I recently read ‘A room with a view’ by E.M. Forster as part of my wider reading for the A2 English Literature course I’m currently taking. We’re all supposed to read a wide range of texts from all ages which relate in some way to love. This text, I feel, will be helpful for the course as it really shows the reader how love was regarded during the period, which will contrast well with texts from earlier and later periods as it was written during a time when ideas and attitudes were drastically changing.
About the Author: E.M. Forster is an English novelist, short story writer and essayist. He is famous for studying and writing about class differences and hypocrisy in early 20th century Britain. He is also well-known for his irony and well-plotted stories. As a writer, Forster’s style intrigues me and I will hopefully be delving into a few more of his works.
Background of the text: The Edwardian era in which the novel is set is very much like the Victorian in that the class system was still very rigid and women’s rights were still unequal to men’s. For example, during marriage disputes women still often lost the rights to their children. Women’s work opportunities were also low and therefore single mothers were the poorest sector in society at the time.
Summary: A room with a view features Lucy Honeychurch, a young English girl from Surrey, and her trip to Italy where she meets a young man George Emerson, who is of a much lower class. It details her decision between him, who she falls in love with, and her more suitable fiancé, Cecil Vyse. There is a constant battle within the character Lucy between the more liberal lifestyle or the conventional, traditional one that she has been brought up in.
Style: The novel is written in third person and continually changes perspective throughout in order that we get a more rounded and varied view of all the characters. For instance, there is often a passage in the perspective of Mr Beebe, the clergyman of the village, watching Lucy play the piano and he muses about how there is more to her personality than meets the eye as her playing is passionate and not precise and ladylike. This warns the reader that she may become a more careless person later on. This is effective as if it were solely from the point of view of Lucy it would be quite one sided and plain.
Characters: The main characters of the novel are:
- Lucy Honeychurch is the main heroine. She is an upper middle class young woman and during the novel she is in the position of choosing between upper class falsities and true love.
- Miss Bartlett is Lucy’s older cousin and an “old maid” and she tries to keep Lucy “proper” throughout. She has extremely old-fashioned ideals.
- George Emerson is a lower class young man who is passionate and truthful. He has a desire to “live” in his words. He falls in love with Lucy in Italy.
- Cecil Vyce is a disrespectful and rude man who is Lucy’s fiancé. He dislikes Lucy’s family and thinks of them as below him as he is from the more sophisticated London.
- Mr Emerson is George’s father and he is also of a lower class. He is a free thinker and very liberal in his ideas. He has a tendency to break social conventions which makes the up
per classes think of him as brash.
Themes: A Room With A View talks about many issues of Edwardian society:
- Repressed sexual freedom and sexism: Forster personifies the repressed, impressionable generation of women at the time through the character of Lucy. It details largely how she is overprotected by her elders, mostly Miss Bartlett whom she goes to Italy with. On the trip Miss Bartlett refuses to let Lucy travel around Italy by herself, doesn’t let her on the train as it is “unladylike”, and disallows her to talk to Mr Emerson and his son, George. After George shares a kiss with Lucy, Miss Bartlett makes them both leave the area. This shows how she is being repressed and controlled by an expectation of how she should behave. Sexism is also shown through the actions of the males in the texts and mostly Cecil Vyce, Lucy’s fiancé as he in constantly controlling her and telling her what to do and how to act. He reportedly thinks of Lucy as if she is an “object on a shelf”
- Class differences: The class differences are shown through the different characters within the novel. George Emerson and his father are from a much lower class to the Honeychurches and everyone else. To begin with, Lucy and Miss Bartlett think of the Emersons as rash as they don’t speak as if they are “genteel” and they try to avoid them. However, after conversing with the Emersons further Lucy seems to start to enjoy the free-thinking nature of the Emersons.
- True love: In the novel there is an internal battle within Lucy between true love and following what others expect and want her to do. Forster represents true love as a powerful force which some feel must be suppressed. Lucy often discusses her battle against true love as she tries desperately to ignore her feelings for George. Forster uses battle related language in Lucy’s speeches and inner dialogues.
This is an overview of most of the aspects of the novel but I’ll be returning very soon to review how I felt about certain parts, and the novel as a whole. Thank you for reading my tiresome drawl!
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