Lucy Honeychurch is a dynamic protagonist in A Room with a View and her voyage to Italy drastically changes her perspective about conforming to society. Lucy is from the English middle class, and her family sends her to Italy with her cousin Charlotte for a cultured experience to become more sophisticated and educated. This vacation is irregular; Lucy develops a romantic relationship with George, and she challenges her past judgements of English society. This vacation signifies the beginning of Lucy’s growth as an individual. The title A Room with a View states the progression of Lucy Honeychurch’s accidental journey of introspection and her desire to find independence and escape from English social norms. The start of Lucy’s journey of introspection begins when Lucy arrives in Italy and is the stereotypical English tourist. The conventional English tourist does not care to learn about the foreign people, but he or she is infatuated with the country’s past history and art. The art and history of a country are alluring and disassociate from the stark reality that the people of the country represent. Forster resents the stereotypical English tourist from an early age when travelling with his mother to Italy. Forster conveys his distaste in A Room with a View in two methods. First, he translates “the lack of view [of Lucy and Charlotte’s initial room] as symptomatic of the [English] cultural narrow mindedness” (Sampaio 900). Both Lucy and Charlotte are arrogant when
Identity can be defined as the fact of being whom or what a person is. Internal and external factors shape a child’s concept of their own identity. These factors include the environmental setting, family, community, and the media. In the novel Room by Emma Donoghue, the 5-year-old narrator/protagonist Jack learns his identity through exploring the familiar space he occupies, the close relationship between he and his mother, and watching television. It is clear that Jack faces many challenges, which lead him to discover how his identity is shaped; this is evident through the exploration of him forming personal attachments to his mother, the room he lived in, and the problems he encounters to the new outside
Lucy lectures Eliza on her “coquettish” ways and suggests that she be cautious in her attempt to rebel (7). However, Eliza does not heed Lucy’s advice and continues her quest for her ideal husband.
The setting and time period of this story supports the adventurous innocence of its youthful characters, as well as enriching the story’s momentous and climactic confrontation between the forward-looking Mona, and her more traditional mother, Helen.
A Room with a View, by Edward Morgan Forster, presents the story of Lucy Honeychurch, a young woman belonging to English “high society.'; Foster places this young maiden in a state of conflict between the snobbery of her class, the “suitable and traditional'; views and advice offered by various family members and friends, and her true heart’s desire. This conflict “forces Lucy Honeychurch to choose between convention and passion (Bantam Intro-back cover),'; and throws her into a state of internal struggle, as she must sift through the elements of her “social conditioning'; and discern them from her true emotions and desires. Foster develops and utilizes Lucy’s internal struggle as a means of transforming her from
A Room With a View by E.M. Forster is a classic tale about a girl from Elizabethan era England trying to find independence and purpose in the world. Lucy, the novel’s main character, embarks on a journey to Florence, Italy with her cousin during which her whole perspective is refreshed. She experiences many new things and shares exciting times with people she knows and meets, and feels like a new person from it. But, when she arrives back home in England, she begins to feel the enclosure of society back on her again. Florence is a place where she can be herself, and her home on Summer Street in England is a place where she feels the full force of class restriction.
In the novel A Room with a View there are two main settings that not only contrast in location but also in atmosphere. The author, E.M. Forster uses Florence, Italy and Summer Street, England to exaggerate the differences in the main character’s state of mind influenced by the people and places around her. The restricting culture of early 1900 Europe in which the story takes place also plays a role in the varying settings as the author strives to convey his purpose.
In October 1929, at the close of the Feminist Movement, Virginia Woolf published her famous writing, A Room of One’s Own. This feministic extended essay, based on a series of lectures Woolf presented at Newnham College and Girton College, channels Woolf’s thoughts and insights about women and fiction through the character of Mary Benton, who serves as the narrator. Through A Room of One’s Own, Woolf addresses three major points: having money and a room of one’s own (creative freedom), gender roles, and the search for truth. These three themes exist in other short stories such as “The Office” by Alice Munro and “I Stand Here Ironing” by Tillie Olsen, where they reveal themselves in varying degrees.
Progressing through the novel, Miss Lavish, an extravagant woman, guides Lucy to release control and embrace the unknown. Coming from an upper class, Lucy’s perspective on life has always been encompassed on social norms. The people she interacts with and rules she must follow all have a distinct relationship to her social class. Italy has given her the opportunity to go beyond the social standard that her upper-class stature puts forth. Miss Lavish tries to rotate Lucy’s close-minded view of the world because she believes that exploring will always lead to a wide variety of opportunities. When Mrs. Lavish says "One doesn't come to Italy for niceness," was the retort; "one comes for life. Buon Giorno! Buon Giorno!" (2.12) She is forcing Lucy to look up from the Baedeker which subtly begins to introduce the idea that this, in fact, represents Lucy slowly peering up from the metaphoric barrier the society has created for her. Lucy has always been a shy girl who was influenced by other people’s opinions on her, but coming to Italy gave her a new outlet to discover her own personality. It’s a new environment where she can explore not only the streets of Italy but the streets of her thought process as well. Mrs. Lavish unintentionally introduces to Lucy that in order to explore, you must be patient. Lucy finds that solutions to all issues are not just given. When she says, “As to the true Italy--he does not even dream of it. The true Italy is only to be found by patient observation." (2.12) It points Lucy in the direction of solving
In Chapters Four and Five of A Room of One 's Own,, the focus on Women & Fiction shifts to a consideration of women writers, both actual writers and ultimately one of the author 's own creation.
A Room with a View provides commentary on British Society in the early twentieth century, ridiculing the social pressures placed on the middle class at the time. Readers witness this through the changes that emerge in Lucy Honeychurch’s character as she moves between the two settings of the novel, Florence and Surrey. Florence, Italy represents a free, progressive environment away from the strain of British society, allowing Lucy to show her true character. Surrey, however, represents the restrictive environment present for the British middle class during this time, ultimately keeping Lucy from expressing her genuine self. The contrast between these two settings illuminates the faults within British society during the end of the Victorian age and criticises those who conformed to the social norms of the time.
A Room with a View by E.D. Forster explores the struggle between the expectations of a conventional lady of the British upper class and pursuing the heart. Miss Lucy Honeychurch must choose between class concerns and personal desires.
Sometimes it can be easier to let others make decisions. People find comfort in letting others decide deadlines or goals. People can find direction in others’ choices for them that they could never have possibly come up for themselves. That having been said, life also requires ownership. A person’s life is full of options and can mean so much more if personal decisions are made within. It certainly is difficult, but the struggle often makes the result all that much sweeter. Such is the case in E.M. Forster’s novel A Room with a View. Throughout the story Lucy is stuck within the rigid, cookie-cutter class system. She finds herself surrounded by people who mindlessly go with expected actions and must walk in step behind all the adults in
The place where I feel the most comfortable, and show my personality, is my bedroom. This is the place where I can really be myself and do what I want; it’s the place I come home to, and wake up every day. My room makes me feel comfortable because it is my own space. My house is always crazy, with my dog barking, and my siblings running around making noise, my room is the only place in the house where I can come and relax without caring about everything else, the only place that I can go to clear my mind.
This paper is going to talk about the independent protagonist, Lucy Snowe and how she develops herself realistically, away from the typical norms of the Victorian society. There shall be a discussion regarding the autobiographical elements and how Bronte has shown them. A contrast between two of the great protagonist Jane Eyre and Lucy Snowe from the remarkable works of Charlotte Bronte Jane Eyre (1847) and Villette (1853). The contrasting elements of fiction versus realism; description of nature versus that in the city; study of life versus Survival and self-preservation.
My favorite place in my mother’s house is the dining room. Every year, my mother’s house is chosen, by all of our family members, to host the holiday dinners and parties because of how elegant her dining room is.