A Room with a View- E.M. Forster

A Room with a View is a novel written by E.M. Forster and published in 1908. The novel tells the story of a well brought up girl, Lucy Honeychurch, and her falling in love with a similarly young but endlessly more eccentic boy named George Emerson. George and his father, Mr Emerson, represent a new generation of thinkers distinctly different to Lucy and the rigid Edwardian society that restrains her. Goerge's persistent claim that he "shall want to live" and the confusion this evokes in Lucy is just one of many examples of how George's enlightened outlook on life is greatly contrasted to the strict Victorian culture which is criticised by Forster in the novel.

Despite Forster presenting Lucy as thouroughly naive and frustratingly conventional in the face of love, there are hints to a more interesting character which has merely been supressed by the society in which she has been brought up. For example, Lucy enjoys playing the piano and appears to be adept at doing so, causing the amiable Mr Beebe to comment that "if Miss Honeychurch ever takes to live, as she plays, it would be very exciting- both for us- and for her." Furthermore it is often after playing Beethoven that Lucy's emotions are most heightened; Mr Beebe once remarks that "naturally one would be- stirred up..." The metaphor of music as a form of escape continues to the extent that after Lucy and George witness a man being killed in the Piazzo Signoria, Lucy feels she has "crossed some spiritual boundary" and the roar of the river Arno is described as an "unexpected melody to her ears." The use of the word "melody" suggests that Lucy's enlightenment to the snobbery of the Edwardian society that surrounds her will have it's groundings in music.

Although I have not explored the novel in great detail (and may edit this piece after further study) I have established the that in Lucy and George, Forster has created two lovers who have to overcome greatly prejudiced societies in order to be together. This idea is recurrent in history (Romeo and Juliet springs to mind, as does Pride and Prejudice) and the concept of love overcoming great obstacles represents an aspect of courtly love which has been popularly employed by writers both past and present.