In E.M. Forster's novels Howard's End and A Room With a View, his characters Margaret and Lucy are challenged to overcome the class barriers that restrict them in early 1900's British society and although they are initially conflicted between their own morals and the morals accepted by society they eventually triumph because of their good sense of morality and their strong moral characters.
In Howard's End E.M. Forster explores the divisions between the classes and try's to examine which class of people would come to define England. He explores this through the lives of three very different families all coming from different social classes but are all mysteriously intertwined. The Schlegel's who are literary and artistic. The Wilcox's who embody conventional morality, and the impoverished Bast's who are lower-middle class but have a spark of idealism that set them apart from most people in their state of being. It is Margaret who is most torn between the class divisions and must learn to accept both her sister's idealism and her husband's conventional ideals.
In the novel a Room with a View Lucy struggles between the strict old-fashioned views of her cousin and the more liberal views of t
Eleanor proves herself to be of a more liberal nature than more traditional women, she does not believe that a woman should be quite and mind her opinions. She is a supporter of women gaining the vote and is unafraid to sate her ideals to any who are willing to listen. Her and her sister Helen have discussions at their home about popular social, economic and political current events. Margaret invites Mrs. Wilcox to one of her debates and Mrs. Wilcox is quite shocked but at the same time intrigued by the heated discussions and the amount of independence shown by Margaret and Helen.
he worldly people she has met abroad and at home in England. Lucy is torn between the voice of her cousin Charlotte telling her to act appropriately and to do what is expected of her and the voice of the more liberal Emerson's telling her to follow her heart and explore life as she would her music.
Margaret proves herself to have fallen even further into the traps of the upper class society that she has become involved with. At Evie's wedding it is revealed to her that Jacky Bast and her fiance Henry Wilcox had an affair with Jacky Bast ten years earlier. Margaret is quick to forgive Henry for his affair despite the fact that she was a friend of his first wife Ruth Wilcox and this indiscretion shows a lot about his character and perhaps the manner in which he may treat Margaret in the future. Margaret practically begs Henry for his forgiveness over the whole matter, because she is af
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