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).