Social Class and Identity in Forster and Woolf's Novels

Introduction: The View as Social Metaphor

At the beginning of E.M. Forster's novel A Room with a View, the inn's guest Mr. Emerson declares: "I have a view, I have a view. . . . This is my son . . . his name's George. He has a view, too." On the most basic level, this statement is just as it appears: Mr. Emerson is talking about what he can see outside his window. However, the comment also suggests one of the major themes of this book, as well as another early twentieth-century novel, Jacob's Room by Virginia Woolf: that is, the view one social class holds of another. These novels by Forster and Woolf describe their times in socio-economic terms while also exploring how their characters relate to those conditions.

A Room with a View: Lucy Honeychurch and Social Constraints

Forster's novel A Room with a View details the experiences of the young middle-class Englishwoman Lucy Honeychurch in the early 1900s during a visit to Florence, Italy, as she tries to resolve the inconsistencies between what she has been taught about her social status and what she personally desires from life. In a light yet poignant manner, Forster clearly depicts the conflicting social standards in Europe at this time. In her essay "Death of a Moth," Woolf herself praised Forster's portrayal of social realities:

"The social historian will find his books full of illuminating information. . . . Old maids blow into their gloves when they take them off. Mr. Forster is a novelist . . . who sees his people in close contact with their surroundings . . . But we discover as we turn the page that observation is not an end in itself; it is rather the goad, the gadfly driving Mr. Forster to provide a refuge from this misery, an escape from this meanness. Hence we arrive at that balance of forces which plays so large a part in the structure of Mr. Forster's novels."

In the opening chapters of A Room with a View, Lucy is traveling with her very protective older cousin and chaperon, Charlotte Bartlett. From the very beginning, the reader sees how women of Lucy and Charlotte's social standing quickly stereotype the unconventional behavior of others — such as the so-called "ill-bred" Mr. Emerson, who interrupts a conversation:

"The ladies' voices grew animated, and — if the sad truth be owned — a little peevish. They were tired, and under the guise of unselfishness they wrangled. Some of their neighbours interchanged glances, and one of them — one of the ill-bred people whom one does meet abroad — leant forward over the table and actually intruded into their argument."

The situation only worsened in Charlotte's eyes when Mr. Emerson adamantly suggested that Lucy take his "room with the view."

"Miss Bartlett, though skilled in the delicacies of conversation, was powerless in the presence of brutality. It was impossible to snub any one so gross. Her face reddened with displeasure. She looked around as much as to say, 'Are you all like this?' And two little old ladies, who were sitting further up the table, with shawls hanging over the backs of the chairs, looked back, clearly indicating 'We are not; we are genteel.'"

However, Lucy, being younger, has not yet reached the point of reflexively dismissing others as her cousin has. Instead, she is torn between the expectation to ignore Mr. Emerson and his son and her genuine desire to include them in conversation. It is difficult for her to understand why Charlotte is so upset. As the rector Mr. Beebe acknowledges, Mr. Emerson's only faux pas is that he speaks the truth: "It is so difficult — at least, I find it difficult — to understand people who speak the truth," Mr. Beebe notes.

It is this honest and open view of life, as embodied by Mr. Emerson, that ultimately helps Lucy break free from her own room of social confinement and recognize how much more life has to offer. For Lucy, Mr. Emerson becomes the "kind old man who enabled her to see the lights dancing in the Arno" (13). He helps resolve her internal conflict, teaching her that love cannot simply be discarded: "You can transmute love, ignore it, muddle it, but you can never pull it out of you. I know by experience that the poets are right: love is eternal" (25).

Gender, Equality, and Personal Freedom in Forster's Novel

It is not only Forster's belief in the equality of classes that is depicted in A Room with a View. Through the Emersons, he also portrays his belief — largely unaccepted at the time — in sexual equality. Mr. Emerson and George strongly argue for men and women to be recognized on equal footing. One of the reasons Lucy does not follow her heart sooner is that she fears refuting the expectations not only of her social class but also of a culture built on sexual inequality. When she returns from her trip, she initially believes she has no right to argue with her mother about the upcoming marriage to Cecil, even though Cecil regards her as a work of art rather than as a living, passionate individual and an equal partner.

By the end of the book, however, Lucy has clearly resolved her emotional turmoil. Italy and its lack of social constraint have shown her the path to inner peace — to self-truth:

"But in Italy, where anyone who chooses may warm himself in equality, as in the sun, this conception of life vanished. 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. You jump over them just as you jump into a peasant's olive-yard in the Apennines, and he is glad to see you. She returned with new eyes. . . . For Italy was offering her the most priceless of all possessions — her own soul." (93)

One of the themes of A Room with a View — which will also be seen to a degree in Jacob's Room — is that travel was an integral part of life for the upper-middle and upper classes during this period in Europe. For younger people like Lucy, it was a means of learning about life while still being protected by a travel companion. Yet whereas most women of that era returned home somewhat more refined and knowledgeable about other cultures, Lucy returns transformed as a different person. When she looks beyond the four walls of her previous "room" — that is, leaves her childhood home — she opens herself to new worlds that she finds far more alluring and fulfilling than the one she has left behind.

Lucy realizes that she wants to leave behind the stagnant, pre-arranged life that awaits her and embrace a new view of life that is more fulfilling for her as a woman and an individual. A room without windows, as she has known it, is isolating and lonely — a duplicitous worldview that shapes and spiritually starves her (26), because she longs to "give and receive some human love," to experience "love felt and returned" (97, 181). A room with a view of an unlimited and exciting future, by contrast, has so much more to offer. She knows that George can provide this, and she loves him all the more for it. She must follow her heart and marry George rather than remain constrained by social convention. Only by being true to herself, and meeting her own expectations rather than those set by others, can she achieve personal contentment and fulfillment.

Conclusion: Empty Rooms and Unfulfilled Potential

Perhaps Jacob would have proved himself distinctive from others. However, he never has the opportunity to do so. His life comes to a very early end, among a multitude of nameless others, during World War I. Neither his background nor his education makes him any more resilient: war is blind to rank and privilege. The description of the houses' "distinction" remains in the final chapter, but Jacob is gone.

The novel ends with Mrs. Flanders and Mr. Bonamy standing in Jacob's college room, where he has left everything in place, as if he might soon return to resume his same social role of attending parties. All his mother has left is an empty pair of shoes — shoes that he, like his father before him, will never fill. "What am I to do with these, Mr. Bonamy?" Mrs. Flanders asks. Jacob's next and final room is the earth around him.

Together, A Room with a View and Jacob's Room use the powerful metaphor of confined and opened spaces to illuminate how social class, gender expectations, and historical circumstance shape — and in Jacob's case, ultimately destroy — individual lives. Where Lucy Honeychurch finds the courage to open her room to the wider world, Jacob Flanders remains imprisoned by his own privilege until there is no room left at all.