E.M. Forster: An Invented Life

Edward Morgan Forster was the author of several novels, popular both in the early twentieth century and in the present. During his writing career, he enjoyed success and endured criticism. Fame, however, seems to have been relatively less of a concern to Forster than another factor: that his writing enabled him to advocate his secret ideals, air criticisms, declare personal needs, and indulge in the fantasy of his preferred lifestyle. Forster was a man stifled by convention and a domineering, possessive mother. A key theme in many of his novels and stories was the incongruity between people's true convictions and what they pretended to feel for the sake of those around them (Beauman 139). "He knew...he would never break free: and out of the bonds he would create literature" (140). Through an examination of two of his lesser acclaimed novels, it becomes clear that E.M. Foster created characters which many times were autobiographical and who reflected his own suppressed desires, while having the courage to act upon them in spite of opposition.

Forster's early values were shaped by his family members. As his personality began to develop, he realized that the beliefs of his family were in sharp contrast to what his temperament would allow him to accept. Slowly and subtly he began to rebel (Beauman 33). At one point, he renounced organized religion (33), and in his second year at King's College, he completely abandoned his Christian faith. In his novel, Maurice, the title character is in his early years at Cambridge when he, too, gives up Christianity. In each case, the respective family was not alarmed, optimistically assuming that their wayward son would eventually return to his faith (33). In A Room With a View, Lucy Honeychurch has been "accustomed to having her thoughts confirmed by others" (Forster, Room 49). She experiences fleeting surges of rebellion when she first finds herself having to make an effort to feel things she knows she should but can't and be honest with herself. In the end, her salvation from smothering convention comes when she discovers her own truth and acts upon it.

Often Forster wrote of pastoral themes (Beauman 233), displaying his preference for country life. He found it full of purity, integrity, and values such as love, kindness, and spiritual freedom. He believed that town life, while essentially opposite in every way, was nonetheless held in higher regard by society (233). In A Room With a View, Lucy, who grew up in the country, "learnt to speak with horror of Suburbia" (Forster, Room 119). It was from this simple environment that her fiancee, Cecil Vyse, wishes to rescue her (118). Cecil is representative of the aristocratic snobbishness that Forster despised. In Maurice, Forster goes a step further by attributing a failing England to the decadence of aristocracy (McDowell 94). He describes Penge, Clive Durham's large estate, as falling apart at the seams. Yet it was in the country that Maurice and Clive were first able to spend simple, leisurely time together.

Forster was a model of non-resistance and passive obedience, loathe to give offense to anyone (Beauman 33). In A Room With a View, he creates a person whom he certainly envied: Mr. Emerson. Here was an old man who always said what he thought, who had "no tact and no manners" (Room 9), yet who is an admirable character in spite, or perhaps, because of it. Again, herein lies the theme of true feelings versus pretense. Lucy, the heroine, is strongly influenced by Emerson, and beginning of her liberation comes when her rebellious thoughts finally manifest themselves in spoken word (Room 57).

Another bond Forster must have felt with Lucy was the desire for a bosom friend. At a very young age, Morgan felt the absence of a confidant, and always he felt both a need for love and a longing to love (Beauman 242). In A Room With a View, Lucy feels "that the candle would burn better...the world would be happier if she could give and receive some human love" (Room 82).

Forster searched all of his life, but failed to find someone on whom he could lavish all of the love and tenderness stored up inside of him. The fact that all the objects of his affection were men was undoubtably part of the struggle. It was this aspect of himself that he felt so forced to conceal and the reason for much of his unhappiness. Once again, he created a character through which he could channel his frustrations. Homosexuality is not the only major similarity between E.M. Forster and Maurice Hall. Maurice, from an upper-middle class society, first loves Clive, who is from the same economic and intellectual level as himself. Ultimately Maurice is rejected when Clive refused to allow their relationship to extend beyond Platonic perimeters. Maurice finally finds happiness when he becomes sexually involved with lower-class, uneducated Alec, a servant in Clive's house. "Forster thougth sex was an attribute of love and...ultimately indispensable" (Annan 17). He also often chose men below his class and intellectual level to become involved with, such as a chauffeur and a ship steward (Beauman 345). The difference between Forster and Maurice were the elements of happiness and true love; Maurice abandons his family and their expectations to live a life with the man he loved and therein finds happiness. Forster only allowed himself brief and clandestine affairs, for he did not have the courage to choose his homosexuality as a public lifestyle. Consequently, he never found true love, for "Love meant...a lifelong involvement, changing its shape no doubt, but not something that would turn out to be a transitory affair" (Annan 17).

Forster decided to write Maurice after experiencing tragedy in his own life. An acquaintance of Forster's, Ernest Merz, committed suicide out of guilt resulting from his relationship with another man. Though Forster had only known Merz for a short time, he never got over this event (Beauman 226). Maurice Hall's life resembled Merz's in some ways, and it was at the same point in their lives that they both contemplate suicide. The resemblance stops there, however; Merz executes this thought while Maurice endures his suffering long enough to finally achieve happiness. Maurice is a plea for homosexuals to be allowed to have the same happiness as heterosexuals (Beauman 233), and ends in a positive light. Maurice's acceptance of his sexuality, though, will make him a permanent rebel (McDowell 86). Although Maurice was not published until after his death, it must have been liberating for Forster to write, for he once said that he could repress sexuality but not literature (Beauman 245).

E.M. Forster died not having ever fully lived the sort of life he craved: being able to speak his mind and heart without reservation, and being accepted for his homosexuality. He never learned "not to sin against the light...to chose fulfillment in passion rather than comfort in convention" (McDowell 92). Yet, through Lucy, Maurice, and other characters, Forster was able, to a degree, to live honestly and courageously, with the ultimate triumph of truth.

Works Cited

Annan, Noel. "Love Story." The New York Review of Books. New York Review of Books, Inc. 21 October 1971: 12-19
Beauman, Nicola. E.M. Forster: A Biography. New York: A.A. Knopf, 1994.
Forster, E.M. A Room With a View. New York: Barnes and Noble, Inc., 1993.
Forster, E.M. Maurice. New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 1971.
McDowell, Frederick P.W. E.M. Forster. New York: Twayne Publishers Inc., 1969.