, in particular, is significant when it has been
written by an author who also wrote novelsi recurrent
themes and symbols appear in a conveniently abbreviated
form. On the other hand, by focussing my attention
solely on Maurice, I have managed to discover new
aspects of Forster's philosophy. This posthumous novel,
is, in fact, the worst one in Forster's canoni most of
its reviewers have clearly accepted this premise, and
I am following suit}. On the other hand, I believe
it to be the most interesting of Forster's works, and
one that certainly merits detailed analysis.

xi
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii
A BIBLIOGRAPHICAL HEADNOTE iv
INTRODUCTION 1
I. THE EARLY NOVELS:
III sighed as a lover, I obeyed
as a son ll .. 12

II. THE EARLY NOVELS:

DREAMS, ART, WORK, AND COMRADESHIP 49

III. HOWARDS END, MAURICE, A PA~SAGE TO

INDIA:
SEX AND SNOBBERY 107

CONCLUSION 191
FOOTNOTES 196
BIBLIOGRAPHY 227
 INTRODUCTION

At first glance, evaluating Maurice involves

making complicated judgments. Our consciousness of the
author intrudes upon our analysis at every turn. Post-
humous discussions of Forster direct our attention to-
wards his personality, because of his achievements in
the t'1orld of publ ic affairs; furthermore, the text
itself contains a brief autobiographical note which we
cannot easily dismiss. l Coupled with a current critical
bias towards studying Forster's personal philosophy,
these materials can lead us astray. It becomes very
easy to lose sight of this novel, and see only the man
who wrote it. The author's biography can often be
used to illuminate a text, but it can also distort it.
In this particular case, if we draw too many parallels
between the author's experiences and thoseof the char-
acters, the novel is reduced to what Forster himself
once described as a "pathological tract,,2. This would
be too obvious to mention, if biographical criticism
of the most embarrassing kind had not appeared immedi-
ately after Forster's death. writes Alfred Borrello:
Almost from the moment of [JJi~ death,
friends whom he cherished in life,
raced into print to reveal the dark
corners of his private life which he
had successfully concealed from the
general public. 3
There are, of course, enlightening ways of

1
 2

relating an author's life to his works: if Borrello is

implying that the facts of Forster's life should be
concealed, he is incorrect. However, if he means that
critics must guard against sensationalism or irrelevance,
his remarks are justified. All considerations of
material beyond a literary text itself are difficult.
Thus, attempting to place Maurice in a suitable position
in Forster's canon can lead to further misinterpretations.
i~en studying six novels as a single unit, we tend to
lose sight of what is unique about each of them. Maurice
in particular readily disappears, because it is by no
means a masterpiece. We must not forget that it is an
autonomous artistic structure, as well as a new link
in the chain of existing works by Forster. Lionel
Trilling describes the complicated context in which a
work can be analysed in a passage worth quoting at
length:
The author's whole career presents
itself to us not improperly as an
architectonic whole of which each
particular work is a part: and the
shape of that career, the nature and
pace of its development, the past
failures and successes or those which
we know are to come, the very size of
the structure, the place of any single
unit, the logic of the whole - all
bear upon our feelings about any
particular work. 4
Trilling is correct in suggesting that these issues
affect our responses to individual works of art. We
 3

must simply make sure that our attempts to see an

II architectonic vJhole II do not lead us astray.
Seeing Forster's work as a whole has often meant
tracing a chronological development in his writings.
Thus, the early works are viewed as steps in the
production of the later ~"orks. Hilfred stone's The
Cave and the Mountain (1966) is a representative analysis
from this viewpoint. He sets out to prove that the
novels are IIdramatic installments in the story of
Forster's own struggle for selfhood - and a myth to
support i·t 115. At the end of his ~"ork, he concludes
that IIbetween the stories and A Passage, there is an
evolution of the artist from a child to a man's estate ll6 •
In studies like Stone's, special attention is given to
the question of Forster's apparent abandonment of novel
writing so early in his career, because this event
appears to be significant in terms of his literary
eVOlution. Forster published four novels in rapid
succession, beginning with Where Angels Fear to Tread
in 1905. He then paused for fourteen years between
Howards End (1910) and A Passage to India (1924).
After that, although he was only forty-five years old
with half of his life still to come, he mysteriously
published no more novels at all.
This does not mean that subsequent works by
Forster did not appear. As Miss Kirkpatrick's biblio-
 4

graphy reveals, he went on to publish over four hundred

pieces, including two biographies, two pageants, a
libretto, and many critical articles. As one friend
quipped, "When Forster stopped writing novels, he
became a sage,,7. Neither this comment nor the author's
o\"n frequent, evasive remarks about having "dried up"
satisfied the mystified students of his evolution. For
the next forty-five years, they continued to consider
various explanations of his silence. By the sixties,
two critical factions had emerged; one group attributed
his silence to his disillusionment with contemporary
society, while the second argued that psychological
repression had caused his abandonment of fiction.*
In 1959, in a television interview, the author himself
supported the first view:
I think one of the reasons \vhy I stopped
writing novels is that the social aspect
of the world changed so much. I had been
accustomed to write about the old-
fashioned world with its homes and its
family life and its comparative peace.
All that went, and though I can think
about the new world, I cannot put it
into fiction. 8
Critics who accept this explanation believe that Forster's
novels deal with a pre-war, Edwardian universe+. Those

* One supporter of this opinion is Wilfred Stone. He

describes Forster as an artist 1I""orking mole-like out
of a deep and crushing psychological repression ll • cf.
Wilfred Stone, The Cave and the Mountain (California:
Stanford Univ. Press, 1966) p. 191.
+ cf. Richard Martin, The Love That Failed, (The Hague-
Paris: Mouton & Co., 1974).
 5

who defend the second viewpoint feel that the theme of

homosexuality is subtly or ambiguously present in the
five published works.
vfuat new information has come our way since
Forster's death? This question is certainly not easily
answered. The first public statement of his homosex-
uality did not occur until two months after his death,
on a radio program on the BBe (August, 1970). However,
it did not surprise most of his friends and critics,
who already knew that "Forster was himself a homosexual
and for many years a fully practicing one"9. Forster's
associates were also aware of the fact that he had
written a ~ovel which was not to be published until he
died. Furthermore, the mystery of the homosexual themes
in the published fiction had been previously explored;
thus, the posthumous works merely encouraged a critical
viewpoint which already existed. stone, for example,
stressed Rickie's "latent homosexuality", in 1966. 10
Since the posthumous publications, however, there is a
tendency for critics to simply imagine homosexual
relationships among Forster's fictional characters.
Observing this recent development, Mr. Borrello remarks:
One shudders to think what will be
made of the Fielding-Aziz friendship
in ~ Passage To India: 11
Clearly, there is a need for a thorough investigation
of the recent acquisitions to the canon.
 6

Today, we know that Forster wrote Maurice

during the fourteen-year gap between Howards End and A
Passage To India. In addition, we have access to his
private papers which reveal his frustration with the
topic of heterosexual love, this information provides
one more substantial explanation of his abandonment of
publishable fiction. Forster regretted the conditions
of his times, and longed for the freedom of expression
he supported on many occasions. He fought censorship
by attending tribunals, and making speeches. He
defended the publication of D.H. Lawrence's Lady
Chatterlv!s Lover, Radclyffe Hall's Lesbian novel, The
Well of Loneliness, and other controversial works. In
"Three Anti-Nazi Broadcasts", he states:
if (the write~ feels free, sure of
himself, unafraid, easy inside, he is
in a favourable condition for the act
of creation. 12
According to Forster, a writer needs an audience, and
the freedom to say what he wants, or he becomes "afraid
to feel"13. Clearly, this fear affected his own attitude
to writing. In his private notes, he writes:
1 8 Having sat for an hour in vain trying
to write a play, will analyse cause
of my own sterility ••• 2. weariness
of the only subject that I both can
and may treat - the love of men for
women and vice versa. (Diary, June 1911).
2. I shall never write another novel
after it (A Passage) - my patience
 7

with ordinary people has given out

.... (letter, 1 Aug. 1923).14
There is certainly an element of tragedy in these
revelations, and one wonders what he may have written
in a freer society.
There is certainly a relationship between Forster's
complex attitudes toward homosexuality and his major
theme, which Lionel Trilling accurately defines as a
research into the "profound pathology" of "the heart
untrained and untutored, the heart checked too early
in its natural possible growth"15 .. Trilling argues
that Forster's unhappiness at school led to his interest
in the growth of the heart. In Maurice, Forster reveals
the special torments that a traditional education holds
out to a young homosexual. In a central essay entitled
"Notes On the English Character" (1920), Forster blames
the British public-school system for sending boys out
into the world with "well-developed bodies, fairly
developed minds, and undeveloped hearts"16. In a dis-
cussion of this article, Rose Macaulay writes:
This public school business is rather
perplexing. Can it really be that boys
sent to live together for a few years
to do lessons and play games, turn into
something quite different from what they
would have turned into if they had lived
at home and attended day schools?17
Forster would have apswered Miss Macaulay affirmatively.
In an article entitled "Society and the Homosexual: The
 8

Abominable Crime" (1953), he writes:

Certainly, the segregation of the sexes
in boarding schools seems designated to
increase homosexuality ••• 18
Clearly, then, Forster's hatred of the British
public-school system becomes more comprehensible in the
light of his concern for the homosexual in society.
Similarly, his other famous likes and dislikes can be
explained in terms of various aspects of his complex
view of homosexuality. His cynical attitudes toward
clergYmen, school-teachers, marriage, and other author-
ities can be linked with his own personal dissatisfaction
with contemporary society. Malcolm Bradbury accurately
observes:
The publication of Maurice is bound
to remind us vigorously of the basis
in his personal life and passions
from which his writing arose: it
gives a local justification for his
liberalism and his attitude toward
human feeling, toward emancipating
personal relationships, the growth
of the heart. 19
As we become aware of the personal hurt that motivated
Forster, his works take on new meanings. writes George
Steiner:
A number of {hi:€} most famous dicta -
it is better to betray one's country
than a friend, 'only connect' - take
on a more restricted, shriller ambience. 20
~fuile Steiner is correct, the perceptive reader will go
beyond this interpretation, and preserve an earlier
impression of Forster's humane fineness. The sayings
 9

still have their universal implications. No matter what

the author's personal experiences were, we must finally
judge the literary product, as an independent object in
the purified world of art.
The above comments have been little more than
speculations on the state of the author's mind and thus
of secondary importance. A literary critic's central
interest must lie with the works themselves. Forster
himself was aware of this, and often cautioned readers
about it. At the beginning of one of his own pleas for
objective literary criticism, he asks:
Do you like to kna"''' ""ho a book Us by?21
In IIAnon'¥mity: An Inquiryll, and IIArt For Art's Sake ll , he
argues against dwelling on the author's personality while
analysing his works. These essays seem prophetic in
the light of the way his own writing can now be
approached. Rebelling against the biographical approach
to Forster, several critics have denied that he 'developed'
at all. For example, Elizabeth Bowen writes:
The author of Where Angels Fear To Tread
had already as much authority as the
author of A Passage to India. 22
One senses her boredom with the issue of Forster's
development: she would much rather read the books.
Her feelings are, in fact, reminiscent of Forster's
remarks in a TV interview:
 10

I am more interested in achievement

than in advance or decline from it.
And I am more interested in works
than in authors. The paternal wish
of critics to show how-a writer dropped
off or picked up as he went along seems
to me misplaced. 23
Since the publication of the posthumous works, it has
become increasingly difficult to ignore the issue of
Forster's development. Furthermore, it is necessary to
investigate the relevance of information not found
within the texts themselves, in order to achieve a
balanced view of his art. wilfred Stone's The Cave and
the Mountain represents one comprehensive study of
Forster's "inner biography", and of the relations be-
tween his life and works. However, it appeared before
the author's death, and thus, its information is dated.
In this thesis, the placing of Maurice in the canon
will enable us to re-interpret the earlier novels, and
reappraise the question of Forster's development. For
the purposes of clear analysis, it is convenient to
divide Forster's published works into two main groups.
The first one comprises Where Angels Fear To Tread (1905),
The Longest Journey (1907), and A Room with A Vi~ (1908)
the second one consists of Howards End (1910), and A
Passage To India (1924). By virtue of its themes and
style, Maurice falls more naturally into the first
section. It was, in fact, written between the two mature

works, and it relates to certain aspects of these novels, as

 11

well. Thus, its relevance to both the early and the

late novels will be considered in the discussions that
follow.
 CHAPTER I

THE EARLY NOVELS:

I sighed as a lover.
I obeyed as a .Son ..,:. ,I

Maurice is essentially a thesis-novel~ the idea

of homosexuality stands at the center of the book. Other
themes and characterizations seem "flat" by comparison,
and didactic purposes rigorously control each incident
that occurs. writes Furbank of Forster:
He needed to affirm, without possibility
of retreat, that love of this kind could
be ennobling. 2
In Aspects of the Novel, Forster describes stories in
which II c haracters have to fall in with someth{ng else in
the novel ••• and have, of course, to modify their make-
up accordingly".3 In these cases, the author has a
"pattern" in mind, to which he sacrifices the other
elements in fiction, and produces a IIbook of the rigid
type, a book with a unity, and in this sense an easy
d
book".~ Maurice, with its strict adherence to a single
idea is precisely this kind of a book, and at many
points, the sacrifices made are too great. In Forster's
other novels, the characters and situations develop in
a freer environment~ the themes are broader. Here, we
witness an author-narrator with an idee fixe. He bends
each part of the work into a proof that there is a need
for a new attitude towards homosexuality.

12
 13

In order to encourage this attitude, Forster

creates a representative British figure who also happens
to be a homosexual. All of the English males in
Forster's novels share some of the national traits that
are outlined in lINotes on the English Character"* but
only Maurice possesses them all. He is even physically
strong, which is a unique quality amongst Forsterian
heroes. However, in comparison with Philip, Rickie,
Henry Wilcox or Fielding, he is wooden. In his anxiety
to deliver his message, Forster provides us with a hero
who is occasionally more stereotype than archetype,
more IIflat ll than "round". He is a product of the middle
class, and of the public-school system: on prize day,
we are told that he is honoured because he is "average".5
This last point seems gratuitous, and one begins to
wonder what has become of Forster's usual subtlety. We
learn that, like the Englishman of IINotes ll who IIhas been
taught at public school that feeling is bad form ll ,6
Maurice has received a repressive education, and emerges
in a lIbewilderedll state. 7 It would seem that the
portrait of English muddledom could not be more complete.
Maurice seems to be a mere receptacle for the typically

* Lucy Honeychurch also shares some of these traits.

 14

"English emotions" which Forster compares to fish

"moving far below, distorted and obscure". 8
As we read, however, certain vivid details stand
out like jewels in the morass of descriptions of Maurice
Hall. The first scene, for example, is marvellously
handled. The pompous Mr. Ducie attempts to teach the
unwilling pupil about that anachronism, "the mystery
of sex",9 and the result is a complex mixture of comedy
and pathos. Forster's double-edged satire is so often
missing in Maurice that it is particularly welcome
when it appears. As Noel Annan observes in discussing
this novel, tracts are seldom funnYi lO they have too
many serious points to make. Here, however, Forster
manages to combine a serious critique of the Victorian
approach to sexual education wifusome amusing dialogue.
" ••. one mustnlt make a mystery of it. Then come the
great things - Love, Life", pontificates Mr. Ducie,
" .•• AIl ' s right with the world. Xvlale and female! Ah
wonderful~lIll One remembers "the exhortations to be
patriotic, athletic, learned and religious, that flowed
like a four-part fugue from Mr. Pembroke's mouth" in
The Longest Journey.12 The subject matter has changed
from esprit de corps to sex, but the teaching method
satirized is much the same.
For an insight into the serious side of this
opening gambit of Maurice, we need only compare it with
 15

a similar scene in Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson. In

this biography, Forster relates that Goldie "never
heard one sensible word from any grown-up person on
the subject" of sex. 13 A "pompous fattish man" named
Ernest Coleridge taught him at his first school, and
insisted on explaining Uthe mystery of sex"14. Forster
writes:
Later on, hearing that he had had a
bath with another boy, he called him
to his study and cross-questioned
him. 15
According to Forster, this incident was only one in a
series. The main result of Goldie's education was
confusion and repression. The morality imposed upon
him harmed himi like Maurice, he was particularly
disturbed by "vague and alarming sex talk " • 16 writes
Forster:
He became more devout •.• liking to
feel good, and sometimes longing to
be bad. He was in a complete muddle,
without any standards except what
were imposed from outside and even
his rebellions were conventional. 17
Maurice, who spends his years at public school in a
"trance" is similarly mUddled. 18 Like Goldie, he is
good and bad by turns: he is "religious" and "obscene"19.
Maurice differs from Goldie in that he is physically
capable of defending himself. Temperamentally, however,
he is equally vulnerable. Of Maurice, Forster writes:
The boys had showered presents on him,
declaring he was brave. A great mistake -
he wasn't brave: he was afraid of the dark. 20
 16

Despite his popularity, it is clear that Maurice

is mentally antagonized by school. The following
description of Goldie Dickinson summarizes his situation:
Goldie was not normal. He suffered
from torments which assail the spirit,
from moral bullying, of which -there
was a great deal, and from his own
timidity.2l
The dissatisfied heroes of Where Angels Fear To Tread
and The Longest Journey also find their school days

-
en..ervating and painful. Like Maurice, they "receive
upon undefended flesh the first blows of the world".22
Rickie spends his days at school in "a hell no grown-
up devil can devise",23 due to the cruelty of his
fellow-students.* Similarly, Philip suffers due to
his "weakly build". 24 HO\<lever, for each of the boys it
is the spiritual tyranny that affects -;.ht:m most, and
not the fights with bullies. Conformity, a mechanical
adherence to custom, stifles individuality in the
schools Forster depicts. Mr. Pembroke, for example,
teaches -that "without innumerable customs, there tiS]
no safety, either for boys or men~25 His desire to
"organize" his students hides his detestable eagerness
to produce the "average gentleman".26 As the philosopher
Ansell tells us:

* For further examples of Forster's awareness of the

horrors of boarding-schools for the physically weak,
cf. The Longest Journey, p. 200, and also Goldsworthy
Lowes Dickinson (London: Edward Arnold (Pub.) Ltd.,
1934) p. 5 where Forster reports that Goldie said:
"At school a timid boy like me has no aid and no hope."
 17

the human soul is a very delicate

thing, which can receive eternal
damage from a little coaching. 27
Descriptions of confused mental states riddle
each of the early novels, and Maurice. In II Notes On
The English Character ll , Forster writes:
A public-school education does not
make for mental clearness and the
(Englishman) possesses to a very high
degree the power of confusing his own
mind. 28
In ~fuere Angels Fear To Tread, he subtly emphasizes
the problem of the lI undeveloped heart ll in a brief
sketch of Philip before his looking-glass:
(Hi~ face was plain rather than not,
and there was a curious mixture in
it of good and bad ••. but below the
nose and eyes all was confusion, and
those people who believe that destiny
resides in the mouth shook their heads
when they looked at him. 29
The author detests spiritual muddledom, and he reveals
that the repressive methods of the public schools
encourage it. Rickie, for example, creeps out of an
enormous public school II co ld and friendless and
,
~gnorant
' for a
... prepar~ng '1 ent Journey.
s~
. , , 3 0H~s
, b oy-

hood is described as a "dusty corridor" from \ilThich he

must exit. In Maurice, the confusion is presented in
terms of Maurice's lack of a sexual identity. For
years after the insufferable instructions of Mr. Ducie,
he remains hopelessly "bewildered" about his homosexual
31
temperament. The sexual frustration produced in these
 18

children by the boarding-school system is intense, and

can lead to violent forms of rebellion:
if you herd together human beings before
they can understand each other the great
god Pan is angry and will in the end
evade your regulationse 32
In Forster's early novels, the public-school
system is a major symbol of the rigidity of conventional
morality, but it is not the only one. Lucy Honeychurch,
the sole female protagonist in this group, suffers from
a spiritual perplexity similar to that of Philip,
Rickie, or Maurice. Evidently, she is not the product
of a boys' boarding school. Thus, her problems must
stem from other sources. LucyOs situation parallels
that of the male in that she is the child of a middle-
class, suburban household, and its values have been
inflicted upon her. Upon further examination of these
novels, one can see that parental and familial relation-
ships are explored in depth. In fact, the family unit
provides Forster with his other major symbol of society's
oppression of the individual. Mrs. Herriton speaks for
Forster when she declares:
All a child's life depends on the ideal
it has of its parents ... Destroy that,
and everything goes .•. morals, behaviour,
everything. 33
By internalizing conventional morality, parents often
perpetuate an unconsidered adherence to a rigid set of values.
In Angels, Philip's attitudes towards his mother influence
 19

his entire life. In Journey, Rickie's early relations

with his parents have a pronounced affect on his
subsequent development. As for Lucy in A Room With A
View, her personal ethics evolve from her associations
with three very different families. Finally, in
Maurice, Forster opens his work with a thorough account
of his hero's youth7 the early chapters are reminiscent
of a psychologist's casebook. In each case, Forster
satisfies the modern reader's belief that motivation
is related to early experiences7 clearly, we are
justified in reading these works in the light of
developmental psychology.
Forster formed his conclusions about family life
by examining his own experiences, and those of his
contemporaries.* Wilfred Stone writes:
Never were children more cruelly
suffocated by morality and over-
privilege than the poor little rich
children of Forster's class and
generation. 34
In Marianne Thornton, Forster coolly discusses the
drawbacks of his own upbringing. According to his own
account, he lost his father at an early age, and took
up residence ",ith his mother, "Aunt Honie" (Miss
Thornton), and other aunts. As a child, he was molly-
coddled: he was forced to play "eggy peggy", and

* He was particularly conscious of the biography of

his friend Dickinson.
 20

compelled to wear "corkscrew curls".35 Due to the

whims of his endearing but domineering aunt, he was
rarely allowed to assert himself. Marianne loved him
dearly, and left him eight thousand pounds in her will;36
unfortunately, the love she provided was sUffocating.
She inhibited the actions of Forster's mother, as well.
The "beautiful young \",idow ll was urged to IIbury herself
in the wilds for the sake of a supposedly delicate son".37
Mrs. Forster was not strong enough or rich enough to
break the Thornton connection; she also loved Marianne,
despite her faults. Thus, she and her son suffered
considerably. The little boy took to writing "long
stories about things that have never happened except
inside (his) head".38 As he grew up, he transformed
his childhood anxieties into the stuff of creative
fiction.
In Angels, Journey, Room with A View, and Maurice,
Forster depicts the struggles that occur between the
generations. In each case, a young person is pitted
against the forces of conventional authorities. All
too often, the familial guidance provided for these
characters is of the wrong kind. Smothering and des-
tructive, inhibited and inhibiting by turns, it impedes
the road to full development. Forster's compassion is
extended to those for whom youthful rebellion is
impossible; he understands that the limitations placed
 21

on true growth early in life can be debilitating.

However, he reserves his admiration for those who learn
to express their own natures, even when this involves
sudden and radical forms of protest. In Two Cheers
For Democracy, he writes:
The people who touch my imagination are
obstinate suddenly - they do break step
••• Here and there, as I rake between
the importancies, I come across them -
the people who carried whimsicality
into action, the salt of my earth •..
the solid fellows who suddenly jib. 39
Forster's first two heroes fail to find happiness for
themselves. Despite their virtues, they ultimately
prove too weak to vanquish their moral and sexual
confusion. By contrast, Lucy Honeychurch and Maurice
Hall rebel, thereby discovering ways of living and
loving that suit their own needs. Like Philip and
Rickie, they are restricted by their families, and by
conventional morality, but eventually, they resolve
the inner conflicts that threaten to destroy them.
In Yfuere Angels Fear To Tread, the most manipu-
lative figure of all is Mrs. Herriton. At home in
Sawston, she rules with an iron hand. We learn that
she is intelligent, but society has sorely limited her
sphere of action. In Edwardian times, a comfortably
rich widow le£\,~: a most unsatisfactory life. Like
Forster's own mother and aunts, Mrs. Herriton's widow-
hood leaves her lonely and bored. In a moment of re-
 22

sentment, Philip discovers that h~s mother's life is

meaningless: she is a "well-ordered, active, useless
machine ll • 40 Like so many other suburbanites in these
novels, she behaves like an automaton. As a mother, she
mechanically dispenses guidance, and rigorously controls
the conduct of her offspring. Philip thinks of his
various friends and relations as participants in an
amusing puppet show. 41 with Mrs. Herriton pulling the
strings, however, the results can just as easily be
tragic. She abuses each child placed in her care -
her "refining influences ll extend to male and female
alike. 42 The first person to come under her control
is her eldest daughter, Harriet. She accepts the moral
preachings of her mother in a suitably mechanical
fashion:
Harriet's education had been almost too
successful ..• As Philip once said, she
had 'bolted all the cardinal virtues and
couldn't digest them'.43
Mrs. Herriton's handling of her daughter resembles
Goldie Dickinson's parents' treatment of him. Once
again, the biography helps us to comprehend the serious
side of Forster's message. In that work, he writes
of the "narrow vein of piety" in Goldie's mother that
encouraged the son's "morbidity". He adds:
The piety of h is parents was in (Goldie' ~
later judgment, unhelpful. It checked
his instincts for enjoyment and gave him
nothing with which to take their place. 44
 23

Like Goldie, Harriet's natural instincts are repressed:

when she travels in Italy, she merely obeys her mother;
she never finds time to enjoy being a tourist. Amidst
the most beautiful settings, she is plagued by a myriad
of minor annoyances. For example, on a visit to Juliet's
tomb in Verona:
HarrietDs sketch-book was stolen, and
the bottle of ammonia in her trunk
burst over her prayer-book, so that
purple patches appeared on all her
clothes. Then .•. Philip made her look
out of the window because it was
Virgil's birthplace, and a smut flew
in her eye ••• 45
Again and again, Forster reveals that this representative
Sawstonian does not belong in Italy; even the death of
Gino's baby does not jar her out of her complacency.
Like so many other unsympathetic Forsterian characters,
her ability to comprehend life is minimal. After the
dramatic events in Italy, we learn that:
••• Harriet, after a short paroxysm of
illness and remorse, was quickly
returning to her normal state. She
had been 'thoroughly upset' as she
phrased it, but she soon ceased to
realize that anything was wrong
beyond the death of a poor little
child ••• 46
Unlike Harriet, Lilia rebels against Sawstonian
stuffiness. Widowed by Charles Herriton, she spends
three years in Sawston "continually subject to the
refining influences of her late husband's family",
and learns to bicycle, "for the purpose of waking the
 24

place up".47 Once in Italy, she marries the first man

she sees, in an impulsive attempt to escape from her
mother-in-law. Lilia's experience in Italy proves as
unsatisfactory as Harriet's: her marriage to Gino
enslaves her far more effectively than Sawston ever
did. Forster writes:
Lilia had achieved pathos despite
herself, for there are some situations
in which vUlgarity counts no longer.
Not Cordelia or Imogen more deserves
our tears. 48
She is, indeed, a vulgar character:
As Mrs. Herriton had often observed,
Lilia had no resources. She did not
like music, or reading, or work. Her
one qualification for life was rather
blowsy high spirits, which turned
querulous or boisterous according to
circumstances. 49
Yet it is from this simple-minded girl that we first
learn just how harmful Mrs. Herriton can be. In an
outburst to Philip, she expresses her outrage succintly:
~For once in my life I'll thank you to
leave me alone. I'll thank your mother,
too. For twelve years you've trained
me and tortured me, and I'll stand it
no more •.. when Charles died I was still
to run in strings for the honour of your
beastly family, and I was to be cooped
up at Sawston and learn to keep house,
and all my chances spoilt of marrying
again. No, thank you: •• :50
Lilia's defiance, her "supreme insolence~ is presented
sympathetically, and Philip, who is always honest, must
acknowledge lithe coarseness and truth of her attack". 51
 25

Indeed, he must eventu~lly recognize the oppres-

sive nature of all aspects of his existence in sawston.
Furthermore, through a rapid series of revelations, he
comes to view his mother as harshly as Lilia does.
Because he is potentially a great human being, his
enslavement in the hands of Mrs. Herriton affects us
more profoundly than the plights of Harriet or Lilia.
Caroline Abbott expresses the feelings of most readers
when she takes hold of both of his hands, and exclaims:
~
You are so splendid, Mr. Herriton, that
I can't bear to see you wasted. I can't
bear - she has not been good to you -
your mother~52
Caroline cannot quite articulate her feelings but
clearly, she understands Philip's situation. Mrs.
Herriton has ensured her son's misery, and stunted his
development. In a moment of insight, he perceives her
weaknesses:
Philip started and shuddered. He saw
that his mother was not sincere. Her
insincerity to others had amused him,
but it was disheartening when used
against himself. 53
As he continues to consider the matter, his faintly
disguised disgust reveals itself to be a burning
resentment:
He was sure that she was not impulsive,
but did not dare say so. Her ability
frightened him. All his life he had
been her puppet ..• To what purpose was
her diplomacy, her insincerity, her
continued repression of vigour? Did
they make anyone better or happier?
 26

Did they even bring happiness to

herself? Harriet with her gloomy
peevish creed, Lilia with her clutches
after pleasure, were after all more
divine ••• 54
with these thoughts, Philip begins to recognize the
horror of his own existence.
He has, in fact, been thrust into an alienating
set of social relationships which he can accurately
observe, but which he cannot change. His mother has
rendered him incapable of escaping. Forster writes:
He could criticize this mothe~ thus.
But he could not rebel. To the end
of his days, he would probably go on
doing what she wanted. 55
He is incapable of action, rarely passionate, and his
attitude to women often borders on hatred. For example,
when Caroline appears in Italy to rescue Lilia's baby,
he is irrationally angered:
Philip's first coherent feeling was
one of indignation. To be run by his
mother and hectored by his sister was
as much as he could stand. The
intervention of a third female drove
him suddenly beyond politeness. 56
The frustrations involved in living in an all-female
environment are only too apparent in these lines. One
cannot help remembering the feminine household Forster
himself was raised in. In the scene referred to above,
Philip's misogyny bursts from his lips:
9Tear each other's eyes out~r he cried,
gesticulating at the facade of the
hotel. HGive it to her, Harriet!
 27

Teach her to leave us alone. Give it

to her, Caroline~ Teach her to be
grateful to you~ Go it, ladies~ go
't"57
1. •

In comparison with Mrs. Herriton, Mrs. Elliott

in The Longest Journey is a sympathetic characterization,
indeed. As a little boy, Rickie tells her lovingly:
hI have seen you laugh ever so often.
One day you were laughing alone all
down in the sweet peas~.58
Philip's mother also loves her garden, but she sows her
seeds much more methodically. In Where Angels Fear To
Tread, we learn:
(Harr iet and her mothejJ sowed the
duller vegetables first, and a
pleasant feeling of righteous fatigue
stole over them as they addressed the
peas ••. Mrs. Herriton was very careful
to let those peas trickle evenly from
her hand, and at the end of the row
she was conscious that she had never
sown better. 59
This seemingly trivial contrast illustrates the
essential difference between the two women. Unlike
Mrs. Herriton, Rickie's mother can be frivolous and
tender, by turns. Unfortunately, however, she is
married to a man who embodies "the grey monotony that
surrounds all cities".60 Rickie's father leads a
diabolically mechanical existence, and is cruel to his
only child. Despite the boy's lameness, he maintains
a firm stance: "No coddling".61 The hollowness of

his heart is reflected in his physical appearance.

Forster describes his "hollow little cheeks, ••• and
 28

stiff impoverished hair" and his eyes, with "their

peculiar flatness, as if the soul looked through dirty
\tVindow-panes II .62
It is impossible to take Mr. Elliott's ferocious-
ness seriously, however, because it is presented
facetiously. "He worries me", he declares of his son.
"He's a joke of which I have got tired". 63 He abandons
his wife with incredible ease:
••• Mrs. Elliott had not the gift of
making her home beautifuli and one
day, when she bought a carpet for
the dining-room that clashed, he
laughed gently, said he 'really
couldn't', and departed. 64
On another occasion, the frustrated wife leaves the
loveless marriage. She heads for Stockholm, with " a
man who told her three times not to buy artificial
manure ready made, but, if she would use it, to make
it herself at the last moment~65 Forster joyously
weaves a fantasYof illicit love out of the tale of Mrs.
Elliott and her "young farmer of some education". 66
Like Maurice and his lover, these two flee to a
IWhitmannic" 67 paradise for seventeen days of " per fect
health .•• perfect weather", and " more than personal
love". 68 The then young Mrs. Failing aptly captures
the spirit of this blissful union. Cries she:
llli1hy they're divine~ They're forces
of Nature~ They're as ordinary as
volcanoes ••• they are guiltless in the
sight of God ll • 69
 29

In this earlier novel, Forster brings the unconventional,

spontaneous idyll to an abrupt conclusion. Whereas we
are asked to imagine "Maurice and Alex still roam (ing)
the greenwood",70 Mrs. Elliott's farmer dies suddenly,
and we must envisage the recalcitrant wife's return to
her tyrannical husband. Her response to Mr. Elliott's
proposal of a resumption of their relationship deserves
to be quoted at length. She says to herself:
I will think about it. If I loved him
the very least bit I should say no. If
I had anything to do with my life I
should say no. But it is simply a
question of beating time till I die.
Nothing that is coming matters. I may
as well sit in his drawing room and
dust his furniture, since he has
suggested it. 71
Despite Forster's cheerful manner of describing
these major events in the life of Rickie's parents,
he clearly intends us to view the agonies of the boy's
childhood in a serious light. His confusion, we are
told, begins before he enters public school:
Rickie departed in a state of bewildered
misery, which was scarcely ever to grow
clearer. 72
Mrs. Elliott embodies yet another version of stultifying
parental love. Her influence on Rickie is more damaging
than that of her cruel husband. She herself is the
helpless victim of repression:*

* cf. Forster's account of Dickinson's household in which

"there never had been any intimacy •.• " in Forster,
Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson, p. 4.
 30

The boy grew up in great loneliness.

He worshipped his mother and she was
fond of him. But she was dignified
and reticent, and pathos, like tattle,
was disgusting to her. She was afraid
of intimacy, in case it led to confidence
and tears, and so all her life she held
her son at a little distance. 73
Unwittingly, she instills Rickie with some of her own
prudishness; he must fight against his tendency to
withdraw from intimacy throughout his life. When he
is older, he observes an embrace of Agnes and Gerald.
Forster writes:
It was the merest accident that Rickie
had not been dis usted. But this he
4
could not know. 7
~fuen Mr. Elliott dies, his wife makes a further mistake:
It seemed as if she could not do too
much to shield tBicki~ and to draw
him nearer to her. 75
Since Rickie is fifteen years old at this time, Mrs.
Elliott's action seems unnecessary: she offers him
a great-coat, to shield him from the wind. 76 We cannot
be certain that this action symbolizes a sustained over-
protection, because the mother dies suddenly at this
point in the narration. In this way, Forster removes
their relationship from the physical world, and provides
himself with a framework in which to develop the sheerly
spiritual aspects of their love. Rickie1s love for
his mother is inspiring in its strength, but it is also
frightening. After her death, he dreams of her constantly,
and scarcely loves anyone else. Like Philip, Rickie
 31

is over ·powered by his mother, despite her gentle

~

natureJand will never achieve independence. Like

Maurice, he fears the darkness. He longs for his mother
to still his terrors and he is tormented by strange
visions. Forster writes:
Yet again did he awake, and from a more
mysterious dream. He heard his mother
crying quite distinctly in the darkened
room. He whispered, ~Never mind, my
darling, never mind-, and a voice echoed,
'Never mind - come away - let them die
out - let them die out-. 77
She seems to beckon this son away from life, and into
a vast abyss of sterility and death.
~he Longest Journey is cluttered with people
who manipulate Rickie. His mother's posthumous
influence is merely a single link in the chains that
bind him. The true female tyrants are his aunt and
his wife. Like Philip, he is often controlled by the
women in his family. His aunt resembles Philip's
mother, although she is a much more awesome figure.
Like Mrs. Herriton, she is a widow in suburbia. Like
Agnes after her marriage to Rickie, and like Mrs.
Elliott, she, too, beats time. After her husband's
death, Mrs. Failing lives in a state of "graceful
fretfulness" 78 - a condition which sounds very much
like sexual frustration. Forster writes:
With many a groan she settled down to
banishment. Wiltshire people, she
declared, were the stupidest in England.
 32

She told them so to their faces, which

made them no brighter. And their
county was worthy of them: no distinction
in it - no style - simply land. 79
She also settles down to hurting others, for her own
amusement. IIFinding life dull ll , writes Forster, II s he
had dropped lies into it, as a chemist drops a new
element into a solution ••• she loved to mislead others ll • 80
Rickie and his half-brother Stephen are two of her most
prized victims. It can be demonstrated, however, that
she has her virtues. Her power lies in the fact that,
like Forster's own Aunt Monie,81 she is good and evil
by turns. writes Stone: "she is vindictive and
generous, sympathetic and cruel, intelligent and cold ••• 1182
Rickie's family is briefly and bluntly contrasted
with that of his best friend, Stewart Ansell. Unlike
Mr. Elliott, Stewart's father believes in freedom. 83
He allows his son to study whatever he wants, and thus
it is not surprising to hear the boy say:
\1
The only real reason for doing a thing
is because you want to do it~84
The family has less money than the Elliottsj the father
is "a provincial draper of moderate prosperity!'85
Nonetheless, this II p l e beian household ll is inordinately
cheerful. When Rickie comes to visit, he wonders
wistfully II whether one of the bonds that kept the Ansell
family united might not be their complete absence of
taste ll • 86 His own father, one remembers, gathers
objet? dlar.!:.. II mechanically, not in any impulse of love u87
,
 33

and the sister reduces beauty to a meaningless formula:

Mrs. Failing's attitude towards Nature
was severely aesthetic - an attitude
more sterile than the severely practical.
She applied the test of beauty to shadow
and odour and soundi they never filled
her with reverence, or excitement ••. SS
Thus, Ansell's home offers Rickie a completely novel
experience. Bad taste is one of Forster's favourite
symbols of a spontaneous escape from stultifying mores.
For example, in Angel~, as Philip approaches the
garishly decorated theatre in Monteriano, he rejoices:
So rich and appalling was the effect,
that Ql~ could scarcely suppress a
cry. There is something majestic in
the bad taste of Italy ••• It observes
beauty and chooses to pass it by. But
it attains to beauty's confidence .•• 89
In Where Angels Fear To Tread, The Longest
~ourn~, and Maurice, Forster focuses his attention
on familial misery. By contrast, in A Room with a Vi~w,

he depicts a happy household. In his portrayal of

the Honeychurches, he develops ideas touched upon
briefly in the description of the Ansells in The ~ongest

~rney. First of all, both families seem to thrive

on their bad taste. The Honeychurch home is located
in an exquisite natural setting, but architecturally,
it is a chaotic edifice. Forster writes:
The situation was so glorious, the house
so commonplace, not to say impertinent ••.
and yet the house 'did', for it was the
home of people who loved their surroundings
honestly ••• Windy Corner seemed as inevitable
 34

as an ugliness of Nature's own creation.

One might laugh at the house but one
never shuddered. 90
Second _, Mrs. Honeychurch believes in giving
her children many liberties, much as Mr. Ansell does.
Thus, her son Freddy can scatter his books and his
bones throughout the drawing room with complete
equanimitY7 91 more importantly, her daughter Lucy must
work out her own marital destiny. When Cecil Vyse
asks Mrs. Honeychurch's permission for Lucy's hand in
marriage, she expresses an emancipated view of court-
ship:
II til n these days young people must decide
for themselves~.92

Finally, like the Ansells, the Honeychurches are sensitive

to one another:
At the last minute, when the social
machine {is) clogged hopelessly, one
member or the other of the family pourtsJ
in a drop of oil.93
Mrs. Honeychurch's tact, in particular, causes much
joy on many occasions.
At such times, the Honeychurches appear to be
IIperfectll.94 Here, Forster reveals his awareness of
the positive aspects of family relationships. Unlike
Mrs. Herriton, Mrs. Elliott, or Mrs. Hall, Mrs. Honey-
church creates a warm, secure home for her children.
As a widow in suburbia, she, too, could become bored,
fretful, or hungry for power, like so many of Forster's
 35

female characters. She is surrounded by dull immigrants

and IItheir kindly affluence, their inexplosive religion,
their dislike of paper-bags, orange-peel, and broken
bottles ll • 95 However, her temperament never sours~
unlike the others, she remains helpful and kindly to
all. She tolerates inept servants,96 and entertains
tiresome neighbours whenever she feels they merit her
good will. 97 Symbolically, her house appears bathed
in sunshine. In the introductory description of Windy
Corner, the curtains let in a l'subdued and varied light ll ,

and II without is poured a sea of radiance ll : 98 clearly,

this is the home of tolerance, enlightenment and love.
This impression is re-enforced by the depiction
of Mrs. Honeychurch's attitude towards her children.
She demonstrates her affection for them, but there is
nothing abnormal or sinister about the attentions
she pays them. For example, she asks Lucy to kiss her,
when she sees that her daughter needs her moral support.
writes Forster:
Mrs. Honeychurch might have flamed out.
She did not. She said: ·Come here,
old lady - thank you for putting away
my bonnet - kiss me.· ••• So the grittiness
went out of life. 9 9
On the other hand, Mrs. Honeychurch varies her treatment
of Freddy appropriately. She respects his needs as he
becomes a man, and never invites him to remain unnaturally
intimate with her. She is not reticent or prudish in

her dealings with her son, but she does not smother him
 36

with attention. Furthermore, she never attempts to

transform him into a substitute for her dead husband.
She gives him room to grow in, but exerts a firm and
gentle control of his actions, when necessary. For
example, she speaks with memorable calm and grace, in
order to end the confusion of the nude swimming scene.
Only she can dispel the awkwardness caused by the
unexpected arrival of women at the scene of this all-
male outing:
'Hush dears', said Mrs. Honeychurch, who
found it impossible to remain shocked.
'And do be sure you dry yourselves
thoroughly first. All these colds
come of not drying thoroughly. rlOO
Mrs. Honeychurch differs from the mothers of Philip,
Rickie and Maurice in all of these ways. Her departure
from the behavioural patterns of the others is signifi-
cant in that she produces happier, more normal children.
One must note that of the four early protagonists,
only Lucy grows up to marry, thereby aligning herself
with the majority of people in our society, and that
of the males, only Freddy has a healthy relationship
with his mother. An:->, of the others have troubling
experiences with their parents, and differ sharply
from the norm throughout their adult lives.
Clearly, Forster's male heroes suffer more
in the hands of their mothers than Lucy does.
However, it would be an over-simplification of A Room
 37

with A View, if we neglected the importance of the theme

of repressive family influences. Like the other
Forsterian mothers, Mrs. Honeychurch certainly has her
faults. Her attitude towards her own sex, for example,
is as "medieval l' as that of Charlotte Bartlett or Cecil
Vyse. She does not trust other women, and advises
her friend, Sir Harry, to find male tenants for Cissie
Village:
"Men don't gossip over tea-cups. If
they get drunk, there's an end of
them - they lie down comfortably,
and sleep it off. If they're vulgar,
they somehow keep it to themselves.
It doesn't spread so. Give me a man -
of course, provided he's clean".IOI
As a traditional housewife, Mrs. Honeychurch loves
domestic affairs, and expects other women to feel the
same way. In fact, she despises those who attempt to
develpp other interests, such as literature:
Nothing roused Mrs. Honeychurch so much
as literature in the hands of females.
She would abandon every topic in order
to inveigh against those women who
(instead of minding their own houses and
their children) seek notoriety by print.
Her own attitude was: 'If books must
be written, let them be written by men,.I02
She discourages Lucy from being interested in music,
and is surprisingly anti-intellectual in her attitudes.
She "doesn't like one to get excited over anything",
as Lucy explains it to Mr. Beebe. I03 Thus, despite
all of her virtues, she represents a force against which
 38

Lucy must rebel. The daughter's ultimate desire for

equality in her relationship with George differs
radically from the future her mother envisages for
her.
At the novel's conclusion, Forster emphasizes
the fact that Lucy's marriage has involved a major
act of rebellion. Her contentment with George is
marred by a degree of hitterness:
The Honeychurches had not forgiven
them; they were disgusted at her past
hypocrisy; she had alienated Windy
Corner, perhaps for ever. 104
It would seem that Forster connects the process of
growth with that of rehellion against a previous
generation. Even a happy household, like that of the
Honeychurches, must eventually he abandoned by its
children, and Forster insists that the necessary sacri-
fices are not too great. Of the elopement of Lucy and
George, he writes:
Ah! it was worth while; it was the
great joy that they had expected, and
countless little joys of which they
had never dreamt.lOS
The alternative these two lovers faced was, of course,
the intense loneliness their failure to marry would
have brought to each of them. Their happiness in the
novel's final chapter stands in sharp contrast to the
misery and alienation symbolized by the Vyse family
throughout the latter portion of the work. Just as Mrs.
 39

Honeychurch embodies several creative aspects of motherly

love, Mrs. Vyse incorporates certain destructive ones.
Through the depiction of this shallow woman's relation-
ship with her son, Forster underscores his ongoing
concern with the dangers of family life.
The weather at Windy Corner is symbolically sunny~

by contrast, at Mrs. Vyse's flat it is lIunseasonablell.I06

Like the rooms of Mr. Elliott in The Longest Journey,
this home is artistically furnished and II we ll appointed",
but it lacks vitality.I07 Lucy finds herself expressing
lithe sadness of the incomplete ll "Vlhen she plays the
piano in its drawing-room. I08 In a few polished
phrases, Forster portrays the decadent owner of the
flat, and adds one more suburban automaton to his canon.
He muses:
One was tired of everything, it seemed.
One launched into enthusiasms only to
collap~e gracefully, and pick oneself
up amid unsympathetic laughter. 109
One remembers the Elliotts, about whom Forster asks:
vmat had they ever done, except say
sarcastic things, and limp, and be
refined?IIO
Mrs. Vyse's personality has been IIswamped by Londonll~lll
unlike Mrs. Honeychurch, she can no longer relate to
herself, her lovers, or her son:
The too vast orb of her fate had crushed
her~ she had seen too many seasons, too
many cities, too many men for her abilities,
and even with Cecil, she was mechanical,
 40

and behaved as if he was not one son,

but so to speak, a filial crowd. 112
Like Mrs. Herriton in Angels, Mrs. Vyse leads a
meaningless existence and contributes to the emotional
stagnation of her son. Cecil is even less capable of
rebellion, intimacy or passion than Philip:
He is the sort who are all right so
long as they keep to things - books,
pictures -l~ut kill when they come
to people. 3
lillien he asks Mrs. Honeychurch for permiss ion to marry
Lucy, he reveals the extent to which he has failed to
develop independence of spirito Then, his awkward
request for a kiss from Lucy reveals the "depths of
prudishness in him".114 The subsequent embrace is,
of course, a failure, and Forster notes:
Passion should believe itself irresistible.
It should forget civility and consideration
and all the other curses of a refined nature.
Above all, it should never ask leave where
there is a right of waYo.ollS
Like Philip, Cecil becomes increasingly aware of the
limitations of his nature. Upon kissing Lucy, he
expresses his self-disgust:
~~y could he not do as any labourer or
navvy- nay, as any young man behind the
counter would have done?116
Unfortunately, Cecil is, indeed, an "ideal bachelor •..
better detached",ll7 and "the sort who can1t know anyone
intimately".118 Like his mother, he is incapable of
establishing personal associations with men or women:
 41

tTJ he only relationship which Cecil

conceived was feudal: that of protector
and protected. He had no glim~e of the
comradeship after v~~ich (Lucy'~ soul
yearned. 11"9
Charlotte Bartlett also engages in "feudal"
relationships. Like Cecil, she constantly attempts
to shield Lucy from life. Wherever the young girl
looks, there stands her cousin, "bro\"n against the view"!20
As a surrogate for Mrs. Honeychurch, this "prim
chaperone ll121 has ample opportunity for imposing her
"shame-faced world of precautions and barriers ll • 122
(r\r.
Beebe succinctly interprets the relations
of Charlotte and Lucy in a picture he draws of them:
Miss Honeychurch as a kite,
Miss Bartlett holding the string. 123
Forster depicts Charlotte in a much more awesome manner:
he associates her with as'many symbols of sexual and
psychological repression as he can muster. ~~ereas

Mrs. Honeychurch is associated with sunshine, Charlotte

brings with her a constant flow of inclemency and dark-
ness. In the first chapter of the novel, she casts
"a haze of disapproval ll over Lucy, and smothers her in
a "protecting embrace" that reminds the girl of fog. 124
Unlike the airy curtains of Windy Corner, those of
Charlotte's rooms smite one in the face, and seem
IIheavy with more than cloth ll • 125 With her "unknown
depths of strangeness, though not, perhaps of meaning",
 42

this woman represents forces capable of over-powering

much stronger natures than LuCY ' s.126
A consideration of the role of Charlotte Bartlett
in A Room with A View reminds the present writer of
the ways in which Lucy Honeychurch resembles a Forsterian
school boy. vfuereas her pleasant mother and happy
marriage distinguish her from Philip, Rickie, and
Maurice, her relationship with Charlotte marks her
kinship with her male counterparts. In the major part
of the novel, Lucy is away from Windy Corneri thus,
she is faced with her stuffy, prudish cousin rather
than with her mother. Like the male protagonists, Lucy
possesses an undeveloped heart, and Charlotte forces
her into a position of total "spiritual starvation".127
Significantly, she possesses a "pretty, pale, undeveloped
face",128 and her early education has clearly been as
inadequate as that of the boys. Like Rickie or Maurice
at their most vulnerable periods of growth, Lucy has
not yet "come to a situation where Character tells",
or "",here Childhood enters upon the branching paths of
Youth".129 Instead, she has le4- a sheltered, trivial
existence prior to her visit to Italy, filled with
concerts, social visits, iced coffee, and meringues. 130
Once noted s these parallels between Lucy and the male
heroes can prove confusing. One wonders if Forster is
merely rendering his habitual concern with abnormal
 43

behavioural patterns acceptable to a heterosexual

audience by using a female protagonist, rather than a
somewhat abnormal male. This interpretation is tanta-
lizing, but ultimately unsatisfactorYi A Room with A
View is, after all, largely a cheerful novel, differing
decidedly from each of the other early works in both
its tone and subject matter.*
In Maurice, Forster finally allows himself to
give his complete attention to a family situation that
interests him greatly. Thus, the first two chapters
of this novel consist entirely of descriptions of
Maurice's early experiences as the only son in a house
full of vlOmen. In the first few pages, Forster points
out the spiritual impoverishment that can result from
insisting a son be exactly like his dead father. His
mother, Dr. Barry, his teachers, and other authorities
ask him to imitate his father in every way. He is sent
to Mr. Hall's old public school,13l and is expected to
enter the stock Exchange, to carryon the family
tradition. 132 For Maurice, who is already yearning
for the garden boy, and vaguely sensing that he will
never marry, the worst edict involves marriage. The
platitudinous Dr. Barry pains Maurice deeply with his
idle banter:

CCi.\\ eC\
* Forster himselfA A Room with A View' his "nicest novel"
in 1958. .
 44

Who will present the expectant world

with a Maurice the third? After
which old age, grandchildren and
finally the daisies. 133
He transforms his ideas into the form of inflexible
commandments that intimidate the young boy. Says he:
Man that is born of woman must go with
woman if the human race is to continue. 134
With these and other examples of the way in which
society turns parental authority into a stultifying
divinity for children to worship, Forster adds one more
important element to his critique of conventional
morality.
Of course, the influence of Maurice's living
parent is more harmful than that of the dead one. Mrs.
Hall is yet another bored housewife in a bourgeois
community:
Church was the only place Mrs. Hall
had to go to - the shops delivered •••
It was a land of facilities, where
nothing had to be striven for, and
success was indistinguishable from
failure. 135
Mrs. Hall, who has very few duties and all too few
pleasures, easily finds her place within the canon of
Forsterian women. Like Mrs. Herriton, Mrs. Elliott
and others, she rules over the daily affairs of her
household, and must rest content with the shred of
power this affords her. Having no husband, she dedicates
herself to the son. In the early years, "Maurice liked
 45

his home", Forster informs us, "and recognized his

mother as its presiding genius".136 As he grows older,
however, her "very softness" enrages him. Thinks he:
It cost her nothing to muck about with
tender words and toast: she only wanted
to make him soft too. 13 ?
Gradually, he realizes that even their early affection
for one another was harmful, since it involved an
abnormal intimacy. In one scene, the fifteen-year-old
Maurice returns from school. writes Forster:
They went kissing one another and conversing
aimlessly.
·Morrie ••• •
•Mummie ••• •
'Now I must give my Morrie a lovely time,.138
As the episode unfolds, we observe Maurice's regression
to infancy in his mother's presence. One is reminded
forcibly of the way in which Mrs. Elliott offered
Rickie a greatcoat on his fifteenth birthday, and of
Forster's own childhood position as the curly-haired
"Important One" in Marianne Thornton. In all of these
cases, the affections of the mothers are distorted and
misdirected.
In Maurice,Forster describes the frightening
results. After meeting Durham at Cambridge, Maurice
returns to his household in a bitter mood of resentment:
One strong feeling arouses another, and
a profound irritation against his womenkind
set in. His relations with them had
hitherto been trivial but stable, but it
seemed iniquitous that anyone should mis-
 46

pronounce the name of the man who was more

to him than all the world. Home emasculated
everything.139
Maurice resembles A Room With A View, in that once
again, the beloved can be gained only by rejecting
one's parents. However, here the theme receives a
much greater and more bitter emphasis. As Maurice
grows older, his family limits him in continually more
serious ways. He must reject its religion, its edu-
cational system, and marriage, its basic institution.
At Cambridge, Maurice learns to rebel against authority,
and think for himself. However, each visit to his
mother and sisters marks another regression into
confusion:
Three weeks in their company left him
untidy, sloppy, victorious in every
item, yet defeated on the whole. He
came back to Cambridge thinking, and 140
even speaking, like his mother or Ada.
His womenfolk plant a suburban soul in Maurice, and
a hatred of the opposite sex. Like Philip, he becomes
angry when fenced in by too many females. writes
Forster:
They sat round the breakfast table, in
mourning because of Grandpa, but otherwise
worldly. Beside his mother and sisters,
there was impossible Aunt Ida, who lived
with them now, and a Miss Tonks, a friend
whom Kitty had made •.• 141
Clearly, Maurice is miserable in the absenee of male
companionship; he frets nerv0usly about the possibility
 47

of marrying the unappealing Miss Tonks, and his

frustration mounts.
The clever undergraduate Clive Durham has enough
self-knowledge to understand his relations with his
mother long before Maurice has drawn any conclusions
about his. With the depiction of this molly-coddled
aesthete and his shrewish mother, Forster develops the
theme of familial relationships more completely than
he could by simply describing the Halls. Like Philip
Herriton in lihere Angels Fear TQ Tread, Clive recognizes
his mother's insincerity, and longs to rebel. Early in
his friendship with Maurice, he admits his dislike of
Mrs. Durham:
~I just have been pretending to like her.
This row has shattered my lie. I did
think I had stopped building lies. I
despise her character, I am disgusted
with her~142
In a quarrel resembling those of Philip and Mrs.
Herriton, Clive decides his mother is "withered, un-
sympathetic, empty".143 In truth, she is a worldly
woman, who loves to deal in petty manipulations. Just
as Mrs. Herriton plans to re-capture Lilia's baby,
Clive's mother schemes to find an eligible match for
her son:
Mrs. Durham had her motives. She was
looking out wives for Clive, and put
down the Hall girls on her list. She
had a theory one ought to cross breeds
a bit, and Ada, though suburban, was
 48

healthy ••• Mrs. Durham did not propose

to return to the dower house in practice,
whatever she might do in theory, and
believed she could best manage Clive
through his wife. 144
with these words, Forster vividly suggests this woman's
snobbery and bossiness. Clearly, .she is an important
addition to the already large group of unpleasant mother
figures in Forster's fiction.
 CHAPTER II

THE EARLY NOVELS:

DREAMS, ART, WORK AND COMRADESHIP

In his discussion of Forster's short stories,

Wilfred Stone provides us with a Freudian definition
of fantasy. He writes:
Fantasy, as a psychological phenomenon,
is a means of getting via dream, imagi-
nation, or wishful thinking what one
cannot get in reality •.. ·We may lay it
down', writes Freud, 'that a happy
person never fantasies, only an un-
satisfied one. The motive forces of
fantasies are unsatisfied wishes, and
every single fantasy is the fulfillment
of a wish, a correction of unsatisfied
reality·.l
In Forster's early novels and Maurice, fantasy is only
the first of a series of methods the central characters
employ in order to flee from the cages of their
respective existences. In the first chapter of this
thesis, we discovered that Philip, Rickie, Lucy and
Maurice become alienated from themselves and their
surroundings. Due to a conflict between their desires
and the commands of their superiors, they each become
muddled and trapped. Thus, they make a series of
unconscious attempts to escape from problems they have
not clearly defined. They are filled with " unsatisfied
wishes"~ they dream frequently, pursue various aesthetic
and religious ideals, or travel. Only Lucy and Maurice

49
 50

•
go beyond these pursults to find ~11
alterna~f so I utlons
.

to their loneliness and boredom. For Philip and Rickie,

no beloved arrives to conclude the struggle for freedom
and fulfillment. Despite the very different endings
of these novels, however, the portrayal of the struggle
for happiness is very similar in each case, and it is
to this quest that we must now turn our attention.
In Where Angels Fear To Tread, Philip's departure
from England provides him with an opportunity to explore
his repressed desires. In transforming Italy into a
land in which reality resembles dreams and nightmares,
Forster uses a standard twentieth-century technique;
his concern for unconsciousness is immediately apparent.
writes Wilfred stone:
For the last century and a half, such
northern Europeans as Goethe, Arnold,
Butler, Lawrence and Mann have in their
writings made Italy a powerful sYmbol
for release from repression, for all
the sensuous and passionate side of life
that Protestant restraints have made
illicit. 2
Each of Philip's trips to Italy represenqan ephemeral
excux-sion into the realm of fantasy. After each one,
he must return to his smothering existence in Sawston.
Nonetheless, while he is away, he releases many of the
passions that have been bottled up inside him, the~eby

achieving a limited satisfaction. In the opening passages

of the novel, Forster contrasts Sawston, "the realm of
 51

common sense?3 with Monteriano, "a fantastic ship city

of a dream".4 Upon Philip's arrival, he is cast into
a trance: "the sheer force of his intellect (is) \Aleakened
by the sight of Monteriano".5 Clearly, he has entered
the land of sensuality and wish-fulfillment.
Monteriano's symbolic significance is first
conveyed through a detailed description of its physical
features. The city has a "phallic aspect",6 due to its
tOvJers:
Monteriano's colour was brown and it
revealed not a single house - nothing
but the narrow circle of the walls, and
behind them seventeen towers - all that
was left of the fifty-two that had filled
the city in her prime. Some were only
stumps, some were inclining stiffly to
their fall, some were still erect,
piercing like masts into the blue. 7
A luxurious profusion of violets, one of Forster's
favourite symbols of passion,* covers everyuhing:
There are such violets in England, but
not so many. Nor are there so many in
Art, for no painter" has the courage.
The cart-ruts were channels, the hollow
lagoons; even the dry white margin of
the road was splashed, like a causeway
soon to be submerged under the advancing
tide of spring .•• the road to Monteriano
must traverse innumerable flowers. 8
The city itself stands high on a hill, surrounded by
further examples of vernal splendour:

* For example, Forster uses this identical symbolism

in both A Room with A View and The Eternal Moment.
 52

The hazy green of the olives rose up to

its walls, and it seemed to float in
isolation between trees and sky ••. 9
Through a vivid particularization of detail in the
earliest chapters, Forster indicates that the repressed
Sawstonians, Caroline, Philip, and Harriet, have arrived
in a fabulous kingdom of natural wonders.*
They have also entered a world filled with
artificial splendour, for Italy is the home of manls
accomplishments, as well as naturels. Thinks Philip:
Monteriano ••. a place which knew the
Etruscan League, and the Pax Romana,
and Alaric himself, and the Countess
Matilda, and the Middle Ages, all
fighting and holiness, and the
Renaissance, all fighting and beauty~IO
To him, Monteriano is a city in "fairylandll,ll and filled
with IIRomance".12 This dreamy, dissatisfied youth has
sublimated many passions to an appreciation of art:
All the energies and enthusiasms of a
rather friendless life had ~assed into
the championship of beauty. 3
At the age of twenty, Philip quenched his thirst for
beauty by wearing " part i-coloured ties and a squashy
hat".14 At twenty-two, he created an idealized version
of Italy, to satisfy further longings:

* At times, the city overvmelms the Sawstonians, who

become filled with a sense of guilt. cf. Carolinels
,reaction, Forster, Where Angels Fear To Tread, pp. 8a-8:
'To her imagination Monteriano had become a magic city
of vice, beneath whose towers no person could grow
up happy or pure:'
 53

He absorbed into one aesthetic whole

olive-trees, blue sky, frescoes,
country inns, saints, peasants,
mosaics, statues, beggars. 15
By the time of the novel's main action, he is twenty-
four*, and a typical Forsterian aesthete~ he resembles
Cecil Vyse, Clive Durham and Tibby Schlegel, in that
he views life rather than experiencing it. IILife to me

is just a spectacle ll , he admits to Caroline Abbott. 16

Most events pass before Philip's eyes like
paintings in an art gallery. For example, as he stares
at Gino helping Caroline to wash the baby, the scene
becomes a religious icon~ he sees them as lithe Virgin
and Child, vlith Donor ll :

There rCarolin~ sat, with twenty miles

of view behind ~er, and Gino placed the
dripping baby on her knee. It shone
now with health and beauty: it seemed
to reflect the light, like a copper
vessel. Just such a baby Bellini sets
languid on his mother's lap ••• ~in~
knelt by the side of the chair, with
his hands clasped before him. 17
On a more dramatic occasion, Philip watches Caroline
comfort Gino, who is mourning for his dead child. Again,
he transforms the two individuals into participants in
a quasi-religious, aesthetic tableau:

* The twenty-fourth year of a character's life often

marks his maturity in Forster's fiction. cf. Maurice,
in which both Clive and Maurice identify themselves
with heterosexuality and homosexuality respectively,
at this same age.
 54

All through the day Miss Abbott had

seemed to Philip like a goddess, and
more than ever did she seem so now ••.
Her eyes were open, full of infinite
pity and full of majesty ••• Her hands
were folded around the sufferer,
stroking him gently •.. And it seemed
fitting, too, that she should bend
her head and touch his forehead with
her lips.18
Philip transfigures reality into art, instead of
confronting it directly. writes Forster:
Philip looked away, as he sometimes looked
away from the great pictures ••• l9
When he learns that Caroline loves Gino instead of
himself, he mythologizes the two of them one final
time:
He smiled bitterly at the thought of
them together. Here was the cruel
antique malice of the gods, such as
they once sent forth against pasiphae.
Centuries of aspiration and culture ••• 20
Rather than lamenting, he stares at the Campanile of
Airolo, pretending it represents "the fair myth of
Endymion",2l and accepts his role as Caroline1s worshipper
instead of simply taking her in his arms.
Philip's passivity affects other areas of his
life, as well. As we noted earlier, he is incapable of
rebellion, no matter how intensely dissatisfied he
becomes. In an important conversation with Caroline,
he argues:
"Society is invincible - to a certain
degree. But your real life is your
own, and nothing can touch it. There
 55

is no power on earth that can prevent

your criticizing and despising medio-
crity - nothing that can stop you
retreating into splendour and beauty -
into the thoughts and beliefs that make
the real life - the real you."22
Philip's retreat, however, spoils his life. In another
discussion with caroline, he reveals his sense of
resignation:
f Some people were born not to do things.
I'm one of themi I never did anything at
school or at the Bar. I came out to
stop Lilia's marriage, and was too late.
r came out intending to get the baby,
and I shall return an 'honourable
failure'. I never expect anything to
happen now, and so I am never disappointed
••• I seem fated to pass through the world I
without colliding with it or moving it - •• !23
Forster illustrates the extent to which Philip has
failed to develop fully, by providing us with brief
glimpses of the sterility of his daily life in Sawston.
After college, he mechanically becomes a lawyer:
The world, IJlEiJ found, made a niche for
him as it did for everyone. 24
He is, in fact, as inadequate in his career, as he is
in his personal life. t~en he asks Lilia about the
profession of one of her new relatives, she wounds him
by replying:
\' vVhy, (he i~ a lav"yer, just. like you
are - except that he has lots to do
and can never get away.~25
In addition to escaping from reality by developing
his sense of beauty, and burying himself in a meaningless
 56

legal career, Philip cultivates a sense of humour.

Forster describes this aspect of his protagonist's
philosophy in the following manner:
If he could not reform the world, he
could at all events laugh at it, thus
attaining at least an intellectual
superiority. Laughter, he read and
believed, was a sign of good moral
health, and he laughed on contentedly ..• 26
Philip's complacency remains unruffled through the
greater part of the novel. He attempts to rescue Gino's
baby with the same lack of enthusiasm with which he
embarked on a legal career. In contrast with Caroline,
who feels genuinely concerned for the child's welfare,
he prefers to remain an amused bystander:
Philip saw no prospect of good, nor
of beauty either. But the expedition
promised to be highly comic ••. he was
simply indifferent to all in it except
the humours. These would be wonderful.
Harriet, worked by her mother; Mrs.
Herriton worked by Miss Abbott; Gino,
worked by a cheque - what better
entertainment could he desire?27
With this attitude, Philip makes only a meager attempt
to rescue the baby. Caroline voices some of Forster's
own exasperation with his effete hero when she says:
IIS e ttle
which side you'll fight on ... Oh,
what is the use of fair-mindedness if
you never decide for yourself? Anyone
gets hold of you and makes you do what
they want. And you see through them and
laugh at them - and do it. It's not
enough to see clearly •.. we must intend
to accomplish - not sit intending on a
chair ••• You appreciate us all - see good
in all of us. And all the time you are
dead - dead - dead. 1I28
 57

The vitality of Gino Carella stands in direct

contrast to the "deadness" of Philip, throughout the
novel. Unlike the Sawstonian, this representative
figure of Monteriano embraces life with passionate
vigour. Gino resembles most Forsterian symbols of
virility, in that he is both creative and destructive,
loving and violent. On the one hand, he longs to create
life:
His one desire was to become the father
of a man like himself, and it held him
with a grip he only partially understood,
for it was the first great passion of his
life. Falling in love was a mere physical
triviality, like warm sun or cool water,
beside this divine hope of immortality:
-I continue,.29

On the other hand, he loves to destroy it. During the

first meal Philip has at Gino's home, the latter reveals
his cruelty:
A starved cat had been worrying them all
for pieces of the purple quivering beef
they were trying to swallow. Signor
Carella, with the brutality so common in
Italians, had caught her by the paw and
flung her away from him. 3D
Later, we discover that he torments his own wife who
responds to his abuses with the gestures of a wounded
animal:
He had a good strong will when he chose
to use it, and would not have had the
least scruple in using bolts and locks
to put it into effect. There was plenty
of brutality deep down in him, and one
day Lilia nearly touched it ••• He edged
around the table to where she was sitting,
and she sprang away ••• too frightened to
speak or move. 31
 58

Philip reacts to both the cruelty and the beauty of

Gino's nature. At first, he finds Gino unsavoury,32 but
soon he discovers the Italian's charm:
The youth was hungry ••• and when those
delicious slippery worms were flying
down his throat, his face relaxed •••
And Philip had seen that face before
in Italy a hundred times - seen it and
loved it ••. 33
In a story published in The Life To Co~, Forster
describes a character who, like Gino, "loved to take
life, as all those do who are really in touch with
nature".34 Like the gamekeeper Alec Scudder, Gino is
a creature of the open air. When he steps outside of
his house, he enters "a loggia, where you can live all
day and night, if you feel inclined, drinking vermouth
and smoking cigarettes, with leagues of olive-trees and
vineyards and blue-green hills to watch you".35 Here,
on Italian soil, Gino leads a carefree exiBtence. One
recalls Forster's loving depiction of T.E. Lawrence's*
ramshackle cottage in the woods, where men would withdraw
periodically, to commune with each other and nature:
We weren't to care, as soon as we were
inside; we were to feel easy, and not 36
worry about the world and its standards.
The motto of Clouds Hill, "Q.Y. phrontis - meaning roughly:

* The famous "Lawrence of Arabia" was one of Forster's

homosexual friends. cf. E.M. Forster, The Eternal
Moment And Other Stories (London: Sidgwick and
Jackson Ltd., 1928). The Dedication reads:
'To TeE. in the absence of anything e1se~
 59

'I don't car4,,37 could easily be inscribed on Gino's

loggia, as well.
Gino welcomes Philip into his loggia, and into
lithe democracy of the caff~,;., or the street" where "the
brotherhood of man is a reality".38 It is, in fact, a
beautiful paradise - for men only:
Italy is such a beautiful place if you
happen to be a man. 39
In Maurice, we learn that Italy had adopted the Code
Napoleon by the Edwardian period. "There homosexuality
is no longer criminal", Maurice's hypnotist tells him. 40
Indeed, the Italian society depicted in Where Angels
Fear To Tread would easily please homosexuals since it
excludes women and exalts men. In this environment,
Philip's love for men rises freely to the surface of
his personality. One night at the opera, he becomes
'drunk with excitement':
He deserted his ladies and plunged
towards the box. A young man was
flung stomach downwards across the
balustrade ••. Then his own hands were
seized affectionately. It all seemed
quite natural. 41
The hand, of course, is Gino's, and in a rare burst of
spontaneity, Philip cavorts with this Italian and his
band of friends. More than ever before, he is intoxicated
by sheer sensation:
Again he would be enchanted by the kind,
cheerful voices, the laughter that was
never vapid, and the light caress of the
arm across his back. 42
 60

Even P'hilip's habitual sense of beauty expresses itself

in a new, light-hearted way:*
"Here, we find \'ihat asses we are, for
things go off quite easily all by
themselves. My hat, what a night~
Did you ever see a really purple sky
and really silver stars before?"43
Through his association with Gino and his
adventures in Italy, Philip develops the impoverished
heart he has brought with him from Sawston. First of
all, he overcomes his own snobber.y, in order to be-
friend Gino, who comes from a lower social class, as
well as a foreign nation. Their first conversation has
been immensely awkward:
Signor Carella ••. attempted to talk, and,
looking politely towards Philip, said,
-England is a great country. The Italians
love England and the English-.
Philip, in no mood for international
amenities, merely bowed ••• 44
However, by the end of Philip's visit, this initial
discomfort has vanished:
The two men parted with a good deal of
genuine affection. For the barrier of
language is sometimes a blessed barrier,
which only lets pass what is good~ Or-
to put it less cynically - we may be
better in new clean~words, which have
never been tainted by our pettiness or
vice. Philip, at all events, lived more
graciously in Italian, the very phrases 45
of which entice one to be happy and kind.

* cf. Forster, Maurice, p. 36. Maurice responds in a

similar fashion to an initial meeting with Risley:
"Looking up, he noticed the night.. He was indifferent
to beautr as a rule, but I what a show of stars: I he
thought .'
 61

Clearly, this socially unacceptable, unconventional

relationship has been a success~ Philip's visit to
Monteriano leaves him more sympathetic to the feelings
of others than ever before. As he leaves the country,
he communes briefly with all of humanity:
It was as if they were travelling with
the whole world's sorrow, as if all the
mystery, all the persistency of woe were
gathered to a single fount. 46
After Gino's baby dies, Philip feels personally
responsible for what has happened:
He and no one else must take the news
to Gino .•• It was his own fault, due to
acknowledged weakness in his own
character. Therefore he, and no one
else, must take the news to Gino. 47
In a dramatic scene, Philip confronts the Italian with
the sad story of the child's death. The nature of the
relationship between the two men stands more fully
revealed than earlier: it involves a combination of
physical torture, sexual attraction and idealism.
Forster describes the fight that ensues in considerable
detail, emphasizing Gino's brutality, and Phil~p's noble
SUffering:
The left hand came forward ••• It hovered
before Philip like an insect. Then it
descended and gripped him by his broken
elbow .•• The whole arm seemed red-hot,
and the broken bone grated in the joint,
sending out shoots of the essence of pain. 48
Since Philip has come to Gino's house bearing a "vast
apparatus of pride and pity and love",49 he is able to
 62

accept the brutal wrath of his comrade. His new~ound

human charity sustains him, even as he suffers:

Philip struck out with all the strength of
his other arm ••• Then he was seized with
remorse, and knelt beside his adversary
and tried to revive him. He managed to
raise him up, and propped his body against
his own. He passed his arm around him.
Again he was filled with pity and tenderness. 50
Philip's new virtu es are not fully acknowledged
by Forster until Caroline Abbott arrives to end the
fight. He writes:
Philip was happy~ he was assured that
there was greatness in the world. There
came to him an earnest desire to be good
~hrough the example of this good woman.
He would try henceforward to be worthy
of the things that she had revealed.
Quietly, without hysterical prayers or
banging of drums, he underwent conversion.
He was saved. 5l
In this scene, "Caroline plays the role of mother to
both men."52 She separates the fighting men, like a
motherly referee, and pacifies them with the dead
baby's milk:
-That milk', said she, ·need not be
wasted. Take it, Signor Carella,
and persuade Mr. Herriton to drink-.
Gino obeyed her, and carried the child's
milk to Philip. And Philip obeyed also
and drank.53
From this point in the novel onward, Philip feels that
Caroline's goodness has prompted him to love her.
However, his feelings for her are only minimally
physical:
 63

He had reached love by the spiritual

path: her thoughts and her goodness
and her nobility had moved him first,
and now her whole body and all its
gestures had become transfigured by
them. 54
He actually has to be reminded about sexual desire by
the sensual Gino:
The beauties that are called obvious -
the beauties of her hair and her voice
and her limbs - he had noticed these
last~ Gino, who never travelled any path
at all, commended them dispassionately
to his friend. 55
Philip's feelings for Gino are more amorous
than his responses to Caroline. His fight with the
Italian provides him with a rare opportunity for
physical contact, as well as the release of a variety
of emotions, ranging from pity and tenderness, to
hatred and remorse. On the way home from Italy with
Caroline, Philip expresses his gratitude to this friend:
"I don't believe he even feels angry.
I never was so completely forgiven.
Ever since you stopped him killing
me, it has been a vision of perfect
friendship. He nursed me, he lied
for me at the inquest, and at the
funeral, though he was crying q you
would have thought it was my son who
had died tt • 56
A moment later, Philip realizes that he feels bound to
Gino by "ties of almost alarming intimacy". 5 7 W"hen
Caroline admits the strength of her own feelings for
Gino, Philip hears himself spontaneously remark:
"Rather ~ I love him too ~ 1158
 64

Forster writes:
In that terrible discovery Philip
managed to think not of himself but
of her. He did not lament. He did
not even speak to her kindly.59
Consciously, he is trying to save Caroline from embarr-
assmenti an Englishwoman's love for a lower-class
Italian was nearly as socially unacceptable at this
time as a homosexual affair.* Unconsciously, however,
Philip is expressing his own feelings. "He loves
Gino just as Caroline does", states Stone, commenting
on this passage. 60 And Caroline's love for Gino is
firmly rooted in sexual passion. Says she:
"He's not a gentleman, nor a Christian,
nor good in any way ••• But because he's
handsome, that's been enough."6l
In leaving Gino behind in Italy, both Caroline
and Philip lose sight of the passionate, sensual lives
that might have been theirs. Caroline recalls her
Sawstonian duties; she tells Philip:
"You forget my father; and even if he
wasn't there, I've a hundred ties:
my district - I'm neglecting it shame-
fully - my evening classes, the st.
James' - "62
Philip tries to remember the lesson he has learnt in
Monteriano; he pleads with Caroline to leave Sawston
with him. 63 However, he does not have the strength of

* In the third chapter of this thesis, this topic is

discussed at length.
 65

character necessary to leave his repressive environment.

Without Caroline to encourage him, he will sink back
into the same dull life, "With a dozen relatives around
(him) ".64 In the last chapter of the novel, he stares
into his mirror with as much uncertainty as he experienced
before his journey:
He was convalescent, both in body and
spirit, but convalescence brought no
joy. In the looking-glass at the end
of the corridor he saw his face haggard,
and his shoulders pulled forward by the
weight of the sling. Life was greater
than he had supposed, but it was even
less complete. He had seen the need for
strenuous work and righteousness. And
now he saw what a very little way those
things would go.65
This passage reveals that Philip has gained essential
wisdom, but earthly happiness still lies far beyond
his reach. "All of the wonderful things had happened;
Forster tells us. 66 Back in England, Philip will have
only his dreams, his aesthetic sensibilities, and his
memories to comfort him.
Rickie Elliott of The Longest Journey is a hero
of much the same ilk. Like Philip, he must lead a
highly active intellectual life, in order to compensate
for unsatisfactory aspects of his actual existence. He
is depicted as an intense youngster, given to tears and
childish dramatics. From a very early age, he too must
'get via dream, imagination, or wishful thinking what
he cannot get in reality'. In a flashback to Rickie's
 66

childhood, we learn of his loneliness:

the only person he came to know at all
was himself. 6 7
Thus, like the adolescent Philip, he must invent
amusements for himself. One of Rickie's earliest
recollections is of playing a solitary game called
Halma. After playing, he would sob for loneliness, and
ask himself:
Shall I ever have a friend? •• I don't
see how. They walk too fast. And a
brother I shall never have. 68
In addition to playing games, Rickie dreams nightly.
By the time he reaches Cambridge, he still needs his
games, although they have become more sophisticated:
Those elms were Dryads - so Rickie
believed or pretended, and the line
between the two is subtler than we
admit. 69
Like Philip, Rickie constantly transfigures
reality. For him, the stars are "gods and heroes,
virgins and brides, to whom the Greeks have given their
names".70 One day, he stares at Agnes and Gerald,
"locked in each other's arms",71 in much the same way
that Philip stared at Caroline while she embraced Gino
in Angels. writes Forster:
It was the merest accident that Rickie
had not been disgusted. But this he
could not know. 72
Like Philip, Rickie is rarely sexually aroused, or
capable of actualizing his passions. He, too, prefers
 67

to remain a viewer of life whenever possible. He does

not recognize his own passivity; as he watches the
lovers, he thinks that his childhood fantasy-life has
corne to an end, and that something vital is happening
to him. He triumphantly asks:
.1
v~en real things are so wonderf~l,
what is the point of pretending?73
In actual fact, Rickie has merely "deflected his
enthusiasms ll : 74 now he transfigures people, instead
of stars and trees. For him, the lovers become "gods
of pure flame ll , and a "riot of fair images ll runs through
his head, whenever he observes them. 75
Like other Forsterian aesthetes, Rickie perceives
symbols where he should be seeing individuals. This is
most apparent in his attitude to\.vards Agnes Pembroke.
Thinks Rickie:
Agnes wrote like the Sibyl; her sorrowful
face moved over the stars and shattered
their harmonies; last night he saw her
with the eyes of Blake, a virgin widow,
tall, veiled, consecrated, with her hand
stretched out against an everlasting wind. 76
Clearly, Rickie never sees her unique qualities; he
merely categorizes her in terms of great masterpieces.
Those who love Rickie try to warn him of the error of
his ways. For example, Ansell begs him to keep his
mind on what is real:
IIDid it never strike you that phenomena
may be of two kinds: one, those which
have a real existence, such as the cow;
two, those which are the subjective
 68

product of a diseased imagination,

and which, to our destruction, we
invest with the semblance of reality?1l77
Rickie's subjective perceptions deceive him continually.
His misplaced idealism causes him tollbelieve that every
human being is a moving wonder of supreme int~rest and
tragedy and beaut y " .. 78 When Rickie marries Agnes,
Ansell says that Ilhe has at last hung all the world's
beauty on a single peg". 79 But Agnes is in reality, not
a sYmbol of beauty or of anything else: she is merely
herself.
Rickie's desire to transform everything into
art certainly impoverishes his personal life. On the
other hand, these same urges lead to the development of
his creative abilities. Rickie's need for a world more
perfect than his own causes him to take possession of
a II secluded dell... a kind of church - a church "'There
indeed you could do anything you liked, but where any-
thing you did would be transfigured".80 In the security
of this dell, Rickie's imagination roams freely. Like
Philip, Rickie is a dreamer, but his fantasies have
tangible results. Rather than simply "seeing around
things ll81 like the earlier hero, Rickie records his
impressions. Out of what he himself calls his Ilfollies ll
come "a pile of stories, all harping on this ridiculous
idea of getting into touch with Nature ll • 82 Rickie is
his uncle's Il sp iritual heirJ 83 like Mr. Failing, he, too,
 69

believes that the IIhills and the trees are alive ll • 84

His stories and novels are his brain children, and give
his life a posthumous significance. After his death,
his relatives publish his works; soon there is an
illustrated American edition of one of his books, as
well as a collection of his stories. 8S Clearly, his
artistic endeavours have not been in vain.
IIDrudgery is not art, and cannot lead to it ll ,
Forster tells us at the beginning of The Longest Journey.86
Rickie's desire to write plays a major role in his
abandonment of a boring marriage and career. Supported
by Stephen and Ansell who believe in his capabilities,87
the uncertain young man eventually tries to make his
life his own. Like Philip, Maurice, or Lucy, Rickie
cannot succeed when he acts out of a sense of duty, or
self-righteousness. His connection with the Pembrokes
takes him away from the work and friends he loves; in
Sawston, he lives under a " s ha&ow of unrealit y ll.88 As
a teacher, he is restrained by Herbert; thus, his actions
cease to be spontaneous. Comments Forster:
In his form, oddly enough, Rickie became
a martinet •.. as a teacher, he was rather
dull ••. 89
As his frustration increases, he burrows farther into
the meaningless work:
It was as if some power had pronounced
against him - as if by some heedless
action, he had offended an Olympian god.
 70

Like many another, he wondered whether

the god might be appeased by work -
hard, uncongenial work. 90
Like an exemplary Victorian, he applies himself to the
mundane tasks before him with religious fervour:
No man works for nothing, and Rickie
trusted that to him also benefits might
accruej that his wound might heal as he
laboured, and his eyes recapture the
Holy Grail. 9l
These hopes of Rickie's prove groundless; in Forster's
novels, work without desire is futile. In Sawston,
the home of Philip and Caroline, Rickie deteriorates:
lithe spiritual part of him proceed{l;) to\vard ruin". 92
The ,""
epi~aph of The Longest Journey provides a
clue as to how Rickie should spend his life. "Fratribus"
is, in fact, the novel1s major theme. At Cambridge,
Rickie, Ansell and their friends enjoy a comradeship
akin to that of Philip and Gino in Italy. In this
environment, the lonely, lame Rickie blossoms:
In one year he had made many friends
and learnt much, and he might learn
even more .•• 93
In fact, his self-confidence grows daily in the liberal,
supportive c,e::\.\e,ge-.• It is an ideal learning experience:
The tutors and resident fellows •.• treated
with rare dexterity the products that
came up yearly from public schools. They
taught the perky boy that he was not every-
thing, and the limp boy that he might be
something ••• And they did everything with
ease - one might also say with nonchalance,
so that the boys noticed nothing, and
received education, often for the first
time in their lives. 9 4
 71

Rickie takes particular pleasure in having rooms •\n

c..o\\~~.. They give him a sense of security for the
first time in years:
He felt almost as safe as he felt
once when his mother killed a ghost
in the passage by carrying him through
it in her arms. There were no ghosts
no"". 95
When Rickie is happy, he ceases to fantasize: at
Cambridge, he sees reality instead of ghosts. Cambridge
is, of course, presented by Forster as a more idyllic
realm than Monteriano, since the school meant a great
deal to him. It will be remembered that he lived at
King's College for over forty years. In Goldsworthy
Lowes pickinson, he evokes the spirit of the school:
As Cambridge filled up with friends it
acquired a magic quality. Body and spirit,
reason and emotion, work and play, archi-
tecture and scenery, laughter and seriousness,
life and art - these pairs which are else-
where contrasted were there fused into one.
People and books reinforced one another,
intelligence joined hands with affection,
speculation became a passion, and discussion
was made profound by love. 96
Rickie's college at Cambridge possesses much of
this magic quality. Thus, the novel opens with a scene
of undergraduate bliss. Like Philip, Rickie finds his
first whiff of freedom and stimulation intoxicating.
The boys are simply sitting in their rooms, lighting
matches, sipping tea, and discussing philosophical
issues; the aura of insouciance and masculine informality
 72

surrounding their gathering parallels that of Gino's

world, and of CloudS Hill:
The fire-irons went flying and the
buttered-bun dishes crashed against
each other in the hearth. The •••
philosophers were crouched in odd
shapes on the sofa and table and
chairs ••• 97
One remembers Forster's depiction of the "happy casual-
ness ll of Cloudc:aHill, where "there v;ere no fixed hours
for meals and no one sat down".98 Despite this easy
atmosphere, these societies are highly exclusive.
Clouds Hill and fraternal Italy exclude all women: the
brotherhood of Cambridge excludes women, the lIbeefy
set",99 and those who are "not savedllt OO
The earth is full of tiny societies,
and Cambridge is one of them. All
the socieites are narrow ••• lOl
The fraternity of Cambridge recalls Forster's dreamed-
of lI ar istocracy of the sensitive, the considerate and
the plucky".102 Those who have been irreparably
petrified by conventions do not belong in these superior
groups of people. Thus, when Agnes enters the room,
the boys flee 1I1ike mists before the sun",103 and Ansell
refuses to acknowledge her existence. Similarly,
Herbert is pushed into a gutter by some boisterous
undergraduates as he hurries to Rickie's rooms; when
he arrives, he chokes on some coffee-grounds the casual,
absent-minded Rickie has inadvertently left in the cup.
 73

Clearly, the stuffy Pembrokes do not belong in the

lively, chaotic environment of Cambridge.
For those whom Cambridge does not reject, however,
the rewards are great. Just as Philip finds Gino in
Italy, Rickie discovers stuart Ansell at college. This
friendship proves to be one of the most satisfactory
experiences of his life. Ansell, with his Bloomsburian
standards, conscientiously instructs his friend in the
values of truth and affection. Like Maurice and Clive,
however, these two boys suffer because of the uncon-
ventionality of their relationship. Like most of us,
Rickie needs public sanction for his private acts:
thus, he wishes there was a II fr iend'ship 0 ffice where
the marriage of true minds could be registered ll • 104
Just as Philip's friendship with Gino functions only
in Italy, so Rickie and Ansell can be together freely
only in the isolation of Cambridge.
In one passage of the novel that sounds surprising-
ly like Maurice, Rickie muses:
Nature has no use for us: she has cut
her stuff differently. Dutiful sons,
loving husbands, responsible fathers -
these are what she wants, and if we are
friends, it must be in our spare time •••
a few scraps of poetry is all that
survives of David and Jonathan. IOS
~fuen Rickie allows himself to act of his own free will,
he and Ansell cavort like lovers. Alone in a meadow,
the two boys resemble Maurice and Clive on a Cambridge
 74-

spree:
tDon't go~, Ansell said idly. 'It's
much better for you to talk to met.
- Lemme go, st~w"'"<it ~
'It's amusing that you're so feeble.
You - simply - can't-get-away. I
wish I wanted to bully you·.
Rickie laughed, and suddenly over-
balanced in the grass. Ansell, with
unusual playfulness, held him prisoner.
They lay there for a few minutes, talking
and ragging aimlessly.I06
In commenting upon this scene, Frederick Crews
writes:
Rickie is not, strictly speaking, a
homosexual, but his physical handicap
and his effeminacy are such that the
more genuine strains of homosexuality
in Ansell strike a more responsive
chord in him. I07 -
Whether Rickie is homosexual or not, he is indeed a
lover of friendship rather than marriage. While at
Cambridge, he cherishes a passage from Shel~'s

Epipsychidion, in which the imprisoning aspects of

marriage are delineated. Th~ poem provides the novel
with its title, and Rickie with the seeds of a
philosophy:
' I never was attached to that great sect,
Whose doctrine is that each one should select
Out of ..... the world a mistress or a friend,
And all the rest, though fair and wise, commend
To cold oblivion, - though it is the code
Of modern morals, and the beaten road
Which those poor slaves with weary footsteps tread
Who travel to their home among the dead
By the broad highway of the world, - and so
 75

With one sad friend, perhaps a jealous foe,

The dreariest and the longest journey go'. 108
Instead of marrying, Rickie decides to "love everyone
equally".109 Ansell, whose homosexuality is portrayed,
scoffs at the concept of loving all of mankind, but he
certainly approves of his friend's decision not to
marry. Warns he:
You are not a person who ought to marry
at all. You are unfitted in body: that
we once discussed. You are also unfitted
in soul: you want and need to like many
people, and a man of that sort ought not
to marry. "You 'My~ ;w*'{~e attached to
that great sect" who can like one person
only, and if you try to enter it you will
find destruction. 110
Of course, Rickie soon changes his mind about
marriage, and proposes to Agnes Pembroke. Two years
after marking "very good" in the margin of his copy of
Shelley's poem, he turns to it again, but with a very
different attitude:
This afternoon it seemed a little inhuman.
Half a mile off two lovers were keeping
company where all the villagers could see
them. They cared for no one else~ they
felt only the pressure of each other, and
so progressed, silent and oblivious, across
the land. He felt them to be nearer to the
truth than Shelley. III
With these words, Forster reveals his own awareness of
the pleasures of a happy love relationship. However,
in his portrayal of Rickie's marriage, he delineates
the latent horrors of wedlock, for those who are unsuited
to it. The young couple's only moment of real passion
 76

occurs before their wedding:

Rickie's vision had been granted him
three years before, when he had seen
his wife and a dead man clasped in each
other's arms. She was never to be so
real to him again. 112
The deformed, lame child these two bring into the world
is an emblem of their mutual failure, and Rickie vows
to pay heed to "the lesson he had learnt so glibly at
13
Cambridge ••• ; no child should ever be born to him again":
When compared to the tremulous physicality of
Ansell and Rickie at Cambridge, the relations of Agnes
and Rickie seem barren -- despite the fact that they
have a child*. Rickie lacks the assertive qualities
Agnes once appreciated in Gerald; he does not know how
to "keep his wife in line". 114 As for her own responses,
they have been limited by early training. Like Clive's
wife in ~aurice, or Rickie's own mother, Agnes is
reticent:
Rickie valued emotion ••• because it is
the only final path to intimacy. She,
ever robust and practical, always
discouraged him. She was not cold;
she would willingly embrace him. But
she hated being upset, and would laugh
or thrust him off when his voice grew
serious. llS
The conversations between the married couple soon
become dull and lifeless. Writes Forster:

* cf. Wilfred Stone, The Cave And The Mountain: A study

of E.M. Forster (California: Stanford Univ. Press 1966)
p:-}.93: II itV1len a child is born, the event seems as
improbable as one of the book's sudden deaths".
 77

The tone of their marriage life was soon

set. It was to be a frank good-fellowship,
and before long Rickie found it difficult
to speak in a deeper key.116
Agnes effectively cuts Rickie off from the stimulating
dialogues he shared with Ansell as a Cambridge under-
graduate, and jealously resents any of his efforts to
maintain contact with his old friend. Within a very
short space of time, Rickie is isolated in a spiritual
wasteland, and the grim aspects of marriage depicted
in Shelley's poem are fully realized.
Throughout the courtship and marriage of Rickie
and Agnes, Ansell warns his friend constantly of the
dangers of the relationship. Crews is correct in
assuming that Ansell is a homosexual. For example, his
protestations at the time of the betrothal resemble
those of a jealous suitor. The flurry of letters he
writes indicates the intensity of his feelings, and
Rickie responds, with an equal excitement. Even in
the midst of his own happiness with Agnes, he writes
his friend:*
This letter of yours is the most wonderful
thing that has ever happened to me yet -
more wonderful (I don't exaggerate) than
the moment when Agnes promised to marry
me ••• You've written to me, "I hate the

* Rickie's situation at this time is comparable to

that of Clive Durham in Maurice. In both cases,
a male companion is rejected, and an unsuitable wife
accepted. Note also the similarity of the reactions
of the friends. Both Ansell and Maurice become
extremely resentful.
 78

woman "Tho \hTill be your wife", and I

wr ite back, "hate her. Can't I love
you both?"117
In truth, Rickie cannot love them both, and Ansellos
frustrations mount. He sublimates his feelings to a
hatred of all females, and the word "ladylike" becomes
an insult on his lips:
'Damn these particular women ••• Their
diplomacy was ladylike. They've
caught Elliott in a most ladylike
way ••• Agnes caught him and makes
him believe that he caught her.
She came to see me and makes him
think that it is his idea. That
is what I mean when I say that she
is a lady'.118
According to him, women are incapable of the comrade-
ship he worships:
'Men and women desire different things.
Man wants to love mankind: woman wants
to love one man. When she has him her
work is over. She is the emissary of
Nature, and Nature's bidding has been
fulfilled. But man does not care a
damn for Nature - or at least only a
very little damn ••• '119
with these declarations, Ansell joins a long line of
Forsterian misogynists, many of whom are homosexually
inclined.
Rickie's marriage cuts him off from Stephen
Wonham, the spirit of Wiltshire, as well as from Ansell,
the high-priest of Cambridge. Guided by his wife,
Rickie decides to consider Stephen to be "illicit,
abnormal, '\vorse than diseased": 120
 79

He, too, came to be glad that his brother

had passed from him untried, that the
symbolic moment had been rejected. Stephen
was the fruit of sin: therefore he was
sinful. He, too, became a sexual snob.121
Rickie's attitude is ironic, in that he himself was a
victim of prejudice, due to his lI a bnormal ll lameness. 122
In rejecting Stephen, Rickie refuses to acknowledge
the brother for whom he longed desperately as a child,
and his spiritual demise is complete. He knows he has
denied "some eternal principle",123 he feels that the
"heart of all things" is hidden or a secret password
forgotten. 124 After spending a year in bed with lI a
curious breakdown ll , he realizes the enormity of his
crime .. 125 Stephen's function in the novel is inordin-
ately symbolic. Rickie is not alone in his attempt to
interpret this Protean character's significance: one
can imagine Forster, the other characters in the novel,
and the reader, all drawing endless conclusions about
Stephen. For Mrs. Failing, he is a selfish hero: 126
for Ansell, he is a multitude of things, including lI an
animal with just enough soul to contemplate his own
bl~ss",127 "a momentary contact with realit Y",128 and a

cause for a speech denouncing the Pembrokes and Sawston~29

For Agnes, he is a reminder of Gerald, and of love.
Indeed, he is the cause of speeches, deep reflection,
and revelations whenever he appears.
Stephen Wonham is more symbol than character,
 80

and clearly the product of the author's own rich store

of fantasies. This nature-loving, free-living man
springs from seventeen cloudless days of adulterous
love in Sweden, and he preserves the spontaneity that
surrounded his own birth throughout his life. In a
novel filled with explorations into the nature and
potentiality of human brotherhood, Stephen is a living
embodiment of the ideals involved. Forster tells us,
approvingly:
Stephen only held the creed of 'here am I and
there are you·, and therefore class distinctions
were trivial things to him, and life no
decorous scheme, but a personal combat or a
personal truce. 130
A " c hild of poetry and rebellion~ Stephen stands beyond
the pale of conventional morality. Forster states
emphatically that "love for one person'l is never to be
the greatest thing Stephen knows. 131 Like Shelley in
Epipsychidion, Rickie's half~brother hates the idea of
being possessed by another person. Says he:
"You can't own people ••• Being nothing much,
surely I'd better go gently. For it's
something rather outside that makes one
marry, if you follow me: not exactly
oneself~132

The " some thing outside" is, of course, society,

and Stephen eventually succumbs to its wishes, by
marrying. Nonetheless, he manages to preserve both
his personal freedom and his friendships. In the last
scene of the novel, we catch sight of Stephen's pleasant
 81

wife, and receive substantial evidence that Stephen has

not changed. Stewart Ansell is asleep in the house~

he is clearly a welcome and frequent guest. Furthermore,

on this particular night, Stephen is busily initiating
his child in his personal rites of spring. Like
Eustace and Gennaro in Forster's The -=-"";;";;-="";;';';='-=
__
~;;';:;'_~--';;;";:;;':;;"::;...L..

Rickie's half-brother loves to sleep out-doors, and he

is determined his daughter will love it, too. Cries
he to his wife:
u It is time that she learnt to sleep out •••
If you want me, we're out on the hillside,
where I used to be~133
As S'tephen steps outdoors with his daughter in his
arms, he confirms once again his connections with pan,
the god of woodlands and pastures, who also happens to
be one of Forster's own favourite deities.
In the characterization of Stephen Wonham,
Forster links the themes of paganism and comradeship.*
Stephen's room is constructed on classical lines, and a
picture of the Demeter Cnidos is its only decoration.
Furthermore, Ansell provides us with the following
vivid summation of Stephen's character:
Certain figures of the Greeks, to whom
we continually return, suggested him a
little. One expected nothing of him .••
- Yet the conviction grew that he had

* This particular association of ideas is very common

in the writings of Edward carpenter, the ideologist
of homosexuality and democracy.
 82

been back somewhere - back to some table

of the gods, spread in a field where there
is no noise, and that he belonged forever
to the guests with whom he had eaten. 134
Even in his love of alcohol, Stephen resembles a Greek
hero, according to Forster. He writes:
Drink today is an unlovely thing. Between
us and the heights of Cithaeron the river
of sin now flows. Yet the cries still call
from the mountain, and granted a man has
responded to them, it is better he respond
with the candour of the Greek. 135
In a cheerful mood, Stephen invites Rickie to drink
with him. Here, Forster echoes his own earlier writing,
for Stephen's bars resemble the democratic cafes of
Italy, through which Gino conducted Philip. StephenOs
joie de vivre matches Gino's perfectly, as does his
spontaneous acceptance of the equality of all mankind.
Playfully, he encourages the teetotalling Rickie:
·Slip out after dinner this evening, and
we'll get thundering tight together •••
It'd do you no end of good. You'll get
to know people - shepherds, carters -'
.IHe waved his arms vaguely, indicating
democracy. 'Then you'll sing*.136
Fortunately for Rickie, this appealing creature
extends the hand of friendship in earnest. Far from
the sterility of Sawston, the two men stand together for
a moment in a world of their own creation:
The suburb was now wrapped in a cloud,
not of its own making. Sigh after sigh
passed along its streets to break against
dripping walls. The schools, the houses
were hidden, and all civilization seemed
in abeyance. Only the simplest sounds,
the simplest desires emerged. 137
 83

In this rarefied atmosphere, Stephen beckons to Rickie

in freshly-minted words of love:
·Come with me as a mana, said Stephen,
already out in the mist. *Not as a
brotheri who cares what people did
years back? We're alive together,
and the rest is cant. Here am I,
Rickie, and there are you ••• Come, I
do mean it. Come; I will take care
of you, I can manage you'.138
Vividly reminded of his beloved mother, Rickie accepts
Stephen's invitation, and the two men depart at sunset.
Their mood parallels that of Maurice and Alex at the
'th l) liie. o-r
conclusion of Maurice. However, unlike~Maurice, the
desires of Rickie remain unf~lfilled. He dies, saving
his friend's life, as well as his own soul: but
earthly joys will never be his.
Like Philip in Where Angels Fear To Tread,
Rickie's desires are frustrated. In a striking passage,
Forster reveals the value he places on simple pleasures,
and sums up the worth of his hero's existence. Due to
their importance in terms of the entire novel, as well
as Forster's other works, they must now be quoted at
some length:
The soul has her own currency_ She mints
her spiritual coinage and stamps it with
the image of some beloved face •.• But the
soul can also have her bankruptcies •••
There is, indeed, another coinage that
bears on it not man's image but God's.
It is incorruptible, and the soul may
trust it safelYi it will serve her beyond
 84

the stars. But it cannot give us

friends. or the embrace of a lover, or
the touch of children, for with our
fellow mortals it has no concern. It
cannot even give the joys we call
trivial - fine weather, the pleasures
of meat and drink, bathing and the hot
sondafterwards, running, dreamless
sleep. Have we learnt the true disci-
pline of a bankruptcy if we turn to
such coinage as this? Will it really
profit us so much if we save our
souls and lose the whole world?139
Questions about the values of salvation ring loud and
clear in each of Forster's novels. We must now turn
our attention to Lucy and Maurice o two Forsterian
protagonists who live happily, and save their souls
as well. Unlike Rickie and Philip, these two later
characters are assured of satisfaction on earth by
the conclusions of their respective stories.
In A Room wit~ A View, Forster returns to the
Italian setting of Where An~els F~ar TQ_Tread, and once
again uses it to symbolize a place in which unconscious
desires can be explored. Like Philip, Lucy attains
self-knowledge only while she is away on vacation. On
her first morning in Florence, old Mr. Emerson offers
her a piece of advice:

" You
Let
stop here several weeks, I suppose? ••
yourself go. Pullout from the depths
those thoughts that you do not understand,
and spread them out in the sunlight and
know the meaning of them~140
This task, of eourse, presents nearly infinite problems
to Lucy. As she wanders through the streets of Florence,
 85

she begins to feel restless for the first time in her

life. However, she still cannot recognize the exact
nature of her desires:
'The world', she thought, 'is certainly
full of beautiful things, if only I
could come across them'.141
Forster subtly suggests that one of the things Lucy
wants is sex, by making use of the same phallic imagery
he employed in Where Angels Fear To Tread:*
Lucy desired more ••• She fixed her eyes
wistfully on the tower of the palace,
which rose out of the lower darkness
like a pillar of roughened gold. It
seemed no longer a tower, no longer
supported by earth, but some unattain-
able treasure throbbing in the tranquil
sky.142
As the novel progresses, Lucy's constant repres-
sion of her feelings for George destroys her equilibrium.
Like Rickie and Maurice, she becomes plagued by night-
..
mares, an d v~s~ons .t:: g h os t S
OL ;n the darJr.
~ ~
143 At t'~mes,

she despairs of controlling her feelings at all:

How would she fight against ghosts? For
a moment the visible world faded away,
and memories and emotions alone seemed
real. 144
In Two Cheers For Democraqy, Forster outlines the
difficulties involved in dilemmas like Lucy's:

-------,-------------, -~----,.~

* cf. Forster, ~he Lif~ To Come, "The Other Boat",

p. 173: "A tang of sweat spread as he stripped
and a muscle thickened up out of gold ll •
 86

These mixed states are terrible for the

nerves. That is the real drawback in
them. Sensitive people ••• are vexed by
messages from contradictory worlds, so
that whatever they do appears to them
as a betrayal of something good; they
feel that nothing is worth attempting,
they drop their hands, break off in the
middle with a shriek, smash physical
or spiritual crockery.145
Even nervousness itself seems to add to Lucy's confusion.
Instead of attempting to discover the cause of the
nerves, she simply accepts them. In describing this
situation, Forster presents us with one of his most
cogent psychological analyses. He comments:
It is obvious enough for the reader to
conclude, 'She loves young Emerson'.
A reader in Lucy's place would not find
it obvious. Life is easy to chronicle,
but bewildering to practice, and we wel-
come 'nerves' or any other shibboleth
that will cloak our personal desire.
She loved Cecil; George made her nervous:
will the reader explain to her that the
phrases should have been reversed?146
Lucy understands herself best when she plays
the piano, and her unaffected love of her own talents
endears her to us. Says Mr .. Beebe:
"If Miss Honeychurch ever takes to live
as she plays, it will be very exciting -
both for us and for her~147
However, art can lead to self-deception, and a
denial of passion, as well as clarity. A Room With A
View resembles Forster's other novels, in that both
the negative and positive aspects of possessing an
artistic temperament are presented. As usual, Forster
 87

emphasizes the dangers of a complete withdrawal into

an aesthetic haven. Because Lucy is beautiful, and
musical, she attracts the attention of Cecil Vyse.
Like Philip and Rickie, Cecil transfigures people into
works of art. Thus, he becomes Lucy's most appreciative
critic. Thinks he:
Italy worked some marvel in her. It
gave her light, and - which he held
more precious - it gave her shadow.
Soon he detected in her a wonderful
reticence. She was like a woman of
Leonardo da Vinci's ••• 148
By viewing Lucy continually as though she were a painting,
he effectively cuts himself off from life.
In this happiest of Forster's novels, Lucy does,
of course, eventually come to her senses, and break
off her engagement to the unsuitable Cecil. However,
her self-deception continues for some time, and her
life becomes meaningless. Writes Forster:
She gave up trying to understand
herself, and joined the vast armies
of the benighted, who follow neither
the heart nor the brain, and march
to their destiny by catch-words.149
Like Philip, Rickie, or Maurice, in a spirit of self-
righteousness, Lucy decides to bury herself in hard
work. As an Edwardian woman, she cannot easily become
a lawyer, a teacher, or a stock-brokeri thus, she
dedicates herself to womanhood itself. In a moment
of frustration, she vows to become emancipated:
 88

She must be one of the women whom she

had praised so eloquently, who care
for liberty and not for men. ISO
Paradoxically, the "women's liberation movement"
constitutes imprisonment in Lucy's case, since her
heart prompts her to marry George instead. III might
even share a flat for a little with some other girl ll ,

she tells her mother, obstinately denying her true

feelings. ISI Mrs. Honeychurch correctly deciphers the
falsity of Lucy's plans; in a rare burst of anger, she
cries:*
"And mess with typewriters and latch-
keys ••• And agitate and scream, and be
carried off kicking by the police.
And call it a Mission - when no one
wants you~ And call it Duty - when
it means that you can't stand your
own home~ And call it Work - when
thousands of men are starving with
the competition as it isrQS2
In contrast with Lucy's attempt to marry the
respectable but limited Cecil, or to settle down to
a career she does not want, stands her ever-growing
relationship with the Emersons. These two men represent
precisely the form of comradeship Forster's own soul
yearned for. Democratic, unconventional, and at home
in the open air, they continually reveal that they are
capable of spontaneous gestures of affection towards the
world, and each other. wandering with them through the

* These words also represent a further example of Mrs.

Honeychurch's prejudices against her own sex.
'. ,:" '.:-i c:>e...e. Chapter I") a..bov-e..
 89

streets of Italy, Lucy learns to respond freely to her

environment, for the first time in her life:
The pernicious charm of Italy worked on
her, and instead of acquiring information,
she began to be happy.I53
She also discovers the joys of democracy:
In Italy, where anyone who chooses may
warm himself in equality, as in the
sun ••• her senses expanded; she felt
that there was no one whom she might
not get to like, that social barriers
were irremovable, doubtless, but not
particularly high. 154
"Personal intercourse" and " equa lity beside the man
she loves" become her slogans, and she approaches a
genuine mode of liberation. 155 Like Philip, in Italy
she steps beyond the pale of civilized society, making
friends with whomever she pleases. Thus, she becomes
one of the few people at the Pension Bertolini to
befriend the socially unacceptable Emersons.
P\r.
The Reverend~Beebe, one of the most mysterious
characters in Forster's fiction, also favours the
unpopUlar Emersons. 156 Like Lucy, he repeatedly
champions their cause. In an article entitled liThe
Homosexual Theme in A Room With A View", Jeffrey Meyers
\V'r i tes:
Beebe's latent homosexuality has been
released and he has fallen in love with
George. 15 7
Meyers' argument offers an interpretation of Beebe's
peculiar feelings towards women as revealed in the
 90

following semi-concealed lines of the novel:

Girls like Lucy were charming to look
at, but Mr. Beebe was, from rather
profound reasons, somewhat chilly in
his attitude towards the other sex,
and preferred to be interested rather
than enthralled. ISS
However, the work itself offers a different explication
than Meyers'. As Lucy's engagement with Cecil disin-
tegrates, Mr. Beebe rejoices. Writes Forster:
His belief in celibacy, so reticent, so
carefully concealed beneath his tolerance
and culture, now came to the surface and
expanded like some delicate flower. 'They
that marry do well, but they that refrain
do better'.lS9
In other words, a Christian belief in chastity motivates
this well-intentioned rector. Since the evidence
supporting Mr. Meyers' argument is, in the belief of
this reader, flimsy, it would seem best to assume that
Beebe is ffiexual rather than homosexual. In this case,
Forster wrote what he wanted to write: a criticism of
clerical virginity.
Nonetheless, Meyers is correct in assuming that
A Room with ~iew contains homosexual overtones. In
perusing the Sacred Lake scene of Chapter Twelve, most
readers of Maurice and The Life To Come And Other Stories
will be aware of the interlocking of the themes of
brotherhood and homosexuality. Just as Gino has called
to Philip, or Stephen to Rickie, so, too, Freddy
impetuously beckons his male companions to steal away
 91

with him:
8How d'ye do? Come and have a bathe B • 160
Part of the pleasure stems from leaving the ladies
behind. Chuckles Mr. Beebe:
"Can .
you p~cture a lady who has been
introduced to another lady by a third
lady opening civilities with -How do
you do? Come and have a bathe?~~6l
Despite the fact that Mr. Emerson propheSies the
comradeship of male and female,162 the scene at hand
clearly involves the brotherhood of men alone. In
fact, women act as an inhibiting force in this instance.
Like a naughty school-boy, Freddy thinks of Mrs.
Honeychurch immediately after he makes his spontaneous
proposal. He m~mbles:

"I must - that is to say, I have to -

have the pleasure of calling on you
later on,-my mother says, I hope u • l 63
Mr. Emerson dismisses these reservations as "drawing-
room twaddle" suitable for a grandmother, and, like
every child 8s dreamed-of parent, blesses the forthcoming
romp. 164
As usual, Forster opposes pleasure and duty,
happiness and the constraints of society. As the outing
begins, Lucy's engagement to Cecil is perfunctorily
considered by each of the men. Old Mr. Emerson pro-
nounces the final verdict:
"Marriage is a duty".165
 92

The inference is clear: once again, Forster is

suggesting that all too often, marriage is merely an
enforced 'long journey', and that less possessive male
relationships can be a jollier alternative. In a
letter to T.E. Lawrence, Forster states this viewpoint
more openly than in ~ Room with ~ Vie~. He writes:
I think about a remark of mine which
you once approved - It was about love,
how over-rated and over-written it is,
and how the relation one would like
between people is a mixture of friend-
liness and lust. 166
The three men certainly partake of this pleasurable
combination of emotions, as they swim and play in the
lovely pool. As they shed their clothes, they abandon
the restrictive world of laws and convention. Soon
even Mr. Beebe captures the spirit of the frolic, and
when it is over, Forster memorably summarizes its
virtues:
It had been a call to the blood and to
the relaxed will, a passing benediction
whose influence did not pass, a holiness,
a spell, a momentary chalice for youth. 167
Despite the inclusion of this male bathing scene,
it must be emphasized that A Room with A Vie~ affirms
heterosexual, married love. Since the publication of
Maurice g the homosexual aspects of this novel have been
exaggerated by critics who forget that Forster praises
happy fellowship, wherever he finds it. Thus, the love
between a man and a woman is as viable for him as the
 93

love between two mene A brief summary of a posthumous

story entitled liThe Obelisk",168 will verify this
contention in a simple fashion. In this rather silly
tale, an unhappy couple escape the bondage of marriage
for a single afternoon. Beneath the sun and by the
water, the man and the woman cavort with a pair of
rug-ged sailors: soon we discover that both of them
crave male lovers. Forster clearly relishes each of
the escapades: he does not discriminate between the
relationships on the basis of the sexes involved. A
parallel attitude can be discerned in A Room With_A View;
he affirms the value of both George's romp in the pool
with the men, and his eventual marriage. As for Lucy,
according to Mr. Emerson, she must marry, or her life
will be wasted. Only through George will she find lithe
tenderness, and the comradeship, and the poetry" for
which she yearns. 169 At the novel's conclusion, we
see that Mr. Emerson's prophecy has been fulfilled.
Clearly, her tendency towards sublimating her passions
to dreams, art, religion, or hard work has subsided,
and her married life holds the promise of considerable
happiness.
In Maurice, Forster once again charts a central
character's progress from an existence based on wish-
fulfilling fantasies to one rooted in the love of another
person. At his first school, Maurice "keeps up a pretence
 94

of normalcy by adhering to what Forster calls II school-

boyethics ll • 170 He bullies those who are weaker than
he is, and becomes popular for his IIbraveryll.171 This
illusory strength is Maurice1s first source of comfort.
In the privacy of his own home, however, his loneli-
ness, confusion, and fear become immediately apparent.
Like Rickie, at the age of fourteen, Maurice cries
abnormally at the slightest provocation. He is subject
to II c hildish collapses ll into hysteria due to the inner
conflict just swelling within him.*172 Like Rickie, he
turns to the game of Halma for relief from the indefin-
able II grea t mass of sorrow ll that troubles him continu-
ally. Rickie, as we have seen, longs for a brother at
times like these~ Maurice sobs for a garden boy named
George, and becomes even more upset.+ These unsolicited
wishes haunt Rickie and Maurice throughout their child-
hood. They are particularly prominent at night-time,
which accounts for the fact that they are both afraid
of the dark as children.

* Forster admits he, too, \'las a nervous youngster: III

was not a bad child but could be hysterical, pretentious,
and detestable ll • cf. E.M. Forster, Marianne Thornton:
A Domestic Biography (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co.,
1956) p. 305.
+ Forster himself IIdepended a good deal for company on
the garden boysll (Ibid., p. 306). They were the only
men he knew. In The Life To Come, Forster describes
the friendship that exists between a gentleman's son
and a garden boy in considerable detail. cf. II Ansell ll ,
in The Life To Come And Other Stories, ed. Oliver
S·tallybrass (London: Edward Arnold Ltd., 1972).
 95

During sleep, the unconscious mind roams freely~

Forster was aware that dreams represent some of our

innermost thoughts. In Maurice, he notes:
Where all is obscure and unrealized the
best similitude is a dream. 173
Thoughts of supernatural disturbances destroy the
slumber of both Rickie and Maurice. Rickie calls
frequently to his mother to kill a "ghost in the
pass,age" , 174 and Maurice Hall imagines that he sees
"blots like skulls (falling1 over the furniture" .175
Maurice's looking glass* and the streetlamp outside
his window cast eerie shadows. He does not calm himself
by calling to his mother: instead, he whispers "George,
George " , an d th e p h an t oms d"~sappear.ara
176 P d ox~ca
" 11 y,

then, Maurice is most awake when he is sleeping. His

dreams "become more real than anything else he knows".177
His colourful, sensual desires receive their fullest
expression in two particularly vivid visions:
In the first dream, he felt very cross.
He was playing football against a non-
descript whose existence he resented.
He made an effort and the nondescript
turned into George, that garden boy •••
George headed down the field toward him,
naked and jumping over the woodstacks •••
and a brutal disappointment woke him up •••
it was somehow a punishment for something.

* Bonnie Finkelstein comments that "what Maurice fears

is his double, or homo, in the mirror". Maurice, however,
does not see himself reflected in the mirror; it is
Philip that furtively regards his own face. cf. Bonnie
Finkelstein, Forster's Women: Eternal Differences.
(New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1975) p. 80.
 96

The second dream is more difficult to

convey. Nothing happened. He scarcely
saw a face, scarcely heard a voice say,
Ilthat is your friend", and then it was
over, having filled him with beauty and
tenderness. He could die for such a
friend, he would allow such a friend to
die for him; they would make any sacrifice
for each other, and count the world nothing,
neither death nor distance nor crossness
would part them, because "this is my
friend" ••• 178
The naked figure of George in the first fantasy
referred to above represents unrestrained physical
passion. Maurice's yearnings for a male lover fill
him \"ith a guilt he cannot understand, and his II resent-
ment" in the dream mirrors his actual reaction when the
garden boy gives notice. 179 The second dream depicts
a spiritual love. As opposed to the naked body of the
beloved in the earlier dream, the second image contains
"scarcely ••• a face, scarcely ••• a voice". "Brutal
disappointment" is replaced by a feeling of "beauty and
tenderness". Here, Maurice craves an ideal Friend, and
one is reminded of the belief that through the love of
one person, one can love God. He thinks of Christ, and
a " greek ,od, such as illustrates the classical diction-
ary"; clearly, he longs for perfection. His attitude
towards the beloved resembles religious adoration: he
expresses a willingness to sacrifice himself and "count
the world nothing", if it proves necessary. As the
novel unfolds, Maurice lives out the prophecies hidden
 97

in these powerful, obscure images from his IIsecret

life".180 In loving Clive, he experiences the anger,
guilt, and frustration of the first dream: in loving
Scudder, he participates in the tranquil ecstasies
symbolized by the second.
Forster tells us:
Maurice's secret life can be understood
now: it was part brutal, part ideal,
like his dreams. 181
Maurice's dreams adhere to a curious pattern found
throughout Forster's fiction. Whenever a potentially
sexual relationship is repressed, there emerges a
combination of physical torture, attraction, and
idealism that is amply reflected in Maurice's fantasies.
In ~~ere Angels Fear To Tread, as we have seen, Gino
is simultaneously cruel and beautiful, filling Philip
with both contempt and tenderness. Similarly, in The
Longest JournE2Y:" Rickie Elliott's relations with both
Gerald Dawes and Stephen Wonham lithe bully ••• who knocks
one down ll ,l82 partake of this same mixture of emotions.
For example, at public school, Rickie is exposed to
Gerald's brutality. Forster carefully chronicles the
tortures inflicted: Rickie suffers from II p inches, kicks,
boxed ears, twisted arms, pulled hair, ghosts at night,
inky books, befouled photographs ll • 183 When the two
meet again years later, Rickie resents Gerald, much as
Maurice feels IIcross" when he faces the fleeing football
 98

player of his first dream*. This resentment, however,

soon turns into a strong physical attraction. As
Rickie stares at Gerald, he observes his beauty
longingly:
There stood a young man who had the
figure of a Greek athlete and the face
of an English one. He was fair and
clean-shaven, and his colourless hair
was cut rather short. The sun was in
his eyes, and they, like his mouth,
seemed scarcely more than slits in his
healthy skin. Just where he began to
be beautiful the clothes started.
Round his neck went an up-and-down collar
and a mauve-and-gold tie, and the rest
of his limbs were hidden by a grey
lounge suit, carefully creased in the
right places. 184
Like Maurice in his dream, Rickie is unaware of
his own feelings, but feels vaguely guilty. Just as
Maurice feels that his thoughts of George are "somehow a
punishment for something",185 so Rickie associates
physicality with sin:
He wondered whether after all ••• bodily
beauty and strength were signs of the
soul's damnation. 186
Soon, Rickie attempts to idealize his relationship
with Gerald. Like Maurice, Rickie longs to make
sacrifices for the man who has captured his affections.
Thus, he offers Gerald a large sum of money as an out-
right gift. 18 ? Rickie's attempt to transcend ordinary

* The close connection between Maurice's dreams and

The Longest Journey become more apparent when we
remember that Gerald, too, is a football player.
 99

reality is an immediate failure. IIHe muddles all day

with poetry, and old, dead people ll , says Agnes, lI and
then tries to bring it into life ll • 188 Gerald dies
suddenly at this point in the narration, and Rickie's
obscure desires remain unfulfilled. It is interesting
to note that Agnes also loves Gerald for his beauty
and his cruelty. When they kiss, he grips her strongly
until she whispers IIDon· t - you hur"t II in a mixture of
pain and pleasure. 189 Later, when Gerald speaks at
length of the cruelties he inflicted on Rickie at
public school, Agnes cannot suppress her enjoyment.
Forster writes:
For this she scolded him well. But
she had a thrill of joy when she
thought of the weak boy in the
clutches of the strong one. l90
Agnes· vicarious participation in Gerald·s
brutality indicates that in Forster·s universe both
males and females, homosexuals and heterosexuals can
enjoy this combination of sex and violence. When we
turn to A Room With A View, Forster's most IInormalll
novel, this becomes increasingly clear. Lucy·s first
major encounter with George occurs on the Piazza
Signoria at twilight, while a man is being killed.
This scene provides a vivid exemplification of Forster's
habitual approach to the theme of sexual repression.
He writes:
 100

Two Italians had been bickering about

a debt ••. They sparred at each other,
and one of them was hit lightly upon
the chest ••• he bent towards Lucy •.•
and a stream of red came out ••. and
trickled down his unshaven chin. 191
Lucy falls into George's arm in a swoon at this point
in the narration. Forster describes her faint in
sexual terms:
Even as she caught sight of him he
grew dim: the palace itself grew dim,
swayed above her, fell on to her
softly, slowly, noiselessly, and the
sky fell with it ..• George Emerson
still looked at her, but not across
anything. She had complained of
dullness, and lo~ one man was
stabbed, and another held her in
his arms. 192
In this moment of pleasure and pain, Lucy and George
become sexually and spiritually aware of one another.
Because Lucy cannot accept her feelings, she sublimates
them to thoughts about the brutality of the accident.
She focuses her attention on her photographs which
have been splattered with blood. In her guilt, she
begs George to forget the incident but her unconscious
concern with her own sexuality emerges. As the scene
closes, she hopes George will " aver t his eyes from her
nakedness like the knight in the beautiful picture". 193
From this brief analysis of Forster's use of
the theme of sexual repression, we can conclude that
Maurice's vivid nocturnal universe functions as a
comprehensive summary of what the author means when he
 101

speaks of "brutality" and "idealism ll , two of his

favourite subjects. Maurice's adolescent dreams are,
in fact, one of the most interesting aspects of the
novel, in terms of the rest of Forster's fiction.
However, we must now turn our attention to other
elements of Maurice's sublimated sexuality. Like
Rickie, Philip, and Lucy, he continually seeks out new
methods of satisfying desires he does not even know he
possesses. Maurice differs from these other characters
in that he does not have the world of art to console
him. He does not appreciate painting, write short
stores, or play the piano.* By the time he is sixteen,
the childlike powers of vision that become the means of
a vital imaginative life for Rickie and Philip have
evaded him entirely. Writes Forster:
He had lost the precocious clearness
of the child which transfigures and
explains the universe, offering
answers of miraculous insight and
beauty.194
Thus, he relies on cruder waking pleasures instead,
although these provide meager nourishment, indeed:+

* cf. Forster, Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson, p. 15:

As a youth, Goldie finds his only satisfaction in
"the world of Ariel". with the exception of Maurice,
Forster's male heroes resemble Goldie in their love
of art.
+ Several reviews of Maurice criticize Forster for the
"thin writing" of this particular part of the v.Jerk.
In my opinion, the author provides only the barest
outline of Maurice's early sex in order to emphasize
the intensity of the young homosexual's frustrations.
 102
He longed for smut ••• Books: the school
library was immaculate, but while he
was at his grandfather's he came across
an unexpurgated Martial •.. Thoughts: he
had a dirty little collection. Acts:
he desisted from these after the novelty
was over ••• 19S
As Maurice grows older, he enjoys working hard.
Unlike Philip and Rickie, he becomes competent and
successful in the business world: everyone considers
him "the right sort of stock-broker".196 However, he,
too, has entered his profession mechanically. Upon
graduating from college, he joins his father's firm
without deliberation. Writes Forster, disapprovingly:
Maurice was stepping into the niche
that England had prepared for him. 197
When he loses Clive, Maurice buries himself deeply in
his work. Like the earlier protagonists, he attempts
to compensate for his loneliness by "setting himself to
acquire new habits", and "practicing a severe self-
discipline".198 Mauric~ resembles the earlier works

in that again, Forster admires his hero's dedication.

Like Rickie's efforts to appease angry gods at the time
of his rejection of his brother, Maurice's work at this
point in his development is both admirable and futile.
Comments Forster:
Maurice was doing a fine thing - proving
on how little the soul can exist ••• He
hadn't a God, he hadn't a lover - the
two usual incentives to virtue. But on
he struggled with his back to ease because
dignity demanded it ••• struggles like his
are the supreme achievements of humanity,
and surpass any legends about Heaven.
 103

No reward awaited him. This work,

like much that had gone before, was to
fall ruining. 199
Indeed, Maurice stands in danger of a spiritual
demise akin to that of Rickie at Sawston school. He
becomes a slave to an urban society that threatens to
destroy his as yet unrealized individuality for ever.
As he ignores his homosexuality and concentrates on
his career, he runs the risk of complete fossilization.
He muses:
Indoors was his place and there he'd
moulder, a respectable pillar of
society who has never had the chance
to misbehave. 200
Only through breaking with the tradition of his father
and, in fact, with all conventional morality, does
Maurice manage to corne alive. In this novel, Forster
opposes pleasure and duty, and opts for the freedom
of the great outdoors, rather than for the confines of
city life, in his own characteristic way. Like Scudder,
who originally carne from a family of tradesmen, Maurice
must learn to become an "untamed son of the woods",
instead of remaining an ambitious business man in search
of career "openings".201 As he learns to accept his
homosexuality, he sees his entire milieu in a new
light. Forster seizes this opportunity to present us
with one of his most effective condemnations of his
own class. He writes:
 104

The clientele of Messrs Hill and Hall

was drawn from the middle-middle classes,
whose highest desire seemed shelter -
continuous shelter - •.• everywhere and
always~ until the existence of earth
and sky is forgotten, shelter from
poverty and disease and violence and
impoliteness~ and consequently from
joy ••• Maurice saw from their faces as
from the faces of his clerks and his
partners, that they had never known
real joy. Society had catered for
them too completely ••• 202
A reader can only be pleased as Maurice turns away from
this bourgeois complacency.
Maurice resembles Forster's early novels most
specifically in its handling of the theme of comrade-
ship. Like the other protagonists, Maurice must seek
relief from the alienating aspects of his life by
finding kindred spirits. Like Rickie, he first becomes
aware of other people while at Cambridge:
Once inside college his discoveries
multiplied. People turned out to be
alive ••• as he strolled through the
courts at night ••• there came by no
process of reason a conviction that
they were human beings with feelings
akin to his own. 203
In a short time, Clive~urham attracts his attention,
and friendship becomes his chief objective:
To ascend, to stretch a hand up the
mountainside until a hand catches it,
it was the end for which he had been
born. 204
Soon, Clive and Maurice commune clandestinely in the
fields, smoking Pan-like pipes~ they bathe in a pool
as radiant as the Sacred Lake of A Room w±th A View. 205
 105

Again and again, Forster emphasizes the •

rar~ty of their
relationship. Just as Philip speaks more honestly in
Italian than in his native tongue, so Clive and Maurice
become more genuine when they speak in the language
they create for themselves. vvrites Forster:
No tradition overawed the boys. No
convention settled what was poetic,
what absurd. They were concerned with
a passion that few English minds have
admitted, and so created untrammelled.
Something of exquisite beauty arose in
the mind of each at last, something
unforgettable and eternal ••• 206
Maurice's subsequent relationship with AleC
Scudder represents one final extension of this typically
Forsterian opposition of comradeship and society.
Cooped up in Clive's respectable county estate, Maurice
longs for freedom and companionship:
He moaned, half asleep. There was
something better than this rubbish,
if only he could get to it - love -
nobility - big spaces where passion
clasped peace, spaces no science
could reach, but they existed for
ever, full of woods some of them,
and arched with majestic sky and a
friend. 207
In order to obtain this happiness, Maurice must IIlive
outside class, without relations or rnoneyll.208 However,
the lures of society cannot compare with the joys of
companionship. Furthermore, the bonds between Maurice
and Alec Scudder are actually strengthened by the
opposition of their enemies. 1I0 n l y a struggle twists
 106

sentimentality and lust together into love", writes

Forster. 209 A game of cricket that "takes on the
semblance of reality" presents the dynamics of the
battle to be fought by the united outcasts better than
anything else in the novel:
They played for the sake of each other
and of their fragile relationship - if one
fell the other would follow. They in-
tended no harm to the world, but so long
as it attacked, they must punish, they
must stand wary, then hit with full
strength, they must show that when two
are gathered together majorities shall
no·t triumph. 21 0
With these words, Forster truly moves us with his
concept of the fellowship possible between men.
 CHAPTER III

HOWARDS END, MAURICE, A PASSAGE TO INDIA:

SEX AND SNOBBERY

In order to relate Maurice to Forster's early

novels, we compared the protagonists and discovered
that Philip, Rickie, Lucy and Maurice begin with
"undeveloped hearts", and undergo parallel experiences
that help them to change. By contrast, in Howards End,
Forster presents us with a protagonist who has a
developed heart. Margaret Schlegel responds openly
and maturely to a variety of situations. She is the
most heroic Forsterian character, and is introduced
in the following manner:
Away she hurried, not beautiful, not
supremely brilliant, but filled with
something that took the place of both
qualities - something that is best
described as a profound vivacity, a
continual and sincere response to all
that she encountered in her path
through life. l
Margaret acts: she has no time for muddling. Even
during her childhood, she refused to be manipulated or
molly-coddled:
(The Schlegelil had been left motherless
when Tibby was born, when Helen was five
and Margaret herself but chirteen ••• Mrs.
Munt could without impropriety offer to
go and keep house at Wickham Place. But
her brother-in-law ••• had referred the
question to Margaret, who with the crudity
of youth had answered, 'NO~ they could
manage much better alone'.

107
 108

Margaret's decision to reject the surrogate

motherhood of Aunt Juley Munt is a wise one. This
upper middle-class matron is as snobbish and meddlesome
as Mrs. Herriton, Mrs. Failing, or Mrs. Durham. M1en
she learns of Helen's unexpected engagement, she says:
"Margaret, if I may interfere, don't
be taken by surprise. What do you
think of the Wilcoxes? Are they our
sort? Are they likely people?"3
Like the other women of her ilk, Mrs. Munt leads an
empty life. She willingly offers her services to her
niece.
'Dear, I have nothing to call me back
to Swanage'. She spread out her plump
arms. 'I am all at your disposal. Let
me go down to this house whose name I
forget, instead of you'.4
Very reluctantly, Margaret accepts her aunt's proposal.
Her own desire to express her tolerant attitude towards
her sister's action stands in direct contrast to Mrs.
Munt's fretful, conventional appraisal of the situation.
Thinks Margaret:
If she herself should ever fall in love
with a man, she like Helen, would proclaim
it from the house-tops, but as she only
loved a sister, she used the voiceless
language of sympathy.5
The visit to Howards End proves disastrous; Mrs. Munt's
interference is completely destructive. On returning
to Wickham Place, however, her utterly complacent
attitude towards life is fully revealed:
 109

rsh~ soon recovered •.• before many

days were over she had forgotten the
part played by her own imprudence in
the catastrophe. 6
Mrs. Munt plays an important role in the
II catastrophe ll of Tibby Schlegel's life, as well. Like
Maurice, he is not only the youngest member of his
family, but its only surviving male. Thus, he becomes
an IIImportant One ll ,7 and is inappropriately babied.
vmen the Schlegel sisters reminisce about the early
days of their childhood, they recall an lIunsuccessful
visit of Aunt Juley's, when she didn't realize that
Tibby had grown upll.8 In her foolish way, she forced
the boy to sing a childish song every day for three
weeks. Finally, he threw a temper tantrum, much like
those of Maurice and Rickie on similar occasions. Like
these other characters, Tibby is humiliated and over-
protected by turns. At the time of the novel's begin-
ning, he is "intelligent ••. but dyspeptic and difficile".9
Unlike his sisters, \vho are II independent young "lOmen", 10
Tibby requires extra affection. It is usually provided
by Margaret, who is eight years his senior. As his
surrogate mother, she nurses him lovingly through a
bad bout of hayfever:
(It] had worried him a good deal all
night ••• The only thing that made life
worth living was the thought of Walter
Savage Landor, from whose Imaginary
~onversations CMargare~ had promised
to read at frequent intervals during
the day.ll
 110

Predictably, Tibby's relations with his sisters

are unstable. As a substitute mother, Margaret "cannot
bear her brother to be scolded". 12 She tries to en-
courage a peaceful association between Helen and
Tibby:
It pleased Margaret to hear her brother
and sister talking. They did not get
on overwell as a rule. For a few moments,
she listened to them, feeling elderly and
benign. 13
Helen resents her brother's dependence on the older
sister, much as Kitty and Ada tire of hearing Mrs. Hall
coddling Maurice. In a letter written from Howards
End, Helen states:

Really, Tibby is too tiresome, he starts

a new mortal disease every month ••• it
seems hard that you should give up a
visit to hear a school boy sneeze •••
Men like the Wilcoxes would do Tibby
a power of good ••• 14
Occasionally, Margaret joins her sister in teasing
Tibby. His effeminate gestures and thoughtlessness
annoy both of them. He warms a teapot "almost too
deftly", sighs, and wears his hair 10ng. lS The girls
cannot refrain from criticizing him:
'All right, Auntie Tibby', called Helen,
while Margaret, thoughtful again, said:
'In a way, I wish we had a real boy in
the house - ••••
'So do I', said her sister. 'Tibby only
cares for cultured females singing Brahmsl 16

At other times, the girls respect Tibby. When they are

in trouble, they turn to him for advice, since he is,
 III

indeed, the man of their household. Helen's pregnancy

leads both sisters to Tibby's door. Like Ada and Kitty,
their feelings towards their brother fluctuate con-
tinually.
As for Tibby himself, like Philip Herriton and
other Forsterian males, he has been overwhelmed by the
women in his family. In his discontent, he experiences
vague longings for rebellion. The Schlegel sisters
have been so intensely concerned with personal relation-
ships that they have sapped their brother's interest:
He had never been interested in human
beings, for which one must blame him,
but he had had rather too much of them
at wickham Place ••• Ought Margaret to
know what Helen knew the Basts to know?
Similar questions had vexed him from
infancy ••• 17
Unlike Maurice, Tibby never learns to love. Ultimately,
he resembles Philip, Rickie, Cecil Vyse and Clive
Durham more than Maurice, in that he often escapes into
the worlds of art and thought. He differs from these
others, however, in that he does not even enjoy fleeting
moments of comradeships His college days do not
"a""aken" him to the beauty of friendship:
His Oxford remained Oxford empty, and
he took into life with him, not the
memory of a radiance, but the memory
of a colour scheme. 18
Near the end of the novel, Forster suggests that Tibby's
development has been irrevocably stunted. He stands in
complete contrast to his passionate, involved sisters:
 112

The years between eighteen and ~wenty­

two, so magical for most, were leading
him gently from boyhood to middle age.
He had never known young-manliness, that
quality which warms the heart till death
••• He was frigid, through no fault of his
own, and without cruelty.19
Tibby's coldness can be viewed as an inability
lito connect".* In the light of the novel's epii'aph,
this ia a serious failing, indeed. Margaret SchlegelOs
personal creed embodies the central theme of Howards
End:
Only connect~ That was the whole of
her sermon. Only connect the prose
and the passion, and both will be
exalted, and human love will be seen
at its height. Live in fragments no
longer. Only connect, and the beast
and the monk, robbed of the isolation
that is life to either, will die. 20
The first link in the exalted chain of connections
envisaged by Margaret is sexuality. The "beast ll sYm-
bolizes sex without love, and the "monk ll represents
prudery. Margaret's words reflect a statement of Mr.
Emerson's in A Room with A Vie~:

Man has to pick up the use of his

functions as he goes along - especially
the function of Love ••• I only wish
poets would say this too: that love
is of the body: not the body, but of
the body. Ah~ the misery that would
be saved if we confessed that~ Ah
for a little directness to liberate
the soul~2l

* The use of the word "frigid" suggests that he is

both sexually and emotionally inadequate.
 113

Both Margaret and Mr. Emerson act as the mouthpieces

for Forster when they speak of man's obligation to
acknowledge sex. Bonnie Finkelstein defines this
aspect of Forster's thinking accurately, when she
wri tes:
Each person must accept sexuality
internally by connecting his or her
own -beast' side with his or her
own -monk- side. 22
In his discussion of Howards End Q Lionel Trilling
observes:
The sexual theme plays through the
book, lightly, without much pressure
••• but with great seriousness. The
great fact about the Wilcoxes is
that which D.H. Lawrence saw, the
fact of sexual deficiency.23
The sexual lack is most apparent in Henry Wilcox.
Middle-aged and twice married, he is as confused as
the adolescent Maurice Hall. In reading the following
passage, one remembers the public-school. mentality
defined in the early novels:
OUb",ardly, (JIenrYJ was cheerful,
reliable, and brave; but within, all
had reverted to chaos, ruled, as far
as it was ruled at all, by an incom-
plete asceticism. Whether as a boy,
husband, or widower, he had always
the sneaking belief that bodily
passion is bad ••• 24
Like Maurice, Henry's excellent face and figure give
him an aura of strength and attractiveness. Margaret,
Forster tells us, finds him appealing:
 114

His complexion was robust, his hair

had receded but not thinned, the
thick moustache and the eyes that
Helen had compared to brandy-balls
had an agreeable menace in them ••• 25
Only a closer examination of his physiognomy reveals
its sYmbolic weaknesses:
His face was not as square as his
son's, and, indeed, the chin, though
firm in outline, retreated a little,
and the lips, ambiguous, were curtained
by a moustache ••• 26
Henry's weak mouth resembles Philip's, of whose
face Forster writes:
Below the nose and eyes all was
confusion, and those people who
believe that destiny resides in
the mouth and chin shook their
heads when they looked at him. 27
His moustache, however, is identical to the one Maurice
wears. The "Episode of Gladys Olcott" deserves to be
quoted at some length:
Now Maurice, though he did not know it,
had become an attractive young man ••• He
was heavy but alert, and his face seemed
following the example of his body. Mrs.
Hall put it down to his moustache -
'Maurice's moustache will be the making
of him' - a remark more profound than
she realized. Certainly the little
black. line of it did pull his face
together, and show up his teeth when
he smiled •••
He turned his smile on Miss Olcott - it
seemed the proper thing to do ••• he pressed
her little hand between his own ••• His 28
touch revolted her. It was a corpse's.
In addition to the light this scene sheds on Maurice's
deeply rooted homosexuality, it reveals that he is
 115

capable of mechanical and inappropriate sexual gestures.*

The scene recalls Henry Wilcox's first efforts to kiss
Margaret:
She was startled, and nearly screamed,
but recover.ed herself at once ••• On
looking back, the incident displeased
her. It was so isolated. Nothing in
their previous conversation had heralded
it, and worse still, no tenderness had
ensued. 29
Henry's kiss indicates the arbitrary quality of his
sensuality; it is the kiss of a "beast"o rather than
that of a loving man.
As our study of the early fiction revealed, for
Forster, a failure to connect sexually results in a
lack of self-awareness. To put it in other terms, if
sexuality is the primary link in the chain of connect-
ions, a sense of one's own identity is the second. In
his presentation of Henry Wilcox's sexual bewilderment,
Forster remarks:
It was hard going in the roads of Mr.
Wilcox's soul. From boyhood he had
neglected them. 'I am not a fellow
who bothers about my own inside l • 30
In his ignorance of his own psyche, Mr. Wilcox is

representative of modern man. writes Forster:

But man is an odd, sad creature as
yet, intent on pilfering the earth,
and heedless of the growths within
himself. He cannot be bored about

* This kiss also foreshadows Clive1s prudish kissing

of Maurice, on his later visit to Penge.
cf. Forster, Maurice, p. 153.
 116

psychology. He leaves it to the

specialist, which is as if he should
leave his dinner to be eaten by a
steam-engine. He cannot be bothered
to digest his own soul. 31
The Schlegel sisters, of course, differ from the
Wilcoxes, in that they know they must explore their own
natures. It is Helen who describes the wil€ox failing
most succinctly:
Perhaps the little thing that says
is missing out of the middle of their
-r-
heads, and then it·s a waste of time
to blame them ••• There are two kinds of
people - our kind - who live straight
from the middle of their heads, and
the other kind who canlt, because
their heads have no middle ••• 32
It is precisely this sense of /lIII that Maurice
develops through his acceptance of his homosexuality.
As he acknowledges his feelings for Clive, he gains
essential self-knowledge. The pain he experiences
after rejecting his friendls first avowal of affection
leads him to a new internal integrity:
Thus it was that his agony began as a
slight regret ••• lt worked inwards, till
it touched the root whence body and soul
both spring, the ' I I that he had been
trained to obscure, and realized at last,
doubled its power and grew superhuman. 3 3*

* cf. Forster, Howards End, p. 306: /lCharles .... had a

vague regret - a wish (though he did not express it
thus) that he had been taught to say /lI/I in his
youth /I •
 117

"After this crisis", writes Forster, "Maurice became a

man" .. 34 Even his countenance begins to reveal true
strength, rather than an artificial manliness: every-
one around him has " a sense of some change in his mouth
and eyes and nose" .. 35 Most important of all, the
"beastll and the "monk" within him finally merge into
a new "V'holeness:
Now he had the highest gift to offer.
The idealism and the brutality that ran
through boyhood had joined at last, and
twined into lovee •• it was 'he', neither
body or soul, nor body and soul, but
'he' working through both. 36
Later, Maurice tells Clive of his new internal connect-
edness:
A lot of things hadn't joined up in me
that since have. 37 .
His friend, in turn, attests to his own heart's growth:
'I should have gone through life half
awake if you'd had the decency to leave
me alone. Awake intellectually, yes,
and emotionally in a way; but here' -
He pointed with his pipe stem to his
heart .... 38
Maurice, in fact, does not begin to understand
himself until his relationship with Clive forces him
to consider his homosexuality. On the other hand,
Margaret of Howards End has made many "connections"
before her story opens; unlike Maurice with his lI s l ow
nature ll ,39 she is capable of drawing sound conclusions
from meager data. She is sure of both her own sexuality
and the main characteristics of her temperament:
 118

She does understand herself. She has

some rudimentary control over her own
grO"i'1lth. 40
This self-control is of central importance in Forster's
philosophy, and it precedes the ability to understand
others. He places one of his most comprehensive
expressions of this creed in the mouth of Clive Durham,
who discovers it through studying Plato:
'To make the most of what I have'. Not
to crush it down, not vainly to wish
that it was something else, but to
cultivate it in such ways as it will
not vex either God or Man. 4 l
In a note about ~urice, Forster states that both
Margaret and Maurice are working at this same task.
They must "connect up and use all the fragments they
are born with".42 Because Margaret is so much more in
command of herself than Maurice from the very beginning
of her story, however, she can devote herself much more
readily to the difficulties of others. Maurice, of
course, is struggling with fragments that are much
"more scanty and bizarre than Margaret'sll as Forster
himself points out;43 nonetheless, one feels that it is
essentially his obtuseness that holds him back, whereas
her sensitivity sends her hurtling forward.
Howards End opens with an account of Helen's
brief engagement to Paul Wilcox, "a young man out of
the unknown ll • 44 Like Lilia in yvhere Angels Fear To
Tread, Helen seizes the first opportunity for love that
 119

presents itself:
A man in the darkness, he had whispered
'I love you' when she was desiring 10ve. 45
In her eagerness for passion and romance, she meets
Paul "halfway, or more than halfway". 46 For ster' s
comment on this incident reveals his desire to place
"these chance collisions of human beings"47 in
perspective:
Our impulse to sneer, to forget, is
at root a good one. We recognize that
emotion is not enough, and that men
and women are personalities capable of
sustained relations, not mspe opportunities
for an electrical discharge. Yet we rate
the impulse too highly. We do not admit
that by collisions of this trivial sort
the doors of heaven may be shaken open. 48
Margaret echoes her creator's qualified approval of
physical love when she tells Helen:
"I understand ••• at least, I understand
as much as ever is understood of these
things ',.49
Margaret is aware of both the potency and super-
ficiality of flirtations like Paul's and Helen's: she
has been the victim of sudden passion herself:
And she had often 'loved', too, but only
so far as the facts of sex demanded; mere
yearnings for the masculine, to be dismissed
with a smile. 50
When she learns of her husband's shabby treatment of
Jacky Bast, she reminds us of yet another crucial link
in the chain of connections. In addition to self-
knowledge, one must become aware of the existence of
 120

others. Clearly, sex itself is not enough; one must

be expressing love:
Far more mysterious than the call of sex
to sex is the tenderness that we throw
into that call; far wider is the gulf
between us and the farmyard than between
the farmyard and the garbage that nourishes
it. 5l
Henry assumes that as a woman, Margaret cannot understand
"the temptations that lie round a man ll • 52 He gives her
a standard explanation of his deed:
hcut off from decent society and family
ties, what do you suppose happens to
thousands of young fellows overseas?
Isolated. No one near~53
Both Schlegel sisters are as vulnerable to "the call of
sex to sex" as Henry is. Like most single women, they,
too, have experienced profound moments of loneliness.
Just as Margaret's conversation with Henry ends,
Forster reminds us that a woman's sexual appetites
are as great as a man's:
Margaret looked intently at the butler.
He, as a handsome young man, was faintly
attractive to'her as a woman - an
attraction so faint as scareely to be
perceptible, yet the skies would have
fallen if she had mentioned it to Henry.54
Henry's seduction of Jacky in Howar~nd

parallels a sexual act of Maurice's father's, which is

referred to several times in the posthumous novel.
Forster's judgment of the sexuality of Mr. Hall senior
is easily understood, unlike his interpretations of
 121

Maurice's love affairs:

Mr. Hall senior had neither fought nor
thought~ there had never been any
occasion~ he had supported society and
moved without a crisis from illicit to
licit love. 55
Like Mr. Hall's, Henry's escapade has been meaningless,
because it has made no demands upon him. It has not
required him to develop, or to provide tenderness for
another human being. "I have been through hell", says
Henry, but Margaret knows that this is untrue:*
Gravely she considered this claim. Had
he? Had he suffered tortures of remorse,
or had it been, 'There! that's over. Now
for respectable life again'? The latter,
if she read him rightly ••• Henry was
anxious to be terrible, but had not got
it in him. He was a good average English-
man, who had slipped. 56
Both Henry and Mr. Hall fail to make important connect-
ions. Thus, even their attempts at intimacy remain
trivial, they are mere "transient grossness",57 rather
than the beginnings of genuine personal commitments to
others.
In both Howards End and Maurice, Forster struggles
towards a viable approach to human sexuality. In a note
about the latter work, he reveals the intensity of his
interest in the morality of sex, particularly when
homosexuals are involved. He queries:

* Contrast with Leonard's true remorse after he sleeps

with Helen.
cf. Forster, Howards End, pp. 294-8.
 122

Is it ever right that such a relationship

should include the physical? Yes - some-
times. If both people want it and both
are old enough to know what they want -
yes. I used not to think this, but now
I do. Maurice and Clive would have been
wrong. Maurice and Dicky more so. Maurice
and Alec are all right, some people might
never be right. 58
Paradoxically, his conclusions in the former novel are
much more definitive than in the posthumous work, where
it is a primary concern. In The Longest Journey,
Rickie discusses his own writing with his aunt:
'tfuat is the long story about, then?'
'About a man and a woman who meet and are
happy'.
'Somewhat of a tour de force, I conclude'.
He frowned. 'In literature we needn't
intrude our own limitations ' • 59
Lionel Trilling correctly refers to Howards End as
"Forster's masterpiece,,~60 this is the work that best
verifies Rickie's conjecture about the possibilities
of art. Here, Forster effectively demonstrates that a
homosexual author can deal successfully with hetero-
sexual relationships. By contrast, his treatment of
the theme of homosexual love in Maurice is at times
both tortured and ambiguous. In a letter to Forster,
dated 12 March 1915, Lytton strachey writes:
I don't understand why the copulation
question should be given so much
importance. It's difficult to
distinguish clearly your views from
Maurice's sometimes, but so far as I
can see, you go much too far in your
disapproval of it. 61
 123

This criticism is particularly applicable to the

presentation of the relationship between Maurice and
Clive. since Forster fails to distance himself suffi-
ciently from his protagonist, Clive remains a sympathetic
character only as long as Maurice loves him. The
Cambridge intellectual is a practitioner of a "high-
minded homosexuality,,~62 due to his Platonic ideals,
his friendship with Maurice involves very little sex:
It had been understood between them that
their love though including the body,
should not gratify it, and the understanding
had proceeded - no words were used - from
Clive. 63
Maurice's first attempt to evaluate this relationship
occurs shortly after the idyllic day the two boys s.pend
together:
(OnEil afternoon he had a collapse. He
remembered that Clive and he had only
been together one day~ And they had
spent it careening about like fools -
instead of in one another's arms~64
Forster's subsequent comment is framed in terms that
echo his remarks about the kiss of Helen and Paul in
Howards End~ here, however, he is much more cynical
about sex:
Maurice did not know that they had thus
spent it perfectly - he was too young
to detect the triviality of contact for
contact's sake ••• 65
Since this statement confirms Forster's note claiming
that sex between Maurice and Clive would be "wrong",
it would seem to represent the author's viewpoint.
 124

In addition, this passage contains evidence of

a positive judgment of the relationship as a whole:
Later on, when {i1aurice I ID
love took second
strength, he realized how well Fate had served
him.. The one embrace in the darkness, the
one long day in the light and the wind were
twin columns, each useless without the other .. 66
Clive appears to be an eminently suitable companion for
Maurice:
He educated Maurice, or rather his spirit
educated Maurice's spirit, for they them-
selves became equal ...... Love had caught him
out of triviality and Maurice out of
bewilderment in order that two imperfect
souls might touch perfection .. 67
As the love between the two young men grows stronger,
Forster's prose becomes over-charged with emotion and
enthusiasm:
Clive knew that ecstacy cannot last, but
can carve a channel for something lasting ......
If Maurice made love it was Clive who
preserved it, and caused its rivers to
water the garden ..... 68
Clive hopes that together, he and Maurice will make the
crucial connection betvveen the "beast II and the II monk II ,

and Forster gives us no indication that this will not

be the casej he continues to write in the same hyperbolic
fashion:
vVhen (the final darknes~ descended they
would at all events have lived more fully
than either saint or sensualist, and would
have extracted to their utmost the nobility
and sweetness of the world .. 6 9
Forster withholds his condemnation of Clive's
 125

sexuality until the years the boys spend together draw

to a close. During their last intimate conversation,
Clive reveals his lack of vitality:
II To forget everything - even happiness.
Happiness: A casual tickling of someone
or something against oneself - that's
all. Would that we had never been lovers:
For then, Maurice, you and I should have
lain still and been quiet~70
Maurice's frustration with this "love such as only
finer natures can understand"71 finally begins to emerge:
They lay side by side without touching.
Presently Clive said, 'It's no better
here. I shall go'. Maurice was not
sorry, for he could not get to sleep
either, though for a different reason,
and he was afraid Clive might hear the
drummin of his heart, and guess what
it was. 2 1
In Greece, Clive meditates on his approaching hetero-
sexuality on a prophetically bare stage:
He saw only dying light and a dead land.
He uttered no prayer, believed in no deity
and knew that the past was devoid of
meaning like the present, and a refuge
for cO\'\Tards. 73
This imagery of death and sterility foreshadows Clive's
marriage, and Forster's complete withdrawal of sympathy
from Clive at the novel's conclusion. Clive's married
life seems to represent a fate far worse than he
deserves:
They united in a world which bore no
reference to the daily, and this secrecy
drew after it much else of their lives.
So much could never be mentioned. He
never saw her naked, nor she him. They
 126

ignored the reproductive and the digestive

functions ••• 74
After Clive's desertion of Maurice, the latter
turns to Dickie Barry for relief from his loneliness
and sexual frustration. Once again, Forster's attitude
towards a given homosexual relationship appears to be
ambivalent. Initially, he describes Dickie's carefree
sensuality approvingly:
The boy, who had been to a dance before,
remained asleep. He lay with his limbs
uncovered. He lay unashamed, embraced
and penetrated by the sun. 75
Since Dickie appeals to Maurice's aesthetic sensibil-
ities as well as his passions, the relationship seems
promising. writes Forster:
The lips were parted, the down on the
upper was touched with gold, the hair
broken into countless glories, the
body was a delicate amber. To anyone
he would have seemed beautiful, and to
Maurice who reached him by two paths
he became the World's desire. 76
As Maurice explores his sexual proclivities, Forster
continues to voice his approval:
Now, looking across at his son, ~r. Hall]
is touched with envy ••• For he sees the
flesh educating the spirit, as his has
never been educated, and developing the
sluggish heart and the slack mind against
their will. 77
Eventually, however, he withdraws his sympathy for
Maurice's response to Dickie with a hyperbolic vehemence
that parallels his sudden distaste for the platonic
 127

relationship with Clive. There is no evidence to

support the view that the following lines represent
Maurice's feelings, and not Forster's, for no clearly
authorial comments follow. Maurice's sexual desires
suddenly degrade him:
His feeling for Dickie required a very
primitive name. He would have senti-
mentalized once and called it adoration,
but the habit of honesty had grown very
strong ••• 'Lust'. He said the word out
loud ••• 7 8
One can only conclude that Forster's own uncertainties
about the morality of homosexuality prevented him from
writing a consistent novel.
The account of Maurice's love for Alec is
presented with greater consistency. This affair begins
with lust as well. This time, however, the relation-
ships fulfills the promise made in Howards End, insofar
as a "trivial collision"in the ·dark becomes a means of
"opening the doors of heaven tt • 79 During Maurice's
stay at Penge, Alex "appears to be haunting the premises"QO
As soon as Maurice sees him, his sexual appetites are
aroused. He sees Scudder cavorting with two maids, on
his way to Clive's house:
The girls were damned ugly, which the
man wasn't~ ••• he stared at the trio
feeling cruel and respectable ••• the
man returned the stare furtively ••• 8l
Later, Maurice is subtly conscious of Alec's presence
near the piano,82 and at the back of a brougham carrying
 128

him to London. 83 As Maurice's sexual awakening continues,

he longs to be outdoors. Like Stephen Wonham of The
Longest Journey, he thrills to the beauty and sensuality
of the open air:
Scents were everywhere that night,
despite the cold, and Maurice returned
via the shrubbery, that he might inhale
the evening primroses. 84
As the time of his fulfillment approaches, Maurice must
undergo Pan-like rites, and reject the drawing-room
asexuality of Clive Durham. He re-enters the Penge
home, and Mrs. Durham notices that he has been crowned,
as it were, with primrose pollen. "Mr. Borenius, is
he not quite bacchanalian?" comments she. 8S Re-enforced
by reminders of the simple pleasures of nature, Maurice
revokes the promises of abstinence he once made at
Cambridge, and readies himself for Scudder. Thinks he:
He alone - Clive admonishing - combined
advanced thought with the conduct of a
Sunday scholar. He wasn't Methuselah-~
he'd a right to a fling. Oh those jolly
scents, those bushes where you could hide,
that sky as black as the bushes: 86
In both ~owards End and Maurice, the growth of the
sexual aspects of one's consciousness represents a
difficult stage in the process of "connecting". Forster's
ambivalent attitude towards sex can also be viewed as
an indication of his perception of complexities. In
these two novels, he emphasizes the mysterious aspect
of man's sexual appetites. In Howards En~, Helen tells

Margaret:
 129

\~ You and I have built up something real,

because it is purely spiritual. There's
no veil of mystery over us. Unreality
and mystery begin as soon as one touches
the body'~87
Helen herself has very little control over her emotions.
"0h, Meg", she laments, as she considers her follies,
lithe little that is known about these things~1I88 Both
her attraction to Paul Wilcox and her seduction of
Leonard Bast involve 1I1one liness, and the night, and
panic afterwards",89 rather than a rational decision on
her part. As Margaret listens to her sister's rumina-
tions, her thoughts turn to the magical teeth that have
been thrust into the wych-elm tree at Howards End.
Clearly, Helen's emotions have hypnotized her, cast
her under a spell from ~mich she cannot escape.
Margaret reminds Helen of the ignorance in which mankind
resides:
1\
Except for Mrs. Wilcox, dearest, no one
understands our little movements~90
Only someone like Mrs. Wilcox*, who possesses lithe
instinctive wisdom the past alone can bestow" 91 would
be able to unravel the mystery of Helenls primitive
urges and emotional responses.
In Maurice, Forster places a similar emphasis
upon the fact that human passions are inexplicable.

* In Mauric~, some of the attitudes of Maurice's grand-

father, who worships lithe unseen", and believes in the
"light within II reflect those of IYIrs. w'ilcox. cf. Forster,
Howards End, p. 85 and Forster, Maurice, pp.122-l24.
 130

Human sexuality in particular seems to have constituted

an especially mysterious aspect of existence in the
author's mind. Thus, he stresses the fact that Clive
Durham has no control over his transformation to hetero-
sexuality. In a letter to Maurice, Clive writes:
"Against my will I have become normal.
I cannot help it 92l
•

Forster's comment on Clive's conversion reflects a

weariness in the face of man's inability to control
his experience. He writes:
~~10could help anything? Not only in
sex, but in all things men have moved
blindly, have evolved out of the slime
to dissolve into it when this accident
of consequences is over.93
Even this conclusion about experience seems inadequate
to him. He adds:
Even that remark, though further from
vanity than most, was vain. 94
Clive, who feels that he has " un derstood his soul, or,
as he said, himself, ever since he was fifteen" 95 is
deeply perturbed by the irrationality of his own actions,
and he clearly receives one final kernel of Forster's
sympathy at this point. In order to justify Clive's
dismay, in terms of the fact that man inevitably fears
what he cannot understand, the author writes:
The body is deeper than the soul and
its secrets inscrutable. There had
been no warning - just a blind alteration
of the life spirit, just an announcement,
*You who loved men, will henceforward love
women. Understand or not, it's the same to me-. 96
 131

In A passage To India, Forster emphasizes the

irrationality of sexual behaviour once again. At the
heart of the novel lies Adela's strange experience in
the Marabar Caves. Although the incident is never
satisfactorily explained, it seems to have involved her
own sexual desires and frustrations. Immediately prior
to the supposedly attempted rape, she considers her
forthcoming marriage to Ronny Heaslop with considerable
anxiety. Ruminating wistfully on the sexual attractive-
ness of others, she turns her attention towards her
companion, Aziz:
She did not admire him with any personal
warmth, for there was nothing of the
vagrant in her blood, but she guessed
he might attract women of his own race
and rank, and she regretted that neither
she nor Ronny had physical charm. It
does make a difference in a relationship
- beauty, thick hair, a fine skin. 97
Later, she and Fielding wonder whether_the frightening
experience has merely been the product of the diseased
imaginings of a hysterical virgin. Adela herself feels
that this constitutes a strong possibility:
"I was not ill - it is far too vague to
mention: it is all mixed up with my
private affairs ••• you suggest that I
had an hallucination there, the sort
of thing - though in an awful form -
that makes some women think they've
had an offer of marriage when none
was made ••• • 98
 132

In Alexandria: ~istory and Guide (1922),

Forster records the findings of Eristratus, who "realized
the connection between sexual troubles and nervous
breakdown".99 In depicting Adela's condition during
the days following her visit to the caves, Forster makes
use of this morsel of ancient psychiatry himself. Thus,
Adela's irrational mutterings and hysterical tears are
associated with her increasing fear of physicality:
Hitherto she had not much minded whether
she was touched or not: her senses were
abnormally inert and the only contact she
anticipated was that of mind. Everything
now was transferred to the surface of her
body, which began to avenge itself, and
feed unhealthily.IOO
Like Clive Durham at the time of his conversion to
heterosexuality, Adela lies ill for many days: "vibrating
between hard common sense and hysteria", she appears
to be on the verge of total collapse. lOI The primary
symptom of her breakdown is an (imaginary?) echo,
reminiscent of the ones heard in the Marabar Caves
themselves:
The echo flourished, raging up and down
like a nerve in the faculty of her hearing,
and the noise in the cave, so unimportant
intellectually, was prolonged over the
surface of her life. 102
This echo reminds us of the mysteriousness of sexuality
(and, indeed, of life itself) far more forcibly than
any aspect of Howards End or Mauric~. As long as Adela
hears it, and even after it ceases to disturb her, her
 133

sexuality, her past, present and future, remain a puzzle.

The pathetic fallacy plays a minor role in
Maurice; nonetheless, it exists. vfuen Maurice visits
Clive's estate at Penge, the rains are continual, and
"cast the unreality of nightmare" over everything. l03
Thinks he:
The stupidity of so much rain: What
did it want to rain for? The indifference
of the universe to man ••• here and there
beauty triumphed, but desperately, flickering
in a world of gloom ••• The indifference of
nature: And her incompetence!104
This view of the universe, given cursory treatment in
Maurice, assumes major importance in A Passage To Indi~.

Seeing India as a microcosm, Forster incorporates the

story of the personal relationships of his characters
in a broad context which embraces both life's myster-
iousness, and nature's indifference. "Nothing in India
is identifiable" I he tells us, by "!'"ay of introduction.
"The mere asking of a question causes it to disappear
or to merge in something else".lOS A little later on,
he continues his explanation of this inscrutable, apath-
etic universe:
It matters so little to the majority of
living be-:tings what the minority, that
calls itself human, desires or decides.
Most of the inhabitants of India do not
mind how India is governed. Nor are the
lower animals of England concerned about
England, but in the tropics the indifferenee
is more prominent, the inarticulate world is
closer at hand and ready to resume control
as soon as men are tired. l 06
 134

The emphasis Forster places on manls insignifi-

cance in the universe helps to give A Passage To India
a depth and profundity Maurice never attains. The latter
will undoubtedly remain the author's least popular work,
due to its overly intimate, personal tone. On the other
hand, as Lionel Trilling accurately observes, A Passage
To India is Forster's best known, most often read novel
not only because of its political implications, but

because "it deals with unjust, hysterical emotion, and

leads us to cool poise and judgement". I07 It represents,
in fact, his "least surprising, least capricious, and
least personal" effort: 108 perhaps Maurice helped him
to prepare for it, by freeing him of his private
obsessions. In any case, a comparison of Forster's
handling of the theme of sexuality in these two novels
makes the differences in their tone and outlook
immediately apparent. In Maurice, Forster continually
tries to persuade us of the importance of his protag-
onistls plight: he never stands back from his story to
view it with humour, cynicism, or detachment. On the
contrary, in A Passage To India, he charms the reader
with his casual elegance, and his philosophically sound
distance from his material.
In A Passage To Indi~, Forster presents the case
of Adela and Aziz from continually contrasting view-
points: each one qualifies the perspectives it opposes,
 135

until something very much like Truth emerges. Thus, the

description of Adela1s understandably hysterical reaction
to her adventure is immediately followed by an account
of her friend Mrs. Moore's response to the incident. As
one of the main representatives of the philosophical
approach to existence, this elderly woman takes no
interest in the forthcoming court trial. Says she:
~Why has anything to be done, I cannot see.
vfuy all this marriage, marriage? •• The human
race would have become a single person cen-
turies ago if marriage was any use. And all
this rubbish about love, love in a church,
love in a cave, as if there is the least
difference :ilO 9
In her eyes, marriage and rape, legal and criminal
relationships have become indistinguishable. She is
also the character who keeps the sexual aspect of the
incident in mind rather than dwelling on its political
significance. writes Forster:*
The unspeakabl~ attempt presented itself
to her as love: in a cave, in a church -
Bourn, it amounts to the same.110
Despite the potency of Mrs. Moore's analyses of the
situation, however, she, too, has stumbled upon partial
truths only. Forster tells us that she speaks wi-th
II the cynicism of a withered priestess II .111 Clearly, her
old age gives her a kind of strength, but also limits

-----,-------------------------------
* Aziz1s supposed crime is often labelled lIunspeakablell.
Similarly, in Maurice, p. 131, Forster refers to
homosexuality as II the unspea.kable vice of -the Greeks II •
 136

her ability to comprehend younger, more robust individuals.

Mrs. Moore's newly acquired outlook is the result
of her own terrifying experience in the Marabar Caves.
Like Adela, she, too, has heard an echo, but it speaks
to her of universal chaos, rather than of the spiritual
muddledom of a single individual. Forster describes
the noise she has heard as follows:
'Bourn' is the sound as far as the human
alphabet can express i-t, or 'bou-oum',
or 'ou-boum', - utterly dull. Hope,
politeness, the blowing of a nose, the
s~ueak of a boot, all produce 'boum'.
Even the striking of a match starts a
little worm coiling, which is too small
to complete a circle, but is eternally
watchful. And if several people talk
at once, an overlapping howling noise
begins, echoes generate echoes, and the
cave is stuffed with a snake composed
of small snakes, which writhe independently.l12
pmereas Maurice deals almost exclusively with the
spiritual and sexual confusion of a single character,
~assage To India embraces the cosmos. For those who
can hear the echo of the Marabar Caves, human sexuality
(presented as a lofty mystery in Maurice) is merely a
single phenomenon in a sea of infinite and eternal
echoes. Mrs. Moore's panic is clearly justifiable, in
the light of this vision:
The crush and the smells she could forget,
but the echo began in some indescribable way
to undermine her hold on life ••• it had managed
to murmur, 'Pathos, piety, courage - they
exist, but are identical, and so is filth.
Everything exists, nothing has value'.113
 137

Because Forster's own perception of the irration-

ality of existence pervades A Passag~ To In~ja, he can
conclude the presentation of moving scenes with reminders
of the view of life discovered by Mrs. Moore in the
caves. For example, the depiction of the profound
dialogues of Adela and Fielding, who are themselves
incapable of receiving the cave's message, closes with
the following lines:
A friendliness as of dwarfs shaking hands,
was in the air ••• M1en they agreed, 'I want
to go on living a bit', or, 'I don't believe
in God', the words were followed by a curious
backwash as though the universe had displaced
itself to fill up a tiny void, or as though
they had seen their own gestures from an
immense height - dwarfs talking, shaking
hands and assuring each other that they
stood on the same footing of insight .••
'And I do like you so very much, if I may
say so', he affirmed.
'I'm glad, for I like you. Let's meet
again,.114

Upon reading this passage, one can only wish that

Forster had occasionally presented the trysts and
dialogues of Maurice Hall from this vantage point. In
Maurice, each confrontation of the major characters
is described with great seriousness; Maurice, Clive and
Alec Scudder always appear as giants, as it were,
rather than as dwarfs. The present writer believes
that if Forster had viewed Maurice's dilemma with the
echo of the Marabar Caves in mind, his thesis novel
 138

would have gained immeasurably in complexity and

artistic merit.
While A Passage To India deals with matters of
international and even universal significance, it also
encompasses a careful consideration of the private
spheres of existence. Thus, it includes an ongoing
discussion of sexual ethics comparable to that of both
Howards End and Maurice. This suqject is introduced
in Part One of the novel in connection with the courtship
of Ronny and Adela. In a typically Forsterian twilight,
the two wouldbe lovers break off their engagement.
However, they inadvertently find themselves touching
each other. Writes Forster:
Her hand touched his, owing to a jolt,
and one of the thrills so frequent in
the animal kingdom passed between them,
and announced that all their difficulties
were only a lover's quarrel. IIS
Like the embraces of Leonard and Helen, or Maurice's
IIl us t ll
for Clive Durham and Dickie Barry, the physical
contact of Adela and Ronny proves deceptive, since no
spiritual union is forthcoming. Comments the author:
A spurious unity descended on them, as
local and temporary as the gleam that
inhabits a firefly.116
In Part Two, Mrs. Moore contemplates the relationship
of her son to his girlfriend, and decides that sex
without comradeship is valueless:
 139

She felt increasingly (vision or nightmare?)

that though people are important the
relations between them are not, and that
in particular too much fuss has been made
over marriage; centuries of carnal
embracement, yet man is no nearer to
understanding man. 117
Finally, Adela herself confirms this viewpoint. In a
moment of insight, she turns to Ronny and says:
What is the use of personal relationships
when everyone brings less and less to
them? I feel we ought all to go back
into the desert for centuries and try
and get good.118
Like Adela, Forster believed that we should "try
and get good". In order to improve ourselves, he felt
that we should learn to accept our own eccentricities,
as well as those of others. In Two Cheers For Democracy,
he writes:
If you don't like people, put up with
them as well as you can. Don't try to
love them; you can't, you'll only strain
yourself. But try to tolerate them. On
the basis of that tolerance a civilized
future may be built. 119
In Forster's creed, the virtue of love in the personal
sphere is related to that of tolerance in public
affairs. 120 Howards End, Maurice and A Pass~e To
India reveal his growing belief in the brotherhood of
man as the only means for man's salvation. As the
peaceful world he knew began to disintegrate, Forster's
pleas for connections beyond the self became increasingly
insistent. Thus, the sexual theme in the late novels
is intertwined with serious questions about the
 140

compartments into which man has relegated man. In

particular, Forster criticizes three practices of
contemporary man: sexual, social, and racial discrim-
ination. In the analyses below, his presentation of
these harmful prejudices will be studied. Viewed
together, Maurice, Howards End and A Passage To India
represent Forster's hymn to democracy in fictionalized
form.*
The theme of sexual snobbery plays an important
role in Howards End. When Margaret marries Henry, she
accepts "his past as well as his heart'I:12l then, she
tries to embue Helen with a similar liberalism:
In a long letter she pointed out the need
of charity in sexual matters: so little
is known about them: it is hard enough
for those who are personally touched to
judge : then how futile must be the verdict
of Society. 'I don't say there is no
standard, for that would destroy morality:
only that there can be no standard until
our impulses are classified and better
understood. 122
Later in the novel, when Margaret learns of her sister's
pregnancy, she views the unconventional, illegal, and
exploi~ve seduction of Leonard Bast in a similarly
enlightened way:
Not even to herself dare she blame Helen.
She could not assess her trespass by any
moral code: it was everything or nothing.

* These themes are, of course, important in the earlier

novels as well. However, they are more readily
observed in the later works.
 141

Morality can tell us that murder is worse

than stealing and group most sins in an
order all must approve, but it cannot
group Helen. The surer its pronouncements
on this point, the surer may we be that
morality is not speaking. Christ was
evasive when they questioned him. It is
those that cannot connect who hasten to
cast the first stone. 123
Henry, of course, is one of the first to reject Helen,
despite the grace that he has been granted by Margaret,
with respect to his own sexual transgression. Even
before the true cause of Helen's odd behaviour is
discovered, he denies her equality because he suspects
that she is unwell:
The sick had no rights; they were outside
the pale; one could lie to them remorse-
lessly. When his first wife was seized,
he had promised to take her down into
Hertfordshire, but meanwhile arranged
with a nursing home instead. Helen, too,
was ill. And the plan that he sketched
out for her capture, clever and well-
meaning as it was, drew its ethics from
the wolf-pack. 124
The hounding of Helen instigated by Henry becomes
a metaphor for the way in which repressive authorities
trap and punish those who fail to conform to its rigorous
laws. The aid of a psychiatrist is enlisted: he
functions as a policeman, rather than a moral tutor.
Like Dr. Barry and the hypnotist in Maurice, Dr.
Mansbridge affects a coldly scientific stance:*

* cf. the hypnotist's declaration that Maurice suffers

from "congenital homosexuality" Maurice, p. 158.
 142

The doctor, a very young man, began to

ask questions about Helen. Was she
normal? Was there anything congenital
or hereditary?125
Margaret rebels against the dehumanizing description
of Helen that the doctor invites:
How dare these men label her sister?
What horrors lay ahead: What impertinences
that shelter under the name of science:
The pack was turning on Helen to deny
her human rights, and it seemed to
Margaret that all Schlegels were threatened
with her. 126
Margaret soon sends her sister's tormentors away, but
of course, replacements exist for each of them. Like
Maurice, Helen is ostracized by her community because
of her sexuality. Says she:
\'I cannot fit in with England as I know it.
I have done something that the English
never pardon. It would not be right for
them to pardon ft~ So I must live where
I am not known~' 2 I

Helen's new-found self-control in the face of great

difficulties parallels Mau~ice's growth as a human being
through his experiences as a homosexual. Persecution
in these novels often calls forth latent strengths from
its victims. Like Maurice, Helen shows the ability to
act on the basis of her own will, in opposition to her
ent±re society. Thinks Margaret:
It was appalling to see her quietly movin.g
forward with her plans, not bitter or
excitable, neither asserting innocence
nor confessing guilt, merely desiring
freedom and the company of those who
would not blame her. 12B
 143

Helen's plight is representative of the trials

of womanhood. Because she is female, society is pre-
judiced against her from the outset. Like homosexuals,
women are not given equal rights in the England Forster
depicts.* When Margaret shuts the door on Henry and
his companions at Howards End, Forster tells us:
A new feeling came over tJ,1argareg;
she was fighting for women against
men. She did not care about rights,
but if men came into Howards End, it
should be over her body.129
"Men don't know what we want", she tells Helen a short
while later, in discussing "a room that men have spoilt
t~ying to make it nice for women".130 Henry soon
verifies this hypothesis of male ignorance, by asking
Margaret unwarranted questions about Helen, much as
the psychiatrist has done previously. Now, the clich~s
of sexuality replace those of psychiatry as Henry
attempts to ascertain the name of Helen's "seducer",
and suggests marriage as the natural solution to her
difficulties. 131 Henry becomes the mouthpiece of
oppressive conventionality as he declares:

* cf. Bonnie Finkelstein's statement that in EMF's

conventional society, "women and homosexuals share
many of the same problems, since both are thwarted
by a society that would deny them acceptance as
real people".
Eternal Differences: Forster's Women· (1972; rpt.
New York: Columbia UniV: Press, 1974) Preface.
 144

" I have no doubt that she will prove

more sinned against than sinning.
But I cannot treat her as if nothing
had happened. I should be false to
my position in society if I did~132
Finally, the patient and judicious Margaret rises in
anger against her obtuse husband~ she points out to
him the separate moral codes that society applies to
the sexes,* by reminding him of his affair with Jacky
Bast:
\\
You have betrayed Mrs. Wilcox, Helen only
herself. You remain in society, Helen
can't. You have only pleasure, she may
· "133
d ~e ..
The capture of Helen and the ensuing scenes are
merely the climax of a long struggle between the sexes
that runs throughout the novel:
Howards End is not only a novel of the
class war but of the war between men
and women. 134
Much of the conflict between Schlegels and Wilcoxes
involves opposing views of woman's role in society. On
Helen's first visit to the Wilcox house, she argues
\V'i th Henry, who II says the most horr id things about
women's suffrage so nicelyll.135

----~-

* cf. Margaret's earlier question in Howards End, p. 224:

IIAre the sexes really races, each with its own code
of morality, and their mutual love a mere device of
Nature to keep things going?"
 145

Margaret herself reveals one symbolic aspect of the

contrasting families, when she muses:
\\
I suppose that our house is a female
house, and one must just accept it ...
- it must be feminine ••• Just as
another house that I can mention, but n
won't, sounded irrevocably masculine ••• 136
Henry is completely blind to the rights of women, through-
out the novel. He abuses Jacky, Margaret and Helen in
ways that he is not even aware of.
Margaret's marriage to this prejudiced man
requires her to modify her belief in IIsexual equalit y ll.137
IIShe was to keep her independence more than do most
women as yet ll , Forster tells us, but she certainly
does not keep it completely.l38 At Evie's wedding,
for example, she persuades her husband to see the Basts
by employing IIfeminine ll wiles:
Now she understood why some women prefer
influence to rights. Mrs. Plynlimmon,
when condemning sUffragettes, had said:
'The woman who can't influence her husband
to vote the way she wants ought to be
ashamed of herself'. Margaret had winced,
but she was influencing Henry now, and
though pleased at her little victory, she
knew that shelh§d won it by the methods
of the harem. 3
By the novel's conclusion, however, Margaret re-asserts
her independence, and helps Henry and Helen to gain
theirs. These three characters begin to reject sexual
stereotypes: they become individuals, instead of 'males'
and 'females'. This is particularly true of Henry.
 146

Immediately after Leonard Bast's death, he willingly

displays his emotions for the first time:
He raised his eyes and gave his son
more open a look of tenderness than he
usually ventured.140
Charles decides that his father has merely become "more
like a womanll~141 despite his sonls disapproval, Henry
has dared to act in a traditionally feminine manner,
thereby defying the conventions. Clearly, the Schlegel
ideal of sexual equality gradually becomes a reality,
defeating the wilcox principle of male dominance.*
By bringing her sister and husband together at
Howards End, Margaret reaches both of them a new sympath-
etic attitude towards each other. "They were building
up a new life", Forster tells us, "obscure, yet gilded
, h tranqu1' 1
w~t ' " • 142
1ty He 1 en f1nal
. 1 y apprec1ates
. Henry
''''ho has, in fact, begun to "connect". However, certain
difficulties remain: she is still troubled by her own
sexuality. Like Stephen Wonham in The Longest Journey,
love for one person will never be the greatest thing
she knows. She tells her sister:

* In other words, by the end of the novel, the sexes

are beginning to merge. Bonnie Finkelstein refers
to the owners of Howards End as "androgynous siblings".
cf. Bonnie Finkelstein, Forster's Women: Eternal
Differences, 113. The concept of androgyny is an
integral part of the theories of Edward Carpenter,
who spoke of a 'Child of Uranus', who was to possess
a "woman-soul within a man's form d''''ell ing ••• so gentle
gracious, dignified, complete". rpt. in Philip Gardner:
Forster: £ritical Heritage, p. 480.
 147

\'I shall never marry ••• I simply couldn't •••

There's something wanting in me, I see you
loving Henry, and understanding him better
daily, and I know that death wouldn't part
you in the least. But I - is it some awful
appalling criminal defect?~43
Like Maurice, Helen must work hard to accept herself.
It is clear, however, that Margaret will help her in
any way that she can. Her reply to Helen's questions
about her inability to marry contains one of Forster's
major statements of belief. She says:
~
It is only that people are far more
different than is pretended. Allover
the world men and women are worrying
because they cannot develop as they
are supposed to develop ••• Don't fret
yourself, Helen. Develop what you have~
love your child. I do not love children,
I am thankful I have none ••• Don't you see
that all this leads to comfort in the end?
It is part of the battle against sameness.
Differences - eternal differences, planted
by God in a single family, so that there
may always be colour; sorrow perhaps, but
colour in the daily grey;144
Margaret's hope for auniversal acceptance of
differences reflects Forster's own desire as revealed
by his writing of Maurice. As a young homosexual,
Maurice confronts a hostile society wherever he turns.
Like Helen Schlegel, he learns that only in exile from
England will he find congenial surroundings. His
hypnotist tells him the truth, when he says:
UI'm afraid I can only advise you to live
in some country that has adopted the Code
Napoleon ••• France or Italy, for instance.
There homosexuality is no longer criminal
••• England has always been disinclined to
accept human nature: 145
 148

Despite his wealth, Maurice cannot procure proper

assistance in coping with his abnormality:
On all other subjects he could command
advice, but on this, which touched him
daily, civilization was silent. 146
He visits both Dr. Barry and the hypnotist, but the
former is merely shocked and the latter bored by his
revelations. His confessions to Lasker Jones are
"exhaustive"147 but fruitless~ he never manages to
convey his emotions to either of these authorities.
One remembers the thoughts of Margaret Schlegel after
a conversation vdth the "vulgar and acute"148 Dr"
Mansbridge: *
Science explained people, but could not
understand them.. After long centuries
among the bones and muscles it might be
advancing to knowledge of the nerves,
but this would never give understanding"
One could open the heart to Mr. Mansbridge
and his sort without discovering its secrets
to them, for they wanted everything down in
black and white, and black and white was
exactly what they were left with. 1 49
Dr. Barry, the Hall family's "ultimate authority
for nearly b'lenty years 11150 continually encourages
Maurice to hope that he will soon conform to the demands
of society and marry. After one visit, Maurice thinks:

* In A Passage To India, Aziz makes a similar criticism

of modern medicine. writes Forster: "Aziz was repelled
by the pedantry and fuss with which Europe tabulates
the facts of sex ••• "
cf. Passage, 100 ..
 149

It would be jolly certainly to be married,

and at one with society and the law. 151
At the time of this crucial consultation, Maurice is
still deluding himself: he hopes to follow in Clive's
footsteps, and become heterosexual on his twenty-fourth
birthday. Forster tells us:
Maurice had the Englishman's inability
to conceive variety. His troubles had
taught him that other people are alive,
but not yet that they are different, and
he attempted to regard Clive's development
as a forerunner of his own. 152
A subsequent visit to Mr. Lasker Jones marks Maurice's
further attempt to realize the same dim hope of normalcy.
After his first session with the hypnotist, he returns
to Penge with a heightened awareness of his different-
ness. He tells Clive's wife:
"Nothing's the same for anyone. That's
why life's this hell, if you do a thing
you're damned, and if you don't you're
damned •• ~;15 3
Unlike Margaret, as yet, Maurice fails to appreciate
his individuality. Only through his association with
Scudder does he learn to II s top worrying ll , and to
II develop ivhat he has II .154 \men the bvo men meet in the

British Museum, Maurice tries to convey his new found

tolerance. He speaks slowly, because he is thinking
aloud:
"Scudder, ivhy do you think it's ·natural'
to care both for women and men? You wrote
so in your letter. It isn't natural for
me. I have really got to think ·natural'
only means oneself'''",,155
 150

with these words, Maurice takes his place beside

Margaret as one who perceives " e ternal differences". 156
Maurice also resembles Margaret in that he comes
to recognize the fact that women are thwarted by conven-
tional society as well. There is evidence that towards
the conclusion of the novel he outgrows the misogyny
of his youth. Writes Bonnie Finkelstein:
In the world of Maurice, women barely
exist, for they live two stages removed
from the novel's main concern, the
problems of male homosexuals.1 57
~~ile there is truth in this statement, it is also true
that tolerance of women is part of the lesson Maurice
must learn: he eventually transcends the traditional
biases he has witnessed throughout his life. Once
again, Dr. Barry is a chief representative of the
typical attitudes of officialdom. On the day of Maurice's
public-schoo1 graduation, the older man assumes the
boy is flirting with the housemaster's wife. with a
cynical glance, he encourages the boy to become a
"l a dy killer". 158 Maurice innocently replies: 'I
don't know what you mean, Dr. Barry'. By his next
meeting with the doctor, however, he is older and wiser.
As the doctor reprimands him for cutting classes at
Cambridge with Clive, Maurice recognizes his advisor's
sexual snobbery:
 151

He considered the accusation. If a woman

had been in that side-car, if then he had
refused to stop at the Dean's bidding, would
Dr. Barry have required an apology from him?
Surely not. 159
Despite this insight into Dr. Barry's hidden
prejudices, Maurice decides to entrust him with the
secret of his sexuality. At first, he refers to his
condition as an illness. The doctor assumes Maurice
has caught syphil is from a prostitute, and cheerfully
~

recalls his own youthful escapades. Like Henry Wilcox,

he condones the treatment of women as the playthings
of men; at the same time, he vehemently rejects all
homosexual relationships, including those that are
based on love. He smugly extends to Maurice the follow-
ing superficial advice:

" Ah, women~ How well I remember when you

spouted on the platform at school ••• you
gaped at some master's wife ••• he's a lot
to learn and life's a hard school, I
remember thinking. Only women can teach 1/160
us and there are bad women as well as good.
As he briskly prepares to cure Maurice of his supposed
infection, the boy reveals his newly-acquired desire
to treat women as his equals:
'It's nothing as filthy as that', he said
explosively. 'In my own rotten way I've
kept cleanl ••• every fibre in him protested.
He hated Dr. Barry's mind; to tolerate
prostitution stuck him as beastly.16l
The theme of sexual snobbery is important in
A Passage To India as well as in Howardp End and Mauri~.

In an introductory portrayal of the Moslems, the plight

 152

of women is briefly presented. Behind the purdah,

they must conform to a rigid code of behaviour, catering
to their males on every occasion. Like dutiful servants,
they wait respectfully for the men to finish eating
dinner, before they start eating theirs. 162 Later, a
number of them swear to take no food at all until Aziz's
acquittal, but no one is concerned:
Their death would make little difference,
indeed, being invisible, they seemed dead
already; nevertheless it was disquieting. 163
Furthermore, if they do not marry, these women become
pariahs in society. Like the British spinsters and
widows in Forster's other novels, unwed Indian females
become bored and isolated, even when they possess great
wealth. Aziz's aunt complains to her nephew:
'What is to become of all our daughters
if men refuse to marry? They will marry
beneath them, or - • And she began the
oft-told tale of a lady of Imperial
descent who could find no husband in
the narrow circle where her pride
permitted her to mate, and had lived
on unwed her age now thirty, and would
die unwed, for no one would have her
now. 164
The male response to this plea reveals their narrow-
minded view of the role of women in society:
Better polygamy almost. than that a woman
should die without the joys God ha5
intended her to receive. Wedlock,
motherhood, power in the house - for
what else is she born!165
The rights of unattractive women are revealed to
 153

be even more meager than those of their beautiful

sisters, no matter what race they belong to. In fact,
in all three of the novels at hand, 1I1 0oks have their
influence upon character ll • 166 In Howards End,
Margaret Schlegel goes II s traight ahead",167 without
the homage of men, while Helen is constantly praised:
She was pretty, and so apt to have a
more amusing time. People gathered
around her more readily ••• she often
absorbed the whole of the company,
while Margaret - both were tremendous
talkers - fell flat. 16 8
As a result, Margaret develops more resources as a
human being. A similar contrast is drawn between
Maurice Hall's sisters, Ada and Kitty. The beautiful
Ada is endowed with the same amount of intelligence
as her sister, but she relies on her looks to influence
people in her favour. Kitty, on the other hand, is
plain, and Clive Durham decides that she is not a
II true v'loman II .169 In her efforts to improve her social
status, Kitty decides to II go to an Institute to acquire
Domestic Economyll170. Like those of the Schlegel sisters,
the methods of the Hall sisters diverge from childhood
onwards on account of their looks. Similarly, in A
Passage To India, Adela Quested suffers continually,
due to her plain features. After her experience in the
Marabar Caves, "the men (ariJ too respectful, the women
. l\171
too sympathet~c. The men have to pretend, as it were,
that Adela is beautiful, in order to feel that she is
 154

"worth fighting and dying for,,:172

Each felt that all he loved best in the
world was at stake, demanded revenge,
and was filled with a not unpleasing
glow, in which the chilly and half-
known features of Miss Quested vanished,
and were replaced by all that is sweetest
and warmest in private life. 173
The focal point of Forster1s criticism of sexual
discrimination in A Passage To India is Dr. Aziz.
writes Bonnie Finkelstein:
Aziz, as the recipient of much of the
snobbery in the novel, is extremely
sensitive about the rights and feelings
of the oppressed race to which he belongs,
but he never connects and feels sympathy
for women, a similarly oppressed group.174
When Aziz meets Mrs .. Moore and Adela, he "treats them
1 il<.e men II :
Beauty would have troubled him, for it
entails rules of its own, but Mrs. Moore
was so old and Adela so plain that he
was spared this anxiety. Adela1s angular
body and the freckles on her face were
terrible defects in his eyes, and he
wondered how God could have been so
unkind to any female form. 175
After the Marabar Caves incident, he calls Adela "a
hag" :
It enraged him that he had been accused
by a woman who had no personal beauty~
sexually, he was a snob.176
Like Margaret in Howards End, Fielding1s liberal
education has taught him that "temperance, tolerance,
and sexual equality"177 are important. Thus, he
censures Aziz1s attitude towards women:
 155

Sensuality, as long as it is straight-

forward, did not repel him, but this
derived sensuality - the sort that classes
a mistress among motor-cars if she is
beautiful, and among eye-flies if she
isn't - was alien to his own emotions •••
It was, in a new form, the old, old trouble
that eats the heart out of every civilization:
snobbery, the desire for possessions, cred-
itable appendages: and it is to escape this
rather than the lusts of the flesh that
saints retreat into the Himalayas. 178
As a concluding note to the above discussion of
sexual snobbery in the last three novels, the present
writer would like to draw attention to the fact that
the central characters of Howards End and A Passage-!Q
India make personal decisions about their sex lives
that distinguish them from most people. Like Maurice
Hall, Helen, Margaret, Adela, and Fielding reject
marriage and/or child-bearing. with varying degrees
of intensity, each of them fears that they will incur
the disapproval of society; furthermore, having inter-
nalized the prejudices of their civilization, they run
the risk of hating themselves later. Reading Maurice
makes it clear that Forster takes exception to the view
that everyone should marry and have children. Once we
have observed his anger in the posthumous work, it
becomes apparent that it exists in the other novels,
as well. Clearly, women and homosexuals are not the
only victims of sexual discrimination in Forster's
fiction; single or childless individuals are scorned,
 156

as well. In order to encourage a more open-minded view

of the options chosen by these minority groups, the
author not only forces us to consider the advantages
of such decisions, but also helps us to sympathize
with the inevitable loneliness involved therein.
Let us briefly recount the choices made by the
characters mentioned above. In Howards End, Helen
decides not to marry, but she is aware of the eyes of
the world. "Why should you put things so bitter,
dearie?1I her sister asks her one day .. "Because I am
an old maid", comes the reply.179 Helen's spinsterhood
troubles her; she wonders whether her rejection of
marriage constitutes "some appalling criminal defect".180
By contrast, Margaret opts for marriage. Before
accepting Henry's proposal, however, she deliberates
cautiously:
She would come to no decision yet. 'Oh,
sir, this is so sudden' - that prudish
phrase exactly expressed her when her
time came ••• She must examine her own nature
and his; she must talk it over judiciously
with Helen. 181
Despite her subsequent happiness, Margaret's temperament
is not completely suited to marriage .. Forster tells us:
The astonishing glass shade had fallen
that interposes between married couples
and the world .... There was an unforeseen
surprise, a cessation of the winds and
odours of life, a social pressure that
would have her think conjugally.182
 IS7

Furthermore, she has no desire for children. In her

prayer for a universal acceptance of eternal differences,
she keeps her own unusual lack of maternal instincts
183
in minde Unlike Helen, who adores her baby, Margaret
prefers sterility. The novel concludes with the sound
of the baby's laughter~184 clearly, Margaret's decision
will exclude her from participating in many pleasures,
as well as helping her to maintain the independence she
craves.
In ~ Passage To India, Adela Quested considers
her forthcoming marriage with regret:
How lovely the hills suddenly were: But
she--couldn I t touch them. In front, like
a shutter, fell a vision of her married
life. She and Ronny would look into the
club like this every evening, then drive
home to dresse •• while the true India would
slide by unnoticed. 18S
Her picture of marriage mirrors that of Maurice Hall.
For a homosexual, of course, wedlock is a nightmare:
Objects Maurice had never seen, such as
rainwater baled from a boat, he could
see tonight, though curtained in tightly.
Ah: to get out to them: ••• He had paid a
doctor two guineas to draw the curtains
tighter, and presently, in the brown cube
of such a room, Miss Tonks would lie
prisoned beside him. 186
Like Maurice, Adela eventually rejects marriage~ how-
ever, as a spinster, her situation is even lonelier
than his. Clearly, she intends to live as full a life
as she can, despite this limitation. Before leaving
India, she tells Fielding:
 158

'vllien I am forced back to England, I

shall settle down to some career. I
have sufficient money left to start myself,
and heaps of friends of my own type. I
shall be quite all right t • 187
Fielding encourages her by offering her the typical
bachelorts argument against marriage. Like so many
other Forsterian characters, he emphasizes the artifi-
ciality of the institution:*
I'Marriage is too absurd in any case.. It
begins and continues for such very slight
reasons.. The social business props it up
on one side, and the theological business
on the other, but neither of them are
marriage, are they?U188
Fielding himself soon revokes his decision about
marriage~ perhaps, like so many others, he, too, has
felt the censure of his fellow men. The tone of his
letter to Aziz indicates that this is, in fact, the
case. As he leaves India, he writes:
UIt is on my mind that you think me a
prude about women. I had rather you
thought anything else of me. If I
live impeccably now, it is only because
I am well on in the forties - a period of
revision •• " 11189

* cf. Forster's comment in Howards End, 165:

Whom does love concern beyond the beloved
and the lover? Yet his impact deluges a
hundred shores ••• The foundations of Property
and Propriety are laid bare, twin rocks,
Family Pride flounders to the surface ••• ,
Theology, vaguely ascetic, gets up a nasty
ground swell .... Half-guineas are poured on
the troubled waters, the lawyers creep back,
and, if all has gone well, Love joins one
man and one woman together in Matrimony.
 159

Upon his arrival in England, Fielding decides to marry

a reasonably suitable companion. However, like Margaret
Schlegel, he has made a firm commitment to sterility.
Earlier in the novel, Aziz questions him about his
refusal to have children. He replies:
hI don't feel their absence, I don't want
them weeping around my death-bed and being
polite about me afterwards, which I believe
is the general notion~.190
Imitating Rickie Elliott, who leaves the world his
novels instead of his children, Fielding decides to
content himself with presenting the world with his
teachings. Opting for spiritual heirs, he says:
"I'd far rather leave a thought behind
me than a child. Other people can have
children. No obligation, with England
getting so chock-a-block and over-
running India with jobs~.19l
For an individual who, like Fielding, wishes to
"travel light", offspring are an undesirable burden. 192
Even Mrs. Moore, who has herself married twice and
cheerfully borne several children, recognizes the dis-
advantages involved. Says she:
"In marriage, it is the children who are
the first consideration. until they are
grown up and married off. ~men that
happens one has again the right to live
for oneself - in the plains or the hills,
ass u its I • • 193
Cynically, she adds:
~If one has not become too stupid and old~.194
 160

unfortunately, to those people who have sterility

foisted upon them, its benefits do not appear as great
as to those who have chosen the state freely. A sense
of loneliness and of having been excluded from the
universe can all too easily overpower feelings of free-
dome Thus, in Mauric~, a painful consideration of the
childless future of a homosexual ensues. Maurice's
realization that he will never have children provides
the novel with one of its most poignant scenes. Thinking
about sterility upsets him far more than it does Margaret
or Fielding:
Maurice was silent. It had not occurred
to him before that neither he nor his
friend would leave life behind them •••
An immense sadness ••• had risen up in his
soul. He and the beloved would vanish
utterly - would continue neither in Heaven
nor on Earth. They had won past the
conventions, but Nature still faced them,
saying with even voice, 'Very well, you
are thus; I blame none of my children.
But you must go the way of all sterility.'
The thought that he was sterile weighed
on the young man with sudden shame. His
mother or Mrs. Durham might lack mind or
heart, but they had done visible work;
they had handed on the torch their sons
would tread out.195
Clearly, Forster commends those who dare to
remain unmarried and/or childless, but he does not try
to minimize the difficulties involved in overriding
society's conventions. Similarly, he admires those
individuals who were brave enough to become intimate
with social inferiors at a time when the class system
was rigid. Explaining the difficulties of inter-class
 161

friendships, he writes:
Though it is easy enough to do this today,
owing to the social break-up, it was not
easy to do it in the nineteenth century,
when the Victorian fabric was still intact,
and drawing-rooms seemed drawing-rooms and
housemaids housemaids for ever.196
In this context, Forster draws our attention to the
biography of Edward Carpenter, a contem~~ary hero in
the war against class. Praising him for leaving his
stodgy, upper-middle-class, cambridge, . background
behind, Forster writes:
Edward Carpenter lived with working-class
people, adopted many of their ways, worked
hard physically, market-gardened, made and
wore sandals, made (but did not wear) a
Saxon tunic. He may not have got into
another class, but he certainly discarded
his own and gained happiness by doing so •••
He believed in Liberty, Fraternity and
Equality - words now confined to platforms
and perorations. He saw the New Jerusalem
from afar, from the ignoble slough of his
centurY •• eHe was absolutely selfless. 197
According to Forster's own account, it was this
1I~1hitmannic poet ll vlho, more than anyone else, was
directly responsible for the writing of Maurice. 198
Thus, the fact that Maurice's beloved Alec is a member
of the working-class is as significant as the fact that
he is male. Forster was writing a protest against the
Victorian taboos about class as well as commenting on
the cruelty of English laws regarding sexuality.
Perhaps the handling of the theme of class in this
novel constitutes its strongest qualification for
 162

membership in the canon of Forster's fiction. ~'Jrites

Nigel Dennis in his review entitled liThe Love That

Levels ll :
It is the twinning together of the themes
of sex and class that make Maurice most
recognizably a Forster work. There are
long moments in it, one may say, vmen the
class theme is so strong that the homosexual
subject almost vanishes.199
Upon reading Maurice, one sees that Alet belongs to
the same class as Gino Carella, Stephen Wonham, and
Leonard Bast. In many ways, his social status is also
comparable to that of Dr. Aziz. Clearly, socially
unacceptable personal relationships interested Forster
far more than those between equals; the beloved in his
novels is consistently a character from the 'abyss', or
lower echelons of society.
In a study of Forster written prior to the
pUblication of Maurice, K.N. Gransden focuses his
attention on the presence of members of the lower classes
in each of the novels. He comments:
with the inhibitions of his generation and
class, Forster finds it easiest to approach
passion obliquely, often through someone of
another class or race: the working-class
Italian with his obvious physical attrac-
tiveness becomes in his work, an indispensable
if equivocal symbol of sexualitY •• eOn the
'vlhole (there are excep·tions) middle class 2
England does not appear to produce good lovers. 00
An awareness of Forster1s guilty conception of his own
homosexuality helps us to accept Gransden's view of the
fiction. PeN. Furbank tells us:
 163

Forster achieved physical sex very late and

found it easier with people outside his own
social class, and it remained a kind of
private magic for him - an almost unattain-
able blessing, for which another person
was merely a pretext. He valued sex for its
power to release his own capacity for
tenderness and devotion, but he never
expected an equal sex relationship l.20l
Furthermore, according to Furbank, Forster never
actually set up house with a lover. He adds:
'One can't picture him doing it. Forster
could imagine two lovers living together
in the 'greenwood' but hardly in a flat
in Kensington or a house in Potter's Bar l
•
202

If Gransden's viewpoint is valid, and Furbank's infor-

mation accurate, it becomes apparent that Forster's
personal problem moulded his fiction.
mlen he writes at the height of his powers, as
in A Passage To India, the results are superb. The
highly effective courtroom scene in which Aziz is
finally judged to be innocent begins with a description
of a physically attractive native:
The court was crowded and of course very
hot, and the first person Adela noticed
in it was the humblest of all who were
present, a person who had no bearing
officially upon the trial: the man who
pulled the punkah. Almost naked, and
splendedly formed, he sat on a raised
gangplank ••• He had the strength and
the beauty that sometimes come to flower
in Indians of low birth. 2 03
Like the Italians and labourers that Gransden observes
in the early fiction, this punkah is clearly a sex
symbol. In the lines referred to above, Forster reveals
 164

the subtlety with which he can link sexuality to members

of the lower classes. However, with his very next
words, he proves to us that he has transformed his
personal concern into a subject of universal importance.
He writes:
When [the India~ race nears the dust and
is condemned as untouchable, then nature
remembers the physical perfection that she
accomplished elsewhere, and throws out a
god - not many, but one here and there, to
prove to society how little its categories
impress her. This man would have been
notable anywhere; among the thin-hammed,
flat-chested mediocrities of Chandrapore
he stood out as divine ••• Pulling the rope
towards him, relaxing it rhythmically,
sending swirls of air over others, receiYing
none himself, he seemed apart from human
destinies, a male fate, a winnower of souls. 204
In the light of the excellent prose style of the above
passage, and others like it, we are being unfair to
Forster if we emphasize his inhibitions unduly. We
must recognize, instead, his ability to transcend his
problems in his best writing, and his genius for dis-
covering adequate symbols for his thought.
Forster's depiction of sexually attractive
members of the lower classes reflects his unceasing
hatred of the snobbery of his own class. By pointing
to the admirable aspects of those individuals his
peers have overlooked, he hopes to dispel their
prejudices. The theme of class, however, plays through
his novels in countless other ways~ as well. In order
 165

to understand his handling of this subject, we must

briefly recall the depiction of the class war in
Howards End. In E.M. Forster, Gransden argues convincingly
that this novel represents one of the "fullest and most
ambitious documentation(s) of the English social scene,,~05
Throughout Howards End, Forster pays strict attention
to the economic and political context in which his
characters operate. In the words of Alwyn Berland,
the novel "bristles with social relevance".206 Forster's
subject is the middle class:
We are not concerned with the very poor.
They are unthinkable, and only to be
approached by the statistician or the
poet. The story deals with gentlefolk,
or with those who are obliged to pretend
that they are gentlefolk. 207
Within this class, Forster discovers at least three
distinct groups of people. Lionel Trilling describes
these sub-divisions as follows:
Neither the aristocracy nor the proletariat
is represented and the very poor are
specifically barred ••• At the far end of the
vast middle-class scale is Leonard Bast, the
little clerk. He stands at the 'extreme
verge of gentility', at the very edge of
the 'abyss' of poverty. At the upper end
of the scale is Mr. Wilcox, the business
man, rich and rapidly growing richer.
Between are the Schlegels, Margaret and
Helen, living comfortably on solid, adequate
incomes. 208
In Howards End, Forster defines the ways in
which questions of social and economic status disturb
the relations between Basts, Schlegels, and Wilcoxes.
 166

As we have seen, the novel opens with an account of

Helen's engagement to paul Wilcox. As well as being
attracted by Paul's maleness, Helen is fascinated with
his capitalistic values. His very differentness appeals
to her:
She had liked giving in to (hi~; she had
liked being told that her notions of life
were sheltered or academic; that Equality
was nonsense, Votes for Women nonsense,
Socialism nonsense, Art and Literature,
except when conducive to strengthening
the character, nonsense. One by one the
Schlegel fetishes had been overthrown, and,
though professing to defend them, she
rejoiced ••• When Charles said, 'Why be so
polite to servants? they don't understand
it', she had not given the Schlegel retort
of, 'If they don't understand it, I do'.
No, she had vowed to be less polite to
servants in the future. 209
The wealth and practical skills which are the common
properties of the Wil€oxes thrill the dreamy Schlegel
sisters. Helen's infatuation with Paul is short-lived,
but Margaret captures some of its spirit in her own
subsequent attempt to connect herself permanently to
this family. She muses that the subjective universe
that the Schlegels traditionally inhabit is perhaps
limited. She tells Helen:
~The truth is that there is a great outer life
that you and I have never touched - a life
in which telegrams and anger count. Personal
relations, that we think supreme, are not
supreme there. There love means marriage
settlements, death, death duties ••• Do personal
relations lead to sloppiness in the endi~lO
 167

Through her relationship with Henry Wilcox, Margaret

explores the answers to this question. By imagining
the adventures of this favourite protagonist, Forster
provided himself with a flexible method of comparing
and contrasting the values of these two groups.
The charm of Howards End resides in the fact
that Forster did not feel that a sober tone was exclus-
ively appropriate to a novel of social realism. Thus,
in the opening episode of the work, he symbolizes the
social pressures that affect personal relationships by
presenting us with the amusing figure of Mrs. Munt.
Writes Forster:
'Esprit de c1asse' - if ene may coin the
phrase - was strong in Mrs. Munt.21l
The encounter between Helen's interfering aunt and
Charles wilcox affords Forster with an ideal opportunity
for social comment in a comic mode: here, snob meets
snob face to face:
So they played the game of Capping Families,
a round of which is always played when love
would unite two members of our race. But
they played it with unusual vigour, stating
in so many words that Sch1egels were better 212
than Wi~coxes, Wilcoxes better than Schlegels.
Like contemporary Montagues and Capulets, these strangely
similar characters attempt to divide the would-be lovers.
The senselessness of their elaborate dispute becomes
particularly apparent when one discovers that, unlike
Romeo and Juliet, Helen and Paul intend to part long
 168

before they die. At the conclusion of this part of

the novel, one realizes that Forster has managed to
introduce his major theme with a lightness of tone that
has become his trademark. All of the crucial social
and economic differences that distinguish the rich,
materialistic wilcoxes from the romantic, cultured
Schlegels have been skillfully revealed; the lines of
battle have been drawn, as it were, with the easiness
of Forster at his best.
In a second major scene, Leonard Bast meets the
Schlegels at a concert. Once again, Forster emphasizes
the ways in which socio-economic factors influence all
aspects of life. Thus, each character hears the same
performance of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, but inter-
prets it differently. Mrs. Munt taps her foot in a
typically British fashion, the Schlegels hear sounds
that relate to their own personal lives, and their
German cousins listen intensely, as though they have
been permanently affected by the ideals of the European
Romanticism they have inherited. Meanwhile, Leonard
listens to the most unusual sounds of all. For him, the
symphony represents an unobtainable culture, leisure,
and beauty. Admission to the concert itself is cheap,
it seems, but true acceptance into the world it sym-
bolizes is costly, indeed. The two guineas one pays
to enter the public concert-hall represent an illusory
 169

democracy. As Leonard listens to the graceful chatter

of Margaret, he thinks:
Oh , to acquire culture~ Oh, to pronounce
foreign names correctly~ Oh, to be well
informed, discoursing at ease on every
subject that a lady started: But it would
take years. 213
Forster adds:
There had always been something to worry
him ever since he could remember, always
something that distracted him in the
pursuit of beauty.214
The effect of Class on personal relationships
is more profound than its influence on artistic sensi-
bilities. Leonard's attitude towards the Schlegels
encompasses fear and adulation: it never includes
genuine personal affection. A knowledge of his own
lowly position prevents him from becom~ng their comrades.
During his first encounter with the sisters, Leonard
suspects them of having stolen his umbrella. Comments
Forster:
To trust people is a luxury in which only
the wealthy can indulge: the poor cannot
afford it. 2l5
His experiences as a victim have irrevocably changed
his personality:
This young man had been 'had' in the past -
badly, perhaps overwhelmingly - and now most
of his energies went in defending himself
against the unknown. 216
Due to the kindness of the Schlegels, Leonard gradually
relaxes his guard. However, he merely replaces his
 170

suspicion with adulation, thereby substituting one

prejudiced reaction for another. Like Rickie Elliott
or Philip Herriton, Leonard regards the women he respects
as works of art. T4.hen the Schlegels attempt to discuss
practical issues with him over tea, they damage his
mental image of them. He thinks:
He would not have these women prying into
his work. They were Romance, and so was
the room to which he had at last penetrated •••
and so were the very tea-cups, with their
delicate borders of wild strawberries. But
he would not let Romance interfere with his
life. There is the devil to pay then~217
The Schlegels' relations with Leonard parallel
their associations with the Wilcoxes, in that formidable
social barriers prevent true understanding. Margaret
and Helen pity, patronize, and secretly despise Leonard
by turns: they cannot regard him as their equal. As
Margaret leaves the concert-hall with Leonard, for
example, her thoughts reveal that she shares the pre-
judices of her class:
She wished that Leonard was not so
anxious to hand a lady downstairs, or
to carry a lady's programme for her -
his class was near enough her own for
its manner to vex her. 218
Furthermore, even the Schlegels' sympathy for Leonard
is tainted by class consciousness. To them, he "seems
not a man, but a cause". 219 writes Lionel Trilling:
 171

The intellectual, in addition to the

barrier of his articulateness which
cuts him off from the masses as well
as from the middle classes, stands
behind another barrier, the necessity
of regarding the mass of men as objects
of his benevolence. 220
Like these individuals described by Trilling, the
Schlegels are the products of a liberal education.
Thus, they have learnt to think kindly of those who,
unlike themselves, do not "stand upon money as upon
islands". 22l Margaret's first meeting with Leonard
demonstrates that he appeals to her bourgeois desire
to save others; she is inclined to be interested in
him for the sake of the "glimpse into squalor" that he
provides~22she and her sister are simultaneously attracted
223
and repulsed by the "odours from the abyss" that attend
the Basts. They pity him, but they also enjoy studying
him. He is, in fact, a living embodiment of the social
documents they read, and the hypothetical discussions
they partake of with friends.
The social structure of Maurice parallels that
of Howards End. Although Maurice mainly deals with a
specialized form of sexual snobbery, a consideration
of class barriers is also included. Once again, Forster
presents us with the inter-actions of three represent-
ative families and their associates, in a greatly
simplified form. The Halls remind us of the Wilcoxes
in that they, too, are wealthy stock-brokers. They have
 172

not made as much money as their fictional predecessors

but, like the Schlegels, they have substantial incomes.
Maurice's family lacks the prestige that comes from
the ownership of property. The Halls are exclusively
products of the suburbs of London. Like the wilcoxes,
they are surrounded by conveniences; they dwell in
"the superficial comfort exacted by businessmen" depicted
in Howards End. 224 Clive's family, on the other hand,
is well-established and land-owning:
The Durhams lived in a remote part of
England on the Wilts and Somerset border_
Though not an old family, they had held
land for four generations, and its in-
fluence had passed on to them. 225
In describing this household, Forster demonstrates
that his interest in sociological details has not been
submerged. In a realistic tone, he tells us:
Clive's great- great-uncle had been Lord
Chief justice in the reign of George IV •••
A hundred years had nibbled into the
fortune, which no wealthy bride had re-
plenished, and both house and estate were
marked, not indeed, with decay, but with
the immobility that precedes it. 226
Penge possesses a rapidly fading pastoral beauty;
a newly-built train station already mars the view of
the estate. Nonetheless, its park, fields, and woods
are reminiscent of Howards End. Unlike the latter
home, however, Penge inspires no feelings of warmth
in its visitors. Clive's family is petty, snobbish,
and essentially undignified. The full tragedy of Penge
 173

becomes apparent only through a comparison with the

ancestral home of Ruth Wilcox, where "comradeship,
not passionate, that is our highest gift as a nation"
resides. 227 One remembers the sense of completeness
Margaret feels upon her visit to Howards End. Forster
comments:
In these English farms, if anywhere, one
might see life steadily and see it whole,
group in one vision its transitoriness and
its eternal youth, connect - connect with-
out bitterness until all men are brothers. 228
By contrast, the way of life at Penge is frustrating,
fragmentary, and uninteresting. It consists of a
series of elaborate, pretentious social gestures;
niceties are observed with an alarming rigour. Unlike
Margaret on her visit to Howards End, Maurice finds
himself restless and in a constant state of anxiety
whenever he visits Penge. Despite the fact that Mrs.
Durham extends a patronizing form of acceptance to the
young man, he continually fears that someone is slighting
him for the sake of his suburban upbringing.
Since Maurice himself is an incorrigible snob,
he suffers a kind of retributive justice ~ the hands
of Mrs. Durham. * His attitude first reveals itself in
his treatment of the family servants. Vis iting his
home on a school vacation, he abuses them as soon as
an opportunity arises:

* Dr. Barry also snubs Maurice.. Says he: "What would

you want with a university degree? It was never
intended for the suburban classes" .. cf. Maurice, 79.
 174

'They are Mother's woodstacks, not yours',

said Maurice, and they went indoors.
The Howells were not offended, though
they pretended to be so to one another.
They had been servants all their lives,
and liked a gentleman to be a snob. 'He
has quite a way with him already', they
told the cook. 'More like his father' 229
As he develops into a "promising suburban tyrant",
Maurice learns to "keep the servants in order".230 Like
the Wilcoxes, he arrogantly displays his tough-mindedness
by asserting the superiority of his own class. At Penge,
for example, he makes a series of shocking remarks
about 'the poor' to Clive's wife, and succeeds in
impressing her:
'I've had to do with the poor too', said
Maurice, taking a piece of cake, 'but I
can't worry over them. One must give them
a leg up for the sake of the country generally,
that's all. They haven't our feelings. They
don't suffer as we should in their place'.*
Anne looked disapproval, but she felt that
she had entrusted her hundred pounds to the
right sort of stockbroker. 231
Maurice's treatment of the lower classes reflects the
viewpoint of both the Durham and the Hall households.
Clive's mother patronizes her employees continually~232
similarly, Maurice's relatives refuse to entertain the
idea that "servants might be flesh and blood like our-
selves". 233

* Helen Schlegel makes a s:imilar comment about the

unfortunate Jacky Bast: "The admirable creature
isn't capable of tragedy", says she.
ef. Howards End, 108.
 175

Maurice's class-consciousness hampers his

development as effectively as does his distaste for
homosexuality. Even as a child, he realizes that his
favourite associates are not respectable companions.
'So you don't know any men?' queries Mr. Ducie.
'Mother keeps a coachman and George in the garden ,
but of course you mean gentlemen', Maurice replies
dutifully.235 As he grows older, he finds it increasingly
difficult to give this acceptable response~ his beliefs
and his desires clash continually. At his office, he
admires various handsome clients, regardless of their
social status. Only his awareness of "attendant odours
from the abyss"* prevents him from becoming intimate
with these individuals. Meanwhile, his suburban outlook
remains inviolate:
The feeling that can impel a gentleman
towards a person of lower class stands
self-condemned.236
As Maurice gazes into his mirror after a particularly
upsetting incident of this kind, he realizes that his
public and private actions are rapidly diverging.+
Writes Forster:

* In his references to the lower classes in Maurice,

Forster echoes the imagery used to describe the Basts
in Howards End. cf. Maurice, 132 and Howards, 108-114.
+ Maurice's behaviour violates one of the primary
principles for right conduct as outlined by the
Schlegel sisters. According to them, "public life
should mirror ''lhatever is good in the life within" ..
cf. Howards, 28 ..
 176

~fuat a solid young citizen he looked -

Quiet, honourable, prosperous without
vulgarity. On such does England rely.
Was it conceivable that on Sunday last
he had nearly assaulted a boy?237
By the time Maurice meets Scudder, Class has
affected him in countless ways. In this new friendship,
it poses many problems. Since AleC is a gamekeeper
and Maurice is a businessman, there are no social
conventions for them to follow.* One of the first class-
oriented difficulties they encounter involves a question
of etiquette. After spending the night with his lover,
Maurice finds himself in a minor dilemma:
Simcox and Scudder; two servants. He would
have to give Scudder some handsome present
now; indeed, he would like to, but what
should it be? What could one give to a
man in that position?238
This initial awkwardness foreshad'ows the experiences
of the two men in the days that follow. Their social
and political affiliations are diametrically opposed;
they meet across the barriers of their own deeply-rooted
prejudices. As a stalwart member of the bourgeoisie,
Maurice does not even like to play cricket with his
social inferiors. 239 Similarly, as a servant of the
Durhams, Scudder has been see~hing with resentment towards
the upper classes for a long time. He vents his anger
in the following diatribe:

* Of course, the fact that they are homosexuals also

determines the unconventionality of their relations.
cf. Thesis, Chapter Two.
 177

"Don't talk to me about Penge ••• Oo~ Mah!

Penge where I was always a servant and
Scudder do this and Scudder do that and
the old lady, what do you think she once
said? She said, ·Oh would you most kindly
of your goodness post this letter for me,
what's your name?~ What's yer name! Every
day for six months I come up to Clive's
bloody front porch door for orders, and his
mother don't know my name. She's a bitch •••
Maurice, you wouldn't believe how servants 240
get spoken to. It's too shocking for words~.
In the light of these personal hostilities, the
union of Maurice and Alec is remarkable. Indeed, before
the novel's conclusion, both characters attempt to
abandon the relationship. On one occasion, Maurice
drives determinedly away from Penge. As he leaves, he
glances behind him in confusion:
Alec was close to him, and stamped one foot,
as though summoning him. That was the final
vision, and whether of a devil or a comrade
Maurice had no idea. Oh, the situation was
disgusting - of that he was certain, and indeed
never wavered till the end of his life. 2 4l
In commenting on Maurice's outlook, Vivien Mercier asks:
Is the situation disgusting because Alec is
a man or a gamekeeper?242
Whether the ambiguity of the above passage was intended
by Forster or not, it seems appropriate: questions of
Class in this novel are inextricably connected with the
issue of homosexuality. For example, we learn that if
the two lovers were tried, the police would release
Maurice, and sentence Alec, because of their respective
social positions. 243 Thus, even in court trials of
 178

homosexuality, class-consciousness rears its ugly head.

At every turn, an inbred desire to adhere to the rigid
stratifications of Edwardian England threatens to over-
whelm the lovers. Again and again, Maurice in particular
experiences a guilt and fear that precludes the possibility
of love:
Maurice had gone outside his class, and it
served him right ·244
Only the touch of his beloved reassures Maurice, and
helps him to overcome his reluctance to stay with his
friend. However, his uncertainty is clearly never
vanquished~ as the work closes, we learn that Maurice
still mysteriously maintains that "the situation" is
evil. 245 His decision bFings him little immediate
comfort:
Maurice said in affectionate yet dejected
tones, 'All right. To Hell with it', and
they passed on together in the rain. 246
One can only hope that the future of these unfortunate
lovers proves that their commitment to each other has
been worthwhile.
In A Passage To India, Forster continues to
document the results of various experiments in human
relations. At the beginning of the novel, Aziz and his
companions "discuss as to whether or not it is possible
to be friends with an Englishman ll • 247 This question
reverberates throughout the work, as Anglo-Indians and
 179

natives mingle and clash. Forster singles out Azizus

varied experiences with the British Raj in order to
explore this issue fully. As a well-educated doctor,
Aziz is the perfect candidate for adventures in inter-
racial intimacy: he is more likely to gain acceptance
in an all-white environment than most of the other
Indians. However, even he feels caught in "the net
Great Britain has thrown over India",248 and he is
constantly snubbed by his superiors. Only brief moments
of communion with sympathetic Englishmen keep him from
becoming completely embittered. For example, after an
unpleasant visit to the compound of Major Callendar,
he meets the kindly Mrs. Moore, newly arrived from
England. Encountering goodwill, Aziz is immediately
heartened:
He was excited partly by his wrongs, but
much more by the knowledge that someone
sympathized with them ••• The flame that
not even beauty can nourish was springing
up, and though his words were querulous
his heart began to glow secretly.249
The Bridge Party held to "bridge the gap between
East and West"250 reveals how rare these genuine exchanges

of sympathy are: it is merely a superficial gesture towards

Democracy. First of all, it reminds us of the cruelties
of the caste system, since only certain Indians are
invited. Like the British class system, this social
structure divides a nation, and denies the human rights
 180

of the masses.* Beyond the circle of respectable

Indians, there are the lower orders:
Clients, waiting for pleaders, sat in the
dust outside. These had not received a
card from Mr. Turton. And there were
circles even beyond these - people who
wore nothing but a loincloth, people who
wore not even that, and spent their lives
in knocking two sticks together before
a scarlet doll •• 251
Forster comments sadly:
All invitations must proceed from heaven
perhaps; perhaps it is futile for men to
initiate their own unity, they do but
widen the gulf between them by the attempt. 252
Secondly, the Bridge Party reveals the nervousness and
awkwardness with which the Indians and the members of
the British Raj relate to one another. Like the
homosexual and his friend, or the gentleman and the
labourer, the official and the native depicted here
have no suitable conventions with which to lubricate
social intercourse. writes Forster of the people at
the Party:
There was a curious uncertainty about their
gestures, as if they sought for a new
formula which neither East nor West could
provide. 253
After the Bridge Party breaks up, Mrs. Moore
asks Ronny to work for better inter-racial relations.
He replies in the voice of officialdom:

* Forster also tells us that religious disputes divide

the people of India. In the village Aziz moves to,
he discovers how serious the divisions between Brahman,
Moslem, and Hindu are: "Here, the cleavage was between
Brahman and Brahman; Moslems and English were quite
out of the running, and sometimes not mentioned for
days". cf. Passage, p. 287.
 181

\\What do you want me to do? Go against my

class, against all the people I respect and
admire here? I'm not a missionary or a
Labour Member or a vague sentimental sympathetic
literary man. I'm just a servant of the
government .•• We're not pleasant in India, and
we don't intend to be pleasant~254
Ronny's words reflect his unwillingness to "connect"
the public and private spheres of existence. To him,
moral considerations are the provL. Qft~'.-, of those who
are interested in the British Empire. In his official
capacity, he sees no need to attempt to cross the
barriers of class or race. His attitude reflects the
results of his public-school training, his bourgeois
complacency, and the public stance of the Raj. In
other words, he speaks in accordance with all of the
social institutions that have spawned him, with one
important exception: his family. By the time he
wrote A Passage To India, Forster seems to have tired
of creating mildly amusing, snobbish mothers. Hence,
he offers us Ronny Heaslop's parent, instead. Mrs.
Moore reflects the wisdom of both Hinduism and Christianity
when she turns to her son, and says:*
II
I'm going to argue, and indeed dictate •••
The English are out here to be pleasant •••
Because India is part of the earth. And
God has put us on earth in order to be
pleasant to each other. God ••• is •.• love •••
God has put us on earth to love our neighbours
and to show it~255

* Mrs. Moore's words foreshadow the inscription of the

words of an Indian poet on a poster during the course
of the Brahman religious celebration that culminates
in a cult in her honour. 'God si love' is a slightly
garbled version of Mrs. Moore's own words. cf. Passage, 281.
 182

At the next social gathering attended by Indians

and British subjects, we are reminded once again of
the difference between the public-school mentality of
Ronny and the open-mindedness of Mrs. Moore. While
he remains firmly fixed in the India of power politics
and subtle snobbism, she begins to acknowledge an
inner India, where peace and human kindness reside.
In this scene, the latter realm is symbolized by
Godbole, and his "song of an unknown bird,,~56 As the
natives and officials converse irritably, he sits at a
slight distance, quietly sipping tea. His equability
is immediately apparent:
He wore a turban that looked like pale
purple macaroni, coat, waistcoat, dhoti,
socks with clocks. The clocks matched
the turban, and his whole appearance
suggested harmony - as if he had reconciled
the products of East and West, mental as
well as physical, and could never be
discomposed. 257
At the very moment during which Ronny, with his
"qualified bray of the callow official"258 insults
Aziz, Godbole introduces a Brahman melody to still the
din. Hence, he reminds the party of the transcendant,
all-inclusive nature of love. In the song, a milkmaid*

*N.B. Once again, Forster associates love and the

beloved with the lower classes. Not only is
the singer a milkmaid but also, "only the servants
underst(an)d her song u •
cf. Passage, 78.
 183

calls to Shri Krishna, saying:

'Do not come to me only. Multiply
yourself into a hundred Krishnas, and
let one go to each of my hundred
companions, but one, 0 Lord of the
Universe, come to me'.259
While Ronny departs abruptly, completely missing
Godbole's message, Mrs. Moore remains behind to ask
a question:
'But he comes in some other song, I ~ope?'
said Mrs. Moore gently.260
Although she receives a vaguely negative reply, i~ is
quite clear that the feeling of hope for mankind that
she brings away from this gathering is positive, indeed.
The actual outcome of this social event is
optimistic also, for Fielding and Dr. Aziz finally
meet. Initially, the two men are uncomfortable in
each other's presence. The barriers of race and class
threaten to undermine their natural sympathies. Like
Maurice upon his arrival at Penge, Aziz expects to be
slighted at any moment. Furthermore, he reveals that,
for his own part, he has accepted as truth certain
stereotypes about the British. Thus, he is surprised
to discover that Fielding lives in an untidy room.
He admits that he expects an English gentleman to have
261
"everything arranged coldly on shelves"*: in other words,

* Later in the novel, Fielding reveals that he, too, is

sensitive about these racial stereotypes. He is un-
willing to admit the somewhat pallid nature of his
emotional life, fearing that Aziz will call it
Ueverything arranged coldly on shelves". cf. Passage, 115.
 184

he anticipates a kind of sterility. Despite these

preliminary misunderstandings, however, it is clear
that a British friend has been discovered for Aziz,
and a potential ally for the Indians. Cyril Fielding,
who is an intellectual by nature and a teacher by
profession, will educate anyone, including " public
·
sc h 00 I b oys, men t a I d e f ec t ~ves, an d po l '~cemen11 262 he
is, in fact, the least snobbish character in the canon.
Since Fielding insists upon thinking for himself, the
Raj considers him to be a disruptive force. Adds
Forster: " and rightly, for ideas are fatal to caste". 263
Like Aziz, Fielding is well-qualified for participation
in an inter-racial friendship. The following description
of his liberal creed demonstrates this effectively:
The world, he believed, is a globe of
men who are trying to reach one another
and can best do so by the help of good
will plus culture and intelligence ••• He
had no racial feeling - not because he
was superior to his brother civilians,
but because he had matured in a different
atmosphere, where the herd - instinct does
not flourish. 26 4
In addition to meeting Fielding, Aziz talks to
Miss Quested for the first time on this occasion.
She is not as open-minded as Fielding, for Forster tells
us:
In her ignorance, she regarded v.z i~ as
'India 1 , and never surmised that his outlook
was limited and his method inaccurate and
that no one is India. 265
 185

In love with the idea of this foreign country, and fond

of the concept of democracy, Adela has "no real affection
for Aziz, or Indians generally".266 Unlike Fielding~)
"her liberalism, merely intellectual, does not touch
her emotions".267 Nonetheless, it does cause her to
think about racial prejudice. "I think my countrymen
are mad", she remarks, at the Bridge Party. "Fancy
inviting guests and not treating them properly!"268
Once having said this, however, she shows no signs of
knowing any better herself. Alone with Aziz at the
Marabar Caves, she unwittingly insults him three times.
First of all, she tells him she worries about becoming
a typical Anglo-Indian female, "ungenerous and snobby
about Indians".269 Unfortunately, she adds a truth
too painful for small talk, and offends the sensitive
Indian. "I am told we all get rude after a year",
says she. 270 Adela1s lack of tact stems from her blind
rationalism. Insulting Aziz again, she remarks:
UThere will have to be something universal
in this country ••• or how else are barriers
to be broken down?"271
Comments Forster:
She was only recommending the universal
brotherhood Aziz sometimes dreamed of,
but as soon as it was put into prose it
became untrue. 272
Finally, just before her mysterious disappearance into
the caves, Adela asks what Bonnie Fin\lstein calls
~
 186

lithe fatal question about polygamy"273, and relations

between this white girl and the Indian doctor are
irrevocably damaged.
In inviting the ladies to the Marabar Caves in
the first place, Aziz has run a terrible risk. Like
Maurice Hall, he worries constantly about his image
in the community. As Maurice becomes involved with
Alec, the guilt he feels is partially due to his sense
of responsibility toward the Halls:
He had also sinned against his family •••
He opposed (his des ire for Ale~ to his
work, his family, his friends, his position
in society.274
Since Aziz has children to provide for, his sense of
familial obligations is greater than Maurice's:
He must not disgrace his children by some
silly escapade. Imagine if it got about
that he was not respectable: His professional
position too must be considered ••. 2 75
Once Aziz decides to carry through his plans for the
expedition to the Marabar Caves, his difficulties
increase. Like Maurice, he too must function without
the aid of previously established rules of conduct.
Working out acceptable arrangements for the outing
proves to be an exhausting assignment. Meals, for
example, constitute a particular problem, because he
is feeding Moslems, Hindus, and Englishmen; each group
h as t '. ·;+~
_.:: .
un~que customs, an d .
f~xe d d'~etary co d es.

Despite all of the care he takes, of course, terrible

 187

problems descend upon him. Writes Forster:*

Trouble after trouble encountered him,
because he had challenged the spirit
of the Indian earth, which tries to
keep man in compartments. 276
Like Maur ice, Az iz must go agains·t what is usually
natural, as well as against what is socially acceptable.
In A Passage To India, uniting east and west is shown
to be nearly as abnormal as the coupling of two males.
As usual, Forster manifests a complex apprehension of
the situation he is trying to describe. Clearly, he
knows that conventions are not, in fact, completely
arbitrary. Heterosexuality is IInormalll by definition;
most people tend to be that way. Similarly, manls
tendency to affiliate himself with a small group rather
than with the entire mass of humanity is also natural.
As anyone who has ever belonged to a clearly identifiable
religion or ethnic group knows, one's sense of security
and personal identity profit greatly by the experience.
Leaving this group behind could prove traumatic, indeed.
Having granted this, however, Forster still expects us
to have the courage, or 1I0bstinacyll, needed to take
the necessary leaps into the unknown, whenever we feel
that they are desirable. Thus, he sympathizes with
Aziz, who finds himself excluded from society, II res trained
on all sides by barriers of class and race ll • 277 Like

* cf. liThe fiss:;Y:,res in the Indian soil are infinite ll •

Passage, 288.
 188

Maurice*, Aziz becomes an outlaw, simply by trying to

act of his own free will. Writes Forster:
From the moment of his arrest Aziz was
done for, he had dropped like a wounded
animal; he had despaired, not through
cowardice, but because he knew that an
English woman's word would always out--~z.)
weigh his own. 278
Like Maurice and Alec, Aziz finds himself
compelled to leave his home in search of greater social
freedom. Thus he leaves India's British Raj behind
him, just as the two homosexuals leave England. writes
Forster:
Aziz's impulse to escape from the English
was sound. They had frightened him
permanently, and there are only two
reactions against fright: to kick and
scream on committees, or to retreat to
a remote jungle, where the Sahib seldom
comes. 279
While one must imagine the1greenworld' of Maurice,
Aziz's new. residence is briefly but effectively described.
Even his medical practice is affected:
Here in the backwoods he let his
instruments rust, ran his little
hospital at h~l~ steam, and caused
no undue alarm. 280
His life takes on some of the joys that Maurice and
Alec may find difficult to attain:

* Aziz's situation is actually more similar to that

of Alec, whose social status puts him in a weaker
position than Maurice. "Clive on the bench ':.<{ill
continue to sentence Alec in the dock. Maurice
may get offl/. cf. Maurice, Terminal Note, p. 222.
 189

Life passed pleasantly, the climate was

healthy so that the children could be
with him all the year round, and he had
married again - not exactly a marriage,
but he liked to regard it as one. 281
In this new environment, Aziz is clearly renewed:
He read his Persian, wrote his poetry,
had his horse, and sometimes got some
shikar while the good Hindus looked the
other way.282
His existence would, in fact, seem idyllic, if it were
not for the fact that his friendship with Fielding has
disintegrated. At the end of the novel, the union of
England and India seems as impossible as ever. In
contrast with the presentation of the homosexual friend-
ship in Maurice, Forster's handling of the inter-racial
relationship in A Passage To India is realistic. In
this latter work, no simple method of leaping across
a vast social chasm is discovered. Thus, our last
image of Fielding and Aziz is a sad one:
We shall drive every blasted E~lishman
into the sea, and then~ - ~zi~ rode
against 0' ieldinSJ fur iously - 'and then!,
he concluded, half kissing him, 'you and
I shall be friends'.
'Why can't we be friends now?' said
the other, holding him affectionately. 2
It's what I want. It's what you want'. 83
Nature, it seems, still reigns supreme at the conclusion
of this work. Forster continues:
 190

But the horses didn't want it - they

swerved apart~ the earth didn't want
it ••• the temples, the tank, the jail,
the palace, the birds, the carrion, the
Guest House ••• : they didnat want it,
they said in their hundred voices, 'No, 284
not yet, 'and the sky said, aNo, not there'.
 CONCLUSION

The call to Krishna echoes throughout A Passage

To Indiar with each repetition, it gains in significance.
On one occasion, every item in a rather paltry country-
side calls out, and Forster comments wryly:
There was not enough god to go round. l
Clearly, the cry is not reserved for sacred occasions,
but is an everyday reality. India, we learn, "calls
'Come' through her hundred mouths, through objects
ridiculous and august".2 On another occasion, Aziz
voices his own form of the invitation. Like Godbole,
he is suddenly inspired in the midst of a social event,
and recites a poem out loud. He speaks of "our loneli-
ness ••• our isolation, our need for the Friend who never
comes yet is not entirely disproved".3 Later, he
explains that the Friend is a Persian expression for
God. 4 Gradually, the nature of this godhead is revealed
to us. As the novel draws to a close, Krishna makes
a mysterious but effective personal appearance at a
Hindu Festival held in his honour. The face of the
god remains hiddenr 5 nonetheless, the Indians greet
him with joyous song and dance. It is a chaotic but
splendid apotheosis:
The clock struck midnight, and simultaneously
the rending note of the conch broke forth,
followed by the trumpeting of elephantsr all
191
 192

who had packets of powder threw them at

the altar, and in the rosy dust and
incense, and clanging and shouts, Infinite
Love took upon itself the form of Shri
Krishna, and saved the world. All sorrow
was annihilated, not only for Indians, but
for foreigners, birds, caves, railways and
the stars: all became joy, all laughter: ••.
Some jumped in the air, others flung
themselves prone and embraced the bare
feet of the universal lover .•• 6
In his review of Maurice, Frank Kermode writes:
The coming of the friend, recurrent in
Maurice, is a theme Forster realized finally
in the coming of Krishna, after many failed
invocations, in A Passage To India. 7
In Maurice, the theme first appears in his pubescent
fantasies. To the reader of A Passage To India, it
becomes clear that Maurice is dreaming of Krishna:
He scarcely saw a face, scarcely heard
a voice say, 'That is your friend', and
then it was over, having filled him with
beauty and taught him tenderness. 8
In both works, the vision described is a fleeting one,
and the face of the beloved remains hidden. In Maurice,
however, the longing for an Ideal Friend also represents
"a commonplace of Idealized homosexuality".9 Hence,
in Maurice, the friend is a metaphor for an actual lover,
as well as an infinite one. As was explained earlier,
Maur ice' s dream first begins to come true \V'hen he meets
Clive at Cambridge. Once again, the reference to
Krishna is relevent. As the two boys become close,
the word "come" expresses their feelings best. Just
as the people and objects of India call their god to
 193

come, so Maurice and Clive beckon to each other.

Forster repeats the word in the following passage
until it attains the powers of incantation:
Hall had acquired a peculiar and beautiful
expression ••• It beckoned to Clive •.• saying,
'This is all very well, you're clever, we
know - but come~' ••• he felt himself replying,
' I ' l l come - I didn't know.'
'You can't help yourself now. You must come'.
II don't want to help myself'.
I Come then'.
He did come. IO
Later, as Scudder and .Maur ice unit e, they, too,
speak in the language of Krishna. Forster describes
the beginning of their first night together as follows:
Maurice really was asleep when he sprang
up and flung wide the curtains 1;"1i th a cry
of 'Come:' The action awoke him; what had
he done that for? •• v~at use was it? He
was too old for fun in the damp.ll
At this point in the narration, Scudder magically
appears:
The head and shoulders of a man rose up,
paused, a gun was leant against the
window sill very carefully, and someone
he scarcely knew moved towards him and
knelt beside him and whispered, 'Sir,
was you calling out for me? - Sir, I
know, - I know: and touched him'.12
Despite this auspicious beginning, of course, the
relations between Maurice and Scudder are filled with
problems. Like Godbole and Mrs. Moore in A Passage To
India, Maurice becomes uncertain that his calls for a
respite from loneliness will ever be answered.
 Alec ~a3 no~ 8 ~er·0 or 2 ~nd, hnt. [l.
~an o8hcdded in soc~ety, like h.i.w'" 1....f ,>"lCO
.-'~

fnr whor~ sea Gnd the WOf-)rlJ.ancl ""'0 the

frc~:;h('nin.s hrf'cze" ndthe s1.m
Derine no a;otheosis. 13
One rcc?lls the Horst ex;octptions of the cynics in A Pas-

sap;e To India, vrhich suddenly ( 1);"0:11' to have hC3 Y1 fulfi lIed.

Persona] relationshi.ps, that Forster has placed so ~uch hope

in, seem llseless:

jJl.:::ruricc V]DS bC'.ck "d.th his loneliness ,']8 it
had been before Clive, as it was after Clive,
3nd v'To111d nm'! be for ever. He had fD. tled, 2 nd
that wasn't the saddest! He had seen A}.ec fail o
In a way they were ono person.14
This passaee ends with one of the most depressins comrents

Forster ever rnede on hum?n relet inns. He ':Trites:

Love had failed. IDvc was an e~otion thron~h
v;J!,ich yOll occAsionalJ JT en.joyed Y0 l.lrself. It-.
would not- do things. 15

From the 2bove di.scllssion, the close ther1 ,gtic relet.ion

hetween these two novols is i.Mmediptely o~paront& T:'llrl.h p""mo-rp

..... , . . . . . , ..' -...-.1.. ,,', . _ '}

the cd.. sin of the sllhject matter in (lllPstioD in the author's 0'::11

eX.i.='8ricnce,s is e:=1sily ascertained. ED.vine; just returned from

India at the time that he wrote these novels, India and Eastern
I' hi ]osophy ','Jere verJT rtmch on Forster f s rni nd & T:!hcn 1'TO C~Y[1!'1i DC

the ~)C'rson?l rr~r(li~".iscenr.e of the festive1 i.n honour of KrishD0

rocordcrl i.n. The TIill of Devi (1953), ':Te fi nd that i.t corrC'2~"ond;:
 10"
. "' ......

o
ssivc, ~nd the ~ort of Invc ~s ~hc only ro~rt

t,his oth:r favo1.lritc ForstcriD1l codhood. Clo':)rl~r); 11 Indle:'

Forster dj_3cc~rcrcd p new ~2ttern of i.m~~es for 0Yrrcssi~nc

;rior to the writinc of ~aurj,ec spDrkert his eroDtivity. In

the Terminnl Noto to Maurice, the biographical origin of

us here is the one in which Forster speaks of his respect

16
for the !tyoCifiod rnysticisr'1" of C2'Y'l'olTter. Hi s moetin.::'.:

2 r lvcntlJ.res ::in Ind.i.2 inspirod h. ?c.ss2p;e To IndiD.. FurtheTe<

tha.n 't!Oster"', in it:::. outlook; thus; it eOI1"~'lemcntod t1ld In-<

dian influence.

Hence, tho centrality of some traditional. Eastern

mythology in hoth McUl.ricc nna !~ ?8SS2gC t.() 111.d18 is cJ C't~.rly
Di~ilar ~robJpms in

froM the ~ouths of

the mouths of :=1 hundred Indios. Krishno e'3 2n iYlfini te lover

30xnal friend ,2nd Forster simply ooes not, ;'lTit,oc>s 1':011 in

Mc::n,lrice 23 in A :20SS:=lge to Indj 0.. Th5roly, fro l-,' ',·:h3,t vrc hc.vc

he depictod. Usinz Lhe Darrptor in The' Curote's Friend 2,3

Vj,"'VI is COYTcct. He: 'iJrJ.tcs:

Thol.J,a:h I tr~Jr t,n comP'llnic8te .,.i 0 " " ' , ';rnr

~ -'.I
t,n nthr~rs
::tS I try tn COn1!TIu:niC?teenyth:ine olse th:.:ct seems
good m. J.nel tho:}[';h I S0 1'1stimes s'1cceod, y'?t~ J c:'.n
tell no one exactly how :i.t carne to mo. For if I
hreathed one wo~o. of that, my present l:ife, so 0-
grcopblo .?nd .t=Tof:i.tahle, ;',o"ld C0)'18 t.o an end, m:r
con[!.;rcg9ti.on '::ould ds:~·",rt, ,'"'no. so ::h0 1l1 r1 I •••
'I'l--,ercfore in, the ~~lpcc nf t.k:· l~rr;cnl '"'nd r"ct0ri.'·
cal treatment, so suitahlo to the Rubject, so con-
gonial to my professi.on, I h~vn heen forced to use
the unvwrthy m8di um of ~ no.rrotiv8, 2. nil, t.o rl 0 1 110 0 yOll
by docl~ring that this is a s~ort story, 3ui.tahJo for
rORding ~n the train. 19
;
1-0.>
C'
 196

NOTES TO BIBLIOGRAPHICAL HEADNOTE

lB.J. Kirkpatrick, A Bibliography of E.M. Forster

(London: rev. ed., 1968)
2 0 liver Stallybrass, ed., The Abinger Harve~t
Edition of E.M. Forster (London: Edward Arnold, 1972)
3 B • J • Kirkpatrick, Bibliography, FonV'ard.
4 E .. M. Forster, Albergo Empedocle and Other liJritip..E.e.
(New York: Liveright, 1971), p. xii.
Scf. Richard Martin, IIGrief Generating Action:
Miscellaneous Prose ll , in his The Love That Failed
(The Hague: Mouton, 1974), pp. 184-209.
6 E • M• Forster, Maurice, intro. & ed. P.N. Furbank
(1971: rpt. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1972)
7Forster, Maurice, Intro., 10.
8 For example, cf. Philip Gardner, ed.,
E.M. Forster: The Critical Heritage, (London: Routledge
& Kegan Paul, 1973) pp. 428-490.
9 E •M• Forster, "Jane Austen", in his Abinqer
Harvest (1936; rpt:. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books,
1974), p. 173.
10philip Toynbee, IIForster l s Love Story",
Observer (10 Oct./7l, 32) rpt. Gardner, !he Critical
.Herit.age, 462.
llMauric~, Intro., 10.
l2 cf • Lionel Trilling, E.M. Forster
(1943; rpt. New York: New Directions, 1964) 17:
IForster, as I have said, likes to work with surprises,
mild or great l •
l3 E •M• Forster, vfuere Angels Fear To Tread
(1905; rpt. Toronto: Random House, 1920), p. 67.
l4 E •M• Forster, ~he Life To Come and Other Stori~,
ed. Oliver Stallybrass (London: Edward Arnold, 1972),
p .. xii.
 197

NOTES TO INTRODUCTION

1 E.M. Forster, Maur~ce,

. e d .. P.N. Furbank
(1971~ rpt. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1972),
pp. 218-220.
2 E • M• Forster, "George Crabbe and Peter Grimes",
in his Two Cheers For Democracy, (1951~ rpt. Toronto:
Penguin Books, 1974), p. 187.
3
Alfred Borrello, E.M. Forster: An Annotate~
~ibliography of Secondary Materials, (New Jersey:
Scarecrow Press, 1973), p. Ix.
4Lionel Trilling, BlOMe Forster
(1943 ~ rpt. New York: Ne;"1I)irections, 1964), p. 11.
5Wi1fred Stone, The Cave and the Mountain: A
study of ElOM. Forsl,er (California: Stanford Univ ..
Press, 1966), p. 19.
6stone, Cave and Mountain, 348.
7Richard Martin, The Love That Failea
(The Hague: Mouton, 1974), p. 186.
8Martin, Love That Failed, 185.
9philip Toynbee, "Forster's Love Story", Observer
(10 Oct./71, 32) I rpt. in Philip Gardner, ed.,
E.M. Forster: The Critical Heritage (London: Routledge
&. Kegan Paul, 1973), p .. 462 ..

lOstone, Cave and Mountain, 191.

11Borre110, Bibliography, Ix.
12porster, "Three Anti-Nazi Broadcasts", in his
Two Cheers, 42.
13lBroadcasts" in Two Cheers, 42.
14 E.M. Forster, The Life to Come and Other Stories,
ed. Oliver Sta11ybrass (London: Edward Arnold, 1972),
p. xiv.
15 Tr i11ing, Forster, 28.

16E .. M• Forster, lINotes On The English Character ll ,

in his ~binger Harvest

(1936~ rpt .. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1974), p. 15.
 198

17Ros e Macaulay, The writings of E.M. Forste~

(London: Hogarth, 1938), pp. 173-4.
18
EeM. Forster, IIS oc iety and the Homosexual:
The Abominable Crime ll , The N_E?.l1 Statesman and...1'!S1tion,
°
(0 ct. 3 1/5 3), p. 5 8 •

19I-1alcolm Bradbury, IIForster ll , in A.E. Dyson,

ed., The English Novel: Select Bibliographical Guides
(London: Oxford Univ., 1974), p. 315.
20George Steiner, IIUnder the Greenwood Tree ll ,

New Yorker, (Octob~r 9, 1971) rpt. in Gardner,

Critical Heritage, p. 418. -
2lForster, !!Anonymity: An Inquiry!!, in
~v"o Cheers, 85 ..
22Elizabeth BO't'len, IIAn Autobiography of a Reader
of Forster", Aspects of E.M .. Forster (London: Edward
Arnold, 1969), p .. 6.
23Forster made this comment in an interview
with PeN .. Furbank and F.J. Haskell.
cf. 'EeM. Forster' in Malcolm Cowley (ed.),
Writers at Work (London and Ne\v York: Viking, 1958)
p. 35.
 199

NOTES TO CHAPTER I

lThe epi'{aph refers to a line in a Plo::~~~e by

Gibbon quoted by E.l\1. Forster, IIGibbon and his
Autobiographyll, in his Tv.JO Che~~_For Democracy
(195l~ rpt. Toronto: Penguin Books, Ltd., 1974), p. 168.

2 E •M• Forster, Maurice, ed. P.N. Furbank

(1971~ rpt. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1972) p. 8.
3
E.M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel, (1927~
Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1972) pp. 58-9.
4
Aspects, 154.
5Maurice, 28.
6 E • Me Forster, IINotes on the English Character ll ,
in his Abinger Harvest, (1936~ rpt. Harmondsworth:
Penguin Books, 1974), p. 15.
7lVlaurice, 24.
8
Forster, II Notes II, in his Abing§!r Harvest, 19 ..
9 M aur~ce,
. 18 •

10 Noel Annan, II Love Storyll, The Ne\v York Rev ievY

of Books, (Oct .. 21/71), p. 17.
11l1,gurice, 19 ..
12 E .. M• Forster, The Lonqest Journey,
(1907~ rpt. Toronto: Random House, 1962), p. 170.
13
E.M. Forster, Goldsworthv Lowes Dickinson
(London: Edward Arnold, 1934), p. 16. - ----
l4Dickinson, 16.
15 Dickinson, 16 ..
16Dickinson, 21 ..
17 D ~c
· k'~nson, 21_.

12Maurice, 27 e

19Maurice, 26-7.
 200

2°.l\'laurice, 17.
21Dickinson" 15.
22
I'1aur ice, 15 ..
23
Journey, 41.
24
E .. M. Forster, vfuere Angels Fear To Tread,
(1905i Toronto: Random House, 1920), p. 68.

25Journey, 46.
26
Journey, 46 ..
27Journev, 236 ..
28l1Notesll, in his Abinger Harvest, 22.
29Angels, 68.
30Journey, 4 ..
31Maur ice, 24.
32Journey, 201.
33
Angel§., 70.
3Ll.·W~' I fre d stone, The Cave and the Mountain:
A study of E .. M. Forster {California: Stan~ord Univ.
Press, 1966), P. 125 ..
35 E •M.. Forster, Marianne Thornton: A Domestic
Biography, (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1956), p. 298~
36Thornton, 324.
37
Thornton, 302.
38
Thorn-to!!., 303 ..
39
Forster, IIA Letter to Madan Blanchard ll , in
Two Cheers, 321.
40 Ange ls, 87.
41Ange1s, 94.
42
Angels, 9 ..
43Angels, 13 ..
 201

44nickinson, 13.
45
Angels, 95.
46Ange1,s, 178 ..
47Ange1s, 10 ..
48Ange1s, 61.
49@gels, 57.
50 ]'I~nqe1s , 36 ..
51
Angels, 36.
52l\ngels, 151.
53 Angels,
85-6.
54Angels, 87.
55Ange1s, 87.

56Ange l,e., 102 ..

57 Angel2., 103.
58Journey, 25.
5 gAnge 1 s 8 14 ..
60 Journev, 23.
61Journey, 27.
62Journey, 23.
63Journev, 27 ..
64Journey, 24.

65Journey, 248.
66Journey" 247.
6 711aur ice I 217 ..
68()"ourney, 255 ..
69Journey, 255.

70Maurice, 218.
 202

71Journev-..' 257.
72
Journey, 27.
73Journey, 26.
74Journev" 43.
75Journey, 29.
76Journev, 30.
77Journey, 209.
78Journey, 107.
79Journey, 107.
80 Journey, 297.

81 ef • Stone, Cave and Mountain, 205.

82Stone, Cave and Mountain, 204.
83Journey, 31.
84JourneYt 34 It

85Journey, 30.
86
Journey, 32.
87 Journey, 25 ..
88Journey, 111..
89Ange1s, 118.
90E.M. Forster, A Room with A View, (1908;
Toronto: Penguin Books, 1974), p .. 187.
91 V ~e\'l,
' 88 •

92Vie,\'1, 92 ..
93 V iew, 146.
94Vievvt 116.

95 Vie i-'1 t 117.

96Vie'\"t 98.
97Vie'\v t 103 ..
 203

98 View" 88 ..

99VieVl, 146 ..
100View, 141.

101 View , Ill.

102View, 147.
103Vievl, 36.
-
104View, 221.
105Vie'i!a 221 ..
106 View a 129.

107View, 126.
108View, 129.
10 9 Vie\.v, 129.
110Journey, 252 ..
111Vim~, 129.
112Vi~, 130.

113 V ievl, 177 ..

114Vievl, 114 ..

115 V iew, 116.

116 Vie '\,v, 116 ..
117 View, 91.
118 Vie'\,v, 183.
119Vie\v, 164 ..
120 View , 75.
121 view , 38 ..

122 Vie\v, 86 ..
123 Vie V.l, 99.
 204

124 Vie ,\., I 18.

125View, 12.

12 6Vie,\'1, 38.

12 7Vie"", 10.
128 V ie't'1 1 36.
12 9Vievl, 51.

130 V imr,J",36.

131Maurice, 22.

132Maurice, 30.

133Maurice, 29.

134IVlaur ice, 31.

135Maurice, 21.

136Maurice, 21.

137Maurice, 78.

138Maurice, 21 ..

13 9Maur ice, 51.

140Maurice, 54 ..

141Maur ice, 128.

142 Maur ice, 45.

143 Maur ice, 68.

144 Maur ice, 93.

 205

NOTES TO CHAPTER II

1 vH1 fred Stone, The Cave and the Mountain: A

Study of E.M. Forster (California: Stanford Univ.
Press, 1966), p. 124 ..
2Stone, Cave and Mountain, 172.
3E •M• Forster, Where Angels Fear To Tread,
(1905~ Toronto: Random House, 1920), p. 21.
4Angels, 27.
5Ange1s, 28.
6Stone, Cave and Mountain, 170 ..
7Ange1s, 27.
8 Angels, 25.

9Ange1s, 27.
10Ange1s, 26.
11Ange1s, 26.
12Ange1s, 26.
13Ange1s, 13.
14Ange1s, 69.
15 An g,e1s, 69.
16 Ange 1s, 151.
17Angels, 141.
18Ange1s, 173.
19Ange1s, 173.
20Ange1s, 182.
21Ange1s, 184.
22Angels, 79.
23Ange1s, 151.
 206

24Ahgels, 69.
25Angels, 34.
26Angels, 69.
27Angels, 94.
28Angels, 150-1.
29Angels, 67.
30Angels, 32.
31Angels, 58.
32Angels, 30.
33Angels, 31.
34E.M. Forster, The Life to Come and Other stories,
ed. Oliver Stallybrass (London: Edward Arnold, 1972),
p. 36.
35
Angels, 41.
36 E •M• Forster, "Clouds Hill", in his Two Cheers
for Democracy (1951: rpt. Toronto: Penguin Bks, 1974),
p. 348.
37Forster, "Clouds Hill", in Two Cheers, 347.
38Angels, 47.
39Angels, 47.
40 E •M• Forster, Maurice, intra. & ed. PeN. Furbank
(1971: rpt. Harmondsworth: Penguin"Books, 1972), p. 184.
4lAngels, 122.
42Angels, 123.
43Angels, 124.
44Angels, 31.
45Ang§..ls, 155.
46Angels, 162.
47Angels, 166.
 207

48Ange1~, 168-170.
49Ange1s, 166.,
50Ange1s, 169.
51Ange1s, 173.
52Finke1stein, Bonnie Blumenthal, Forster's
Women: Eternal Differences (New York: Columbia Univ.
Press, 1974), p. 26.
53Ange1s, 173.

54Ange1s 176.
- --'
55Ange1s, 176.
56Ange1s, 174.
57Ange1s, 174.
58Ange1s, 181.
59Ange1s, 182.
60Stone, Cave and Mountain, 200.
61Ange1s, 181.
62 An9".e1fr, 178.,
63 Ange 1s, 178.
64Angels, 178.
65Ange1s, 177.
66Ange1s, 184.
67E.M. Forster, The Lonqest Journey,
(1907; rpt. Toronto: Random House, 1962), p. 26.
68Journex, 26.
69Journey, 3.
70 Journey, 17.
71Journey, 42.
 208

72Journey, 4S.
73Journey, 64.
74Journey, 65.
75JoUrney, 43.
76Journey, 64.
77.g"oUrnll, 18.
78Journ~, 61.

79Journey, 87.
80Journey, 19 ..
81Journey, 183 ..
82Journey, 78.
83~rney, 211.
84Journey, 211 ..
85 Jou r-ney, 304.
86Journey, 16.
87 Journey, 296 ..
88Journey, 165.
89Journey, 165.
90Journey, 166.
91Jottrney, 166.
92Journey, 21O ..
93Journey, 4-5 ..
94JoUrney, 63.
95JOUrney, 64.
96Journey, 35 ..
97Journey, 4 ..
 209

98~ourney, 348.
99Journey, 20.
100Journey, 17.
101~rney, 68.
102Journey, 81.
103JOUrney, 6.
104JourneYI 69.
105Journey, 69.
106Journ~1 70.
---
107~rney, 57.

108Journey, 138.
109~ney, 21.
110Journ~, 88.
111Journey, 138.
112Journey, 181.
113~ourne~, 200.
114Journey, 269.
115 Journey., 182.
116Journex., 182.
117Journey, 89.
118Journey, 86.
119Journey, 88 ..
120Journey, 151 ..
121Journey, 151.
122Journey, 12.
123Journey, 149.
 210
124 Journey,
158.
125Journey, 153.
126Journey, 112.
127Journey, 229.
128Journey, 241.
129Journey, 244.
130Journey, 262.
131Journey, 260.
132i!ou rney, 291.
133Journey, 309.
134~ourney, 231.
135Journey, 286.
136Journey, 283 ..
137Q:.9 urne y, 276.
138Journey, 266.
139Journey, 245-6.
14GE.M. Forster, A Room with A View,
(19G8: Toronto: Penguin Books,· 1974), p. 32.
141 View , 46.
142 View 47.
--'
143Vi~jf, 130.
144 Vie\v, 149.

145Forster "Gerald Heard", in Two Cheers, 34.

146View, 151 ..
147Vie\v, 36.
148V ie~, 95.
149~, 186.
 211

150 V iew, 186.

151View 206.
-'
152View, 206.
153 View
---' 25.
154 View , 118.

155 View 118.

--'
156 View
- , ' 42 ..
157Jeffrey Meyers, "'Vacant Heart Hand and Eye:
The Homosexual Theme in A Room with A Vie\.<lll, English
Literature in Transition, XIII (1970,3), p. 184.
hereafter cited as ELT
158 View, 38.
159View, 199.
160 V ieVl 134.
--'
161 View, 134 ..
162 Vie ,,'1, 134.
163 _
View
. ' 135.
-_._, 135 ..
164View
165 V iew. , 135 •

166Meyers, "' Vacant Heart .... '", ELT., 186 ..

167 view , 141.

168 c f. Forster, Life to Come.

169Vie~~, 215 ..

170 E .. M• Forster, Goldworthy Lowes Dickinson

(London: Ed\.<7ard Arnold, 1934), p. 15.
17lMa":!-rice,17 ..
172Maurice, 22.
173Maurice, 25.
 212

174Journey, 64.

175Maurice, 24.

1 76Maur ice, 24.

177Maurice, 26.

178Maurice, 26.

17 9Maur ice I 22-3.

180MaUrice-L, 26.
181 Maur ice, 26.

182Journey, 244.

183Jourp.e x., 41.

184JourneY.I 37.

185Mau~ice, 26.
186Journey, 40.

187;rourney, 53.

188Journey, 54.

189~ourney, 43.

1909"ourney, 55.

191View, 47.

192View, 49-50~

193View, 51.

194Mauric~, 25.

195Maur ice, 27.

fl_ _

196 Maur ice, 146.

197Maurice,
-....- _
........ 53.
198Maur i~, 125.

199Maurice, 127.
 213

200Maurice, 164.

201Maurj.ce, 192.

202Maurice.. , 19O.
~"

203JYIaldrice, 32.

204MaUricft, 41.

205,Maurice, 72-4.
206 Maur ice,
---....-.... 86.
207.r.1aurice, 167.
.. "<-=

208Maurice, 208.
"'". . I

209Maurice, 190.

210 Maur ice, 176 ..

----""'-"
 214

NOTES TO CHAPTER III

1 E.M. Forster, Howards End,

(1910: rpt. HarmondirlOrtl'1 : Penguin, 1974)
2 Ho'-"ards , 14.
3Howards, 10.
4Howards, 10.

5.Howards, 10.
6 Howards, 23 ..

7How'ards, 302.
8Howards, 278 ..

9Howards, 30.
10Howards, 14.
11Howards
- , 12.
12Howards, 42.
13Howards, 100.
14Howards, 5.,
15Howards, 42.,
16Howards, 42.
1 7 HOirTards , 237.
18Howards, 100.

19Howards, 260.
20Howards, 174.

21E.M. Forster, A Room with A View

(1908; rpt. Toronto: Penguin Books, 1974), pp. 215-16.
22B. Fin~lstein, Forster's Women: Eternal
Differences (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1974),
p. 128.

23Lionel Trilling, E.M .. Forster

(1943: rpt. New York: New Directions, 1964), p .. 128.
 215

24 Howards, 174.

25Howards, 152.
26 HO"i,'lards, 86.
27E.M. Forster, ~here Angels Fear To T~ead,
(1905; rpt. Toronto: Random House, 1920), p. 68.
28 E •Me Forster, Maurice, intro. P.N. Furbank
(1971; rpt. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1972), p. 52.
2 9Ho"'1ards , 172.
30Howards, 174.
31Howards, 259.
32Howards, 218.
33Maurice, 57e
34Maurice, 60.
35Maurice, 80.
36Maurice, 60 ..
37Maurice, 85.
38Mauric!:., 85 ..
39Maurice, 57.
40Howards, 259.
41Maurice, 68.
42 Maur ice., 9.
43Maurice, 9.
44Howards, 9.
45Howards, 25.
46Howards, 24.
47Howard~, 25.
48Howards, 25.
49Howards, 25 ..
 216

50 Ho \.\7ards, 155.
51Howards 225.
-'
52 HOvlards , 228.
53 HOvlards, 228.
54Howards, 230.
55 Maur ice, 133 ..

56Howards, 230.
57Maurice, 186.
58 Maur ice, 9.

59E.M. Forster, The Longest Journey,

(1907: rpt. Canada: Random House, 1962), p. 206.
60Tri11ing, Forster, 114.
61Lytton Strachey, Letter to Forster, March 12,
1915, rpt. in Philip Gardner, ed. E.M. Forster: The
Critical Heritage (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul,
1973), p .. 430.
62 lvIaur ice, Intro. , 7 ..
63 Maurl.ce,
.
133.
64lvIaur ice, 78.
65 Maur ice, 78.
66rJIaurice, 78.
67Mauric~, 91.

.
68Maurice , 91.
69 Maur ice, 9.
70Maurice, 101.
71 Maur ice, 91.
72Maurice, 103.
73Maurice, 103.
 217

74Maurice, 146.

75Maurice, 129.

76Maurice, 129.

77111aurice, 133.

78Maurice, 129.

79Howards, 25.

80Maurice, 165.

81Maurice, 145.

82 Maur ice, 149.

83Maurice, 156 ..

84 Maur ice
.:::...=:..L 165 •

85~aur; ce, 164.

86Maurice, 163.

87Howards, 182.
88Howards, 291.

8 9 HON' ards , 293 ..

90Howards, 292.

91Howards, 22.
92m:' aur~ce,
. 103.
93Maurice, 104.

. ice , 104.
94 Maur

95Maurice, 106.
96 .
Maur~ce, 106.
97 E • M• Forster, A Pass'¥le To India (1924 ;
rpt .. Harmondsvvorth: Penguin Books, 1974), p. 51.
98passaQe, 233.
 218

99B •M• Forster, Alexandria: A History and a Guide

(1922: rpt. New York: Doubleday, 1968), p. 47.
100passage, 189.
101~sa~, 190.

102passa~, 190.

103Maurice
.;;..;;..;;.;~-'
151 •
104Maur ice, 156.

105passa~, 84.

106passage, Ill.
107Tri11ing, .E2.!:ster, 145 •
108Trilling, Forster, 145.
109passage, 197.
110pass~, 203 ..

Illpassage, 203.
112Passage, 145.
113passag:e, 147.
114Passage, 257.
115passage, 86.
116passage, 86.
117Passage, 134.
118passag:e, 193 ..
119E •M• Forster, "Tolerance", in his Two Cheers
for Democracy, (1951: rpt. Toronto: Penguin Books,
1974), p. 55.
120Forster, "Tolerance", in Two Cheers, 54.
121Howards, 240.
122Howards, 241.
 219

123Howards, 291.
124Hov'1ards, 263.
125Howards, 268.
126Howards, 269 ..
127Howards, 273 ..
128Howards, 275.
129Howards, 270.
130Howards, 277.
131Howards, 282-4 ..
132Howards, 286.
133 Howards, 287.,
134Tri11ing, Forster, 126.
135Howards, 7.
136Howards, 43 ..
137Howards, 28.
138Howards, 164.
139Howards, 214.
140Howards, 303.
141Howards, 306.
142Howards, 313 ..
143Howards, 314.
144Howards, 314.
145 Maur ice, 184-5.
146Maurice, 130.
147Maurice, 186.
 220

148Howards, 308.
14 9 Ho V-lards , 308.
150Maurice, 140 ..
151Maur ice, 140 ..

152Maurice, 140 ..
153Maur-i£e, 178.
154Howards, 314 ..
155Maurice, 194.
156Howards, 314 ..

157Fin~elstein,Forsteris Women, 152.

158Maurice, 30.
15 9Maurice, 80.
160 Maur ice, 138.
161Maurice, 138-40.
162passage, 15.
163passage, 209.
164passage, 16.
165Passage, 16 ..
166How'ards, 30 ..
167Howards, 30.
168Howards, 30.
169Maur ice, 108.
170 Maur ice, 109 ..
171passage, 189 ..
172pass~, 178 ..
173passage, 180 ..
 221

174Finkelstein, Forster's l~men, 123.

1~5passag~, 67.

176passage, 235.
177 Hm'lards, 28.
178Passage, 235.
179Howards, 180.
180HO~'lard~, 314.
181Howards, 156.
182Howards, 164.
183Hov-Tards, 314.
184Hovvards, 319.
185Passage, 47.
186Maur~, 166-7.
187passage, 255.
188passage, 255-6.
IS9Passage, 273.
190passage, 116.
191passage, 134.
192passa~, 118.

193passage, 134.
194passag~, 134.
.
195 Maur~ce , 90 ..
196 Fors ter, '" Snm,'l' Wedgewood", in Two Cheers, 207 ..
197Forster, "Ed''1ard Carpenter", in TV-TO Cheers, 216-17.
198Maurice, ~erN~ No~~, 217.
199Nige1 Dennis, "The Love That Levels", rpt.
in Gardner, fritica1 Heritage, 466.
 222

200Howards, 66.
201 p • N • Furbank's comments are recorded by
Joseph Epstein in IIMaurice ll , New York Times Book
Review, (Oct. 10/71), p. 2.
202Eptstein, IIMaurice", 2.
203passage, 212.
204passage, 212.
205 K.W. Gransden, E.M. Forster,
(Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1962), p. 69.
206A• Berland, IIJames and Forster: The Morality
of C1ass ll , Cambridge Journal, VI (Feb. 1953), p. 260.
207Howards, 44.
208Tri11ing, 119.
209Howards, 24.
210Howards, 27.
211Howards, 21.
212Howards, 21.
213Howards, 39.
214Howards
-' 39.
215 Howards, 35.
216 HOl,Alards , 44.
217Howards, 130.
218HoVlards, 37.
219Howards, 290.
220Tri11ing, 125.
221Howards, 58.
222Howards, 132.
223Howards, 15.
 223
224Maurice, 81.
225Maurice, 81.
226Howards, 250.
227Howards, 25.
228Maurice, 88-90.
229Maurice, 93.
230Maurice, 23.
231Maurice, 93.
232 Maur ice, 146.
233Maurice, 149.
234Maurice, 188.
235Maurice, 188.
236 Maur ice, 132.
23 7Maur ice, 135.
238Maurice, 174.
23 9Maur ice, 175.
240 Maur ice, 201.
241 Maur ice, 179.
242 v ivian Mercier, lIMaurice: A Means of Grace",
The Nation, CCXVIII, 18 (Nov .. 29, 1971) , 565.
243 Maur ice, 196.
244r'4aurice, 181.
245 Maur ice, 197.
246 Maur ice, 199.

247passage, 12.
248passage, 18.
 224

249
Passage, 24.
250passage, 21.
251passage, 38-9.
252passage, 38.
253passage, 42.
254passage, 50.
255passage, 51.
256passage, 77-8 ..
257passage, 71.

258passage, 79.

259passage, 78.
260passage, 78.
261passage, 65 ..
262passage, 61 ..
263passage, 62.
264passage, 62.
265passage, 71.
266passage, 253.
267Finkelstein, 129 ..
268passage, 46.
269passage, 144.
270passage, 143.
271passage, 143.

272 F inke1stein, 134.

273Finkelstein, 134.
 225

274~rice, 180-1.
275passage, 100.

2 76Passage, 127.

277Cre\"s, 100.
278passage, 228 ..
2 79passage, 288.
280passage, 288.
281passage, 289~

282passage, 289 ..
283passage, 317.
284passage, 317 ..
 226

NOTES TO CONCLUSION

l E •M• Forster, A Passage To India (1924;

rpt. Harrnondsworth: Penguin, 1974), 85.
2passage- , 135.

3passage, 103.
4
Passage, 270.
5passage, 281.

6passage, 283 ..

7Frank Kermode, "A Queer Business",

Atlantic Monthly, (Nov .. 1/71), 142.
8 E •M• Forster, Maurice,
(London: Edward Arnold, 1971), 26.

9Bonnie Finkelstein, 143.

10Maurice, 69.
11Maurice, 167 ..
12 1-1.aurice, 167 ..

13Maurice, 206.
14Maurice, 204.

15Maurice, 204 ..

J6

1'7
I ~~DV~
cf. -f' • +- J ~.90 J • : - , : If ,h1st'" s Gino h:,s r: 11cd
_
'
to ?hil.i;, or S~cJhon to ~ick~0, ~o, too, Frcrld¥ i~­
t·bt:".lOl_.1_S~_.:T hCC~\.f)ns . - ~-;_ s t11 tJ_J.c ~nml1_t:}.nj(""'n,:: e _ . H .

13
E .. ~If. Forster, Hrph~.
.C::ho:':"t S-torios, (l9h7;
p .. 99oo
 227

LIST OF WORKS CONSULTED

TEXTS BY E.M. FORSTER

(a) Novels
Forster, Edward Morgan. Where Angels Fear To Trea£.
~dinburgh: Edward Arnold, 1905) •
Reprinted 1920. (In Canada: Random House, Toronto)

--------. The Longest Journey.

[Edinburgh: Edward Arnold, 190~.
Reprinted 1962. (In Canada: Random House, Toronto.)

--------. A Room With_A View.

London: Edward Arnold, 1908.
Reprinted 1974. (In Canada: Penguin, Toronto.)
-------- Howards End.
London: Edward Arnold, 1910.
Reprinted Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974.

--------. A Pa~sage To India.

London: Edward Arnold, 1924.
Reprinted Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974.
-------- Maurice.
Introduction by P.N. Furbank. London: Edward
Arnold, 1971.
Reprinted Harmondsworth: penguin, 1972.
 228

(b) Stories
--------. The Celestial Omnibus and Other Stories.
[London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1911]. Reprinted -1920.
-------- The Eternal Moment and Other Stories.
London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1928.
--------. Collected Short Stories of E.M. Forster.
[London': Sidg~Tick & Jackson; 1947]. Repr inteci-
Glasgow: Univ. Press, 1948.

--------. Albergo Empedocle and Other writings.

Edited, with an Introduction, by George H. Thomson.
New York: Liveright, 1971.
--------. The Life To Come, and Other Stories.
Edited by Oliver Stal1ybrass. The Abinger Edition
of E.M. Forster, VIII. London: Edward Arnold, 1972.

(c) Selected Other writings

--------. Alexandria: A History and a Guide.
(Alexandria, 1922]. Reprinted New York: Doubleday,
1968.

--------. Pharos and Pharillon. [ ~

3rd ed. London: Hogarth Press, 1923~.

-------- Aspects of the Novel.

London: Edward Arnold, 1927. Reprinted at
Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972.
--------. Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson.
London: Edward Arnold, 1934.

--------. Abinger Harves~.

London: Edward Arnold, 1936.
Reprinted at Harmondworth: Penguin, 1974
-------- Two Cheers for Democracy.
London: Edward Arnold, 1951.
Reprinted 1974. (In Canada: Penguin, Toronto.)

--------. The Hill 9f Dev~.

London: Edward Arnold, 1953. Reprinted at
Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1965.
 229

(c) Selected Other Writings (Cont'd)

--------. "Society and the Homosexual: The Abominable
Crime", The New.Statesman and Natio~, October 31,
1953, pp. 508-9.
-------- Marianne Thornton: A Domestic Bi~raphy,
1797-1887. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1956.
 230

CRITICAL STUDIES AND COMMENTARY

Ackerley, J.R. E.M. Forster: A Portrait.

London: Ian McKelvie, 1970, 27 pp.
Alvarez, A. IIE.M e Forster: From Snobbery to Lovell,
?aturdav Review, October 16, 1971, ppe 39-43.
Annan, Noel. IILove Storyll, The Nev., York Review of Books,
October 21, 1971, pp. 12-19.
Berland, Alwyn. IIJames and Forster: The Morality of
Class ll , Cambridg,e Journal, VI (February, 1953),
259-80.
Book Review Digest. Edited by Josephine Samudio.
New York: H.H. Wilson, 1970-74.
Borrello, Alfred. E.M. Forster: An Annotated
Bibliography of Secondary Materials. -
New Jersey: Scarecrow, 1973.
Bradbury, Malcolm, ed. Forster: A Collection of critical
Essay~. Twentieth Century Views. Englewood Cliffs,
New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1966.
-------- IIForster, 1879-1970 11 , in A.E. Dyson, ed.,
The English Novell. Select J3.:i:bliographical Guides.
London: Oxford Univ., 1974, pp. 314-34.
IIA Chalice For Youth ll , Times Literary Supplement,
October 8, 1971, pp. 1215-16.
Clemons, Walt. IIMaurice ll 1/ Nev.Ts,.veek, October 11, 1971, p.9S.
Gfews, Frederick C. BeM. Forster: The.?erils of Humanism.
London: Oxford Univ., 1962.
Epstein, Joseph. IIMaurice ll , Ne\v York Times Book Review.
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Finkelstein, Bonnie B. Forster's Women:~te£~l Diff~rence~.
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 231

Gardner, Philip, ed. E.M. Forster: The Critical

~eritage. London and Boston: Routledge and
Kegan Paul, 1973.
Gerber, Helmut E. IIE.M. Forster: An Annotated
Checklist of ~vritings About Him II , English Literature
in Trans i tion. (1880-1920), ii (Spring 1959).
Gransden, K.W. E.M. Forster.
Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1962.
Johnstone, J.K. The Bloomsbury GrouR: A Study of
E.M. Forster, Lytton Strachey, Virgini~ WoolfL~nd
their Circle. London: Secker & Warburg, 1954.
Kermode, Frank. IIA Queer Business", A'!;lantic Monthly,
November I, 1971, pp. 140-44.
Kirkpatrick, B.J. A Bibliog:,raphy of E.M. _Forster,.
Revised ed. The Soho Bibliographies, XIX.
London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1968.
Lehmann-Haupt, Christopher.
"A Major I Ne'it,l' I Forster Novelli,
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Levis, Anthony. IIMaurice ll Ne",'1 York Times Book Reviews,
November 11, 1971, p. ,)35.
Macaulay, Rose. ~he writings of B.N. Forster.
Published by Leonard and Virginia Woolf.
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Martin, Richard. The Love that Failed.
The Hague-Paris: Mouton, 1974.
McConkey, James. ~he Novels of B.M. Forster.
New York: Cornell, 195~.
McDowell, Frederick P.W. E.N. Forster.
New York; Twayne, 1969.
--------, IIE.M. Forster: Annotated Secondary Bibliographyll,
English Literature in Transition, XIII, 2
(E.M. Forster Memorial Volume, 1970), 93-173.
-------- liThe E.M .. Forster Bibliography of Secondary
writings: Some Preliminary Observations ll ,
English Literature in Transition, XIII, 2
(1970),89-92.
 232

Mercier, Vivian. IIMaurice ll : A Means of Grace ll ,

The Nation, November 29, 1971, p. 565.
Meyers, Jeffrey. IIFizzling Sexual Time Bombs ll ,
Commonwealth, September 21, 1973, p. 506.
-------- IIE.M. Forster and T.E. Law'rence: A Friendshipll,
~outh Atlantic Quarterly, LXI, (1970), 205-216.
-------- IIIVacant Heart and Hand and Eye: The
Homosexual Theme in a Room with a View ll ,
English Literature in TEansition XIII, 3 (1970),
181-192.
Miller, Karl. IIForster and his Merry Men ll
,

New York Review of Books, June 28, 1973.

IINow they Can be Told", rev. of The Life to Come and
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Supplement, October 13, 1972, p. 1215.
Pritchett, V. S. II The Upholstered Prison II ,

New Statesman, October 8, 1971.

Spender, Stephen. IIIn Memoriam: E.M. Forster ll ,
New York Revie'w' of Books, XV, 2 (July 23, 1970).
Stallybrass, Oliver, ed., Aspects of E.M. Forster
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Stone, Wilfred. The Cave and the Mountain: A Study
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Reprinted New York: New Directions, 1964.
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May 13, 1973, p. 27.
l-'1ilde, Alan. Art and Order: A Study of E.M. Forster.
New York: University, 1964.
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