A Room With A View and Its Relevance to the Edwardian Era

535 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Gender role in the Victorian era

Essay Proposal for A Room with a View and its Relevance to the Edwardian Era The time period of the Edwardian Era in England was a period of sexual politics, mindless triviality, tensions between social security and individual freedom and wavering belief in God and religion. The Edwardian age is sometimes called the "golden age" where extravagant parties and high fashion are all everyone cares about. First impressions and formalities are so important, they matter more than freedom of speech and expression. Women have many restrictions placed upon them. Duty is more important than love. People who are unique or different are to be shunned by society. These are the rules of the early modern era in which Forster wrote his novel, A Room with a View. The issues of class snobbery and a too formal and strict society play a large part in Forster’s, A Room with a View indicating it was written in the Edwardian Age. 1. The upper-middle class is the dominant class of society in England. These people are the tourists that fill the British pensions in Italy. They valued coherence to the r...

Show More
Related

  • Poverty and Humanity in I Had Seen Castles

    629 Words  | 2 Pages

    Walk through a door, and enter a new world. For John, raised in home resplendent with comfort and fine things, Ginny’s family’s apartment above the fruit market is a radically different environment than his own. Economic differences literally smack him in the face, as he enters the door and walks into towel hung to dry. “First lesson: how the poor do laundry” (Rylant 34). In this brief, potent scene, amidst “shirts, towels, underwear, pillowcases” hanging in a room strung with clotheslines, historical fiction finds crucial expression in the uncomfortable blush of a boy ready for a first date and unprepared for the world in which he finds himself.

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Analysis Of Tingle's The Vexation Of Class

    796 Words  | 2 Pages

    The working class stays working and the middle class stays being middle. Author Nick Tingle, wrote “The vexation of class”, he argues that the working class and the middle class are separated educationally based on culture and the commonplace. Tingle uses his own personal experiences and Ethos, to effectively prove his point about the difference in class based on culture ; although, Tingle also falls short by adding unnecessary information throughout the article that weakens his belief entirely.

    Read More

  • Summary Of Samuel Butler's 'The Way Of All Flesh'

    1508 Words  | 4 Pages

    When Victorian Era, England is brought up in most context’s it is used to exemplify a calm and more refined way of life; however, one may overlook how the children of this era were treated and how social class systems affected them. Samuel Butler’s The Way of All Flesh is a novel written to take a closer look at the life of children growing up in the unfair social hierarchy of Victorian Era England. Butler’s main characters are Theobald and Ernest, who grow up during the time period; Overton, who is Ernest’s godfather, is the narrator of the novel and provides insight into Theobald and Ernest as they mature through the novel. Theobald is the son of a wealthy, strict, and abusive father who treats him with no mercy, but leaves him with a rather significant inheritance from his Christian publishing company, at his death. Ernest is the son of Theobald, who beats him with a stern fits over even the pettiest things in

    Read More

  • Writing Well by Donald Hall

    699 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the comparison of the college student's two expressions of his first impression of his dorm, Hall disregards the first passage as 'sloppy – slangy and fragmentary.'; He praises the second passage as suspenseful and detailed and suggests that the author has 'made great strides'; and has 'put some thought into creating a scene.'; I, however, find the second passage to be dull and watered-down, over-edited, and false sounding. Although the first passage could be improved by explaining where he was, what the disaster entailed, and who the funny-looking guy was, its honesty far outweighs the literary correctness of the second passage.

    Read More

  • Frankenstein, Community, and the Individual

    1689 Words  | 4 Pages

    Stillinger, Jack, Deidre Lynch, Stephen Greenblatt, and M H. Abrams. The Norton Anthology of English Literature: Volume D. New York, N.Y: W.W. Norton & Co, 2006. Print.

    Read More

  • A Room With A View Analysis

    1873 Words  | 4 Pages

    E.M. Forster 's A Room with a View tells the story of Lucy Honeychurch 's excursion to Italy with her older, unmarried, less wealthy cousin, Charlotte Bartlett. Lucy’s time in Italy proved the notion that Italy can have great affects on anyone. While in Italy, Lucy met a distinctive group of people who were also residing at the Pension Bertolini. The group included clergy members, a writer, and some who just loved to travel the world. They were of various social statuses, temperament and political views. Most of the members of the group were older than Lucy and offered worldly, insightful, wisdom. The pension guests opened Lucy’s eyes, heart and mind to diversity in people, perspectives and opinions. Lucy 's exposure to thoughts and

    Read More

  • A Room With a View: Victorian v. Edwardian

    2326 Words  | 5 Pages

    A Room With a View is a novel written by E.M. Forster in 1908. In the novel, the protagonist, Lucy, must choose between her limited but safe Victorian lifestyle and the opportunity of an exciting but scary Edwardian future. This choice is reflected in the attitudes of the two men she considers marrying, Victorian Cecil Vyse or the Edwardian George Emerson. The characters in A Room With a View have extremely contrasting attitudes and behaviors because some are Victorian and others are Edwardian.

    Read More

  • being lucy

    913 Words  | 2 Pages

    In E.M Forster’s novel A Room With A View, Lucy Honeychurch serves as the central character and heroine who is bridled by her social upbringing in a time when shifts in society are prevalent. Lucy is tied to other characters in the book that Forster has written to represent the slowly diminishing Victorian Era and she is introduced to characters that represent the accelerating approach of the Edwardian era. She is an ordinary, proper English girl with an extraordinary view of beauty in the world around her and a multitude of untapped reserves of passion. Through the characters placed in her life, her unknowing passions and her central being, this novel shows the evolution of a young girl into a woman of purpose and choice.

    Read More

  • Persuasion, by Jane Austen

    1909 Words  | 4 Pages

    Jane Austen’s novel Persuasion emanates the social and political upheaval caused by the war and depicts the transition into nineteenth century realism where class and wealth was considered extremely important in the social hierarchy. She explores the reactions to the newly diverse interactions between different social classes and although she was “no snob, she knew all about snobbery.” Therefore, she is able to realistically portray the views of upper class characters such as Sir Walter Elliot and contrast them to men who have earned their wealth, such as Captain Wentworth. Whilst Britain was involved with the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars in the early nineteenth century, the navy had a profound involvement therefore this is not only reflected in Austen’s real life, but also in her novels. This alters the narrative in the novel as a whole as Austen depicts how wealth and being upper class is no longer limited to hereditory but can also be earned through professions such as being in the navy. As a result, the contrasts between the opinions and actions of the men who work for their wealth and the men who merely receive it from their family are profound.

    Read More

  • Howards End by E.M. Foster

    990 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the novel Howards End by E.M. Forster, the notion of connection is one that is evident throughout the novel. Forster captures this notion through the contrast of the Schlegels and the Wilcoxes who represent very different approaches to life. The Schlegel family represent the liberal intelligentsia and social attitudes of a rapidly expanding and changing London in the era in which this novel was written. With German ancestry their continental manners, philosophy and culture convey a cosmopolitanism that finds understanding and nourishment in their social circle. On the other hand, the Wilcoxes encompass a more traditional British outlook on life and socially morality, and unlike the Schlegels, they are portrayed as moralistic, chauvinistic and pragmatic. This essay will therefore analyse Howards End in order to illustrate the differences between the Schlegels and Wilcoxes, more specifically Margaret and Henry, and how their opposing views of “only connect” and concentrate”, the “seen” and “unseen” and their “inner” verses “outer” lives, clash but manage to integrate to find a common ground.

    Read More

  • Compare the Presentation of Foreigners Abroad in Indian Ink and Room with a View

    2085 Words  | 5 Pages

    Indian Ink and A Room with a View are both set in different eras. A Room with a View is set in the Edwardian era when, like the central character in the book, people were beginning to challenge Victorian attitudes about emotion and sexuality and old ideas about class and religion. It was published in 1908 and was Forster's third novel. Forster's characters, like Forster himself lived in the time of the British Empires pinnacle. The novel is about a young woman, Lucy Honeychurch, whose love for a British socialist and experiences in Florence cause her to question the values that society has imposed on her. It is particularly interesting that the novel is set in Florence, which was the centre of the Renaissance. The word renaissance means rebirth and this could be symbolic of the rebirth of Lucy's ideas and values. Indian Ink is written as a play and is set in the 1930s and 1980s. In the 1930s the scene is set in India which belongs to the British Empire. At this time a young poet named Flora Crewe who is visiting finds herself poised between two very different societies. The 1980s section of the play is set in England where sixty years after the poet has died, her sister and the son of the artist that Flora associated with come together. Although it is written as a play it reads as though it has been written as a novel as it is very descriptive describing even the colour of Flora's `cornflower blue dress'.

    Read More

  • Description Of Sense And Sensibility By Jane Austen

    721 Words  | 2 Pages

    In nineteenth century England, home life was quite different but also similar to this time period. In Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen she shows this time period beautifully. She

    Read More

  • The Significance of 'First Impressions' in 'Pride and Prejudice'

    1374 Words  | 3 Pages

    During the 19th Century, first impressions were very important. The reader is presented with Meryton, a highly structured class society which judges people on superficial qualities, such as physical appearance, social status, clothes, possessions, behaviour, dialogue. The message Austen positions the reader to understand, is that a society which makes its judgements based on first impressions is immoral and unjust. (-She uses ‘humour’ to help convey this in a less-serious tone.)

    Read More

  • Class Distinction in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice

    996 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...y a set of expectations and values that are established on mannerisms and conduct challenged by Elizabeth. From this novel, it is evident that the author wrote it with awareness of the class issues that affect different societies. Her annotations on the fixed social structure are important in giving a solution to the current social issues; that even the class distinctions and restrictions can be negotiated when an individual turns down bogus first impression s.

    Read More

  • Analysis of Class in Henry Fielding's Joseph Andrew

    1986 Words  | 4 Pages

    Fielding sates that in his novel Joseph Andrews that he aims to “ describe not men, but manners;not an individual, but a species”1. He goes on to state that his aim is “not to expose one pitiful wretch to the small and contemptible circle of his acquaintance, but to hold the glass to thousands in their closets, that they may contemplate their deformity, and endeavour to reduce it, and thus by suffering private mortification may avoid public shame”2. Here we can see that Fielding is suggesting that this novel will contain characters we will recognise and he hopes that in recognising certain characters and laughing at their supposed superiority that we in turn will look at ourselves and perhaps rectify our behaviour. Therefore it could be said that in this novel we will come across characters from different classes and in this essay I will examine the presentation of class in Joseph Andrews.

    Read More

More about A Room With A View and Its Relevance to the Edwardian Era

Open Document