Analysis Of A Room With A View By E. M. Forster

Fay Weldon’s ‘Letters to Alice on First Reading Jane Austen’ (1984) through the form of an epistolic novel, serves to enrich a heightened understanding of the contemporary issues of Jane Austen’s cultural context. In doing so, the responder is inspired to adopt a more holistic appreciation of the roles of women inherent in Austen’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’ (1813). Due to the examination of the shift of attitudes and values between the Regency era and the 1980s, the reader comes to better understanding of the conventions of marriage for a women and the role education had in increasing one’s marriage prospects. Weldon’s critical discussion of these issues transforms a modern responder’s understanding of the role of a woman during the 19th century.

I think at the time the author may of tried to target an audience of young girls. Instead of writing a story the author cuts right to the case and explains and goes into detail about how a woman should act. The writer of this piece most likely wants you to take something from this and either learn from it or apply it to your life. An audience that lived in that time period may read this with a different mindset than someone of this era.

All through Canterbury Tales, women are dealt with as objects in everyday life. In the “Miller’s Tale,” an old man marries a younger, attractive women for her looks. In the “Wife of Bath’s Tale,” a virgin woman has her virginity and innocence taken from her by what is suppose to be a noble and honorable knight and when his punishment is later to marry an older, less attractive women, all respect for his newly wife vanishes. A woman’s level of recognition in Canterbury Tales are through her class in society, whether she is young and beautiful, or old and disgusting, and her degree of experience in life. Women are not desired for their intelligence, wisdom and capabilities which might of kept a relationship deceitful-free. The “Wife of

In Geoffrey Chaucer’s poem The Canterbury Tales a young Chaucer tells of the people he meets on a pilgrimage to the shrine of Saint Thomas Beckett in Canterbury. One of the most vivacious characters on the pilgrimage is The Wife of Bath. Both the Wife of Bath’s prologue and tale share a common theme of a woman’s control in a relationship with a man. The Wife of Bath and the old hag in her tale share a similar perspective on what women want most in life. In the prologue and tale the reader is exposed to the idea that what women most desire in life is to have control over their husbands and lovers. This tale and its prologue are linked through the way that Dame Alice, the Wife of Bath, fashions the old hag in her tale after herself.

The gulf between the upper class and its servants is explored in the scenes with Merriman and Prism. When Lady Bracknell unexpectedly shows up at Jack's, Merriman coughs discretely to warn the couples of her arrival. One can only imagine his humorous thoughts as he watches the wealthy tiptoe around each other and argue about what should be important. When Lady Bracknell hears the description of Prism and recognizes her as their former nanny, she calls for Miss Prism by shouting "Prism!" without using a title in front of her name. Imperiously, Lady Bracknell divides the servant from the lady of the manor. Wilde's audience would recognize this behavior on the part of the servants and the upper class. The stuffy class distinctions defined the society in which they lived.

Next, Foster brilliantly introduces the character of Cecil Vyse, a “medieval'; and high standing Englishman who, while is an acceptable suitor, really only sees Lucy as another pretty possession by his side. Cecil’s most important function ironically enough, is to serve as a “mirror'; for Lucy. For by seeing his snobbish and downright crude mannerisms, Lucy receives a likely image of what she herself could become if she were to marry Cecil for convention and not for passion. Becoming disgusted with Cecil’s behavior, she breaks off her engagement with him, yet still cannot distinguish whether she is doing it because of his crude and snobbish nature or because of her love for George, which she has still yet to admit.

Lucy arrived in Florence without much of an expectation. All she knew is that she wanted to experience things like she never had before. Her cousin and chaperone for the trip, Miss Bartlett, insisted on protecting her so she wouldn’t upset Lucy’s mother. Lucy, however, wanted to feel the winds of independence roll over her, and convinced her cousin to loosen the reigns on her a bit. After an incident in which Lucy had her guidebook stolen from her, she was left alone on the streets of Florence, with nothing but herself standing in her way. Florence was described as “a magic city where people thought and did the most extraordinary things” that has “the power, perhaps, to evoke passions, good and bad, and bring them speedily to a fulfillment” (Page 55). Lucy began to feel this “magic” of Florence in full force, especially as she became involved with George Emerson, a young man she had met there. George was of particular interest to Lucy, as he was “trustworthy, intelligent, and even kind” (Page 44). She shared her first kiss with him, albeit somewhat surprisingly, and even more surprisingly, witnessed a murder in the streets. Things like this could have never happened for Lucy in her hometown. The excitement, the passion, the freedom, all are things she longed for living in protection. All of this came to a screeching halt for Lucy, however, when it was time to return home to England.

The story begins in a hotel placed in Italy where a “muddle” takes place over the switching of rooms for a view. In these first few pages the main character describes Mr. Emerson the man who had offered his room as having some childness aspect but “not the childishness of senility” (pg 4). The author in my eyes is trying to draw a connection to the character and his reformist views and tie childness into Mr.Emerson as his matching views are new and young. The two characters introduced hold a large role in being the authors symbols of the peaking liberal social class mostly relevant in Italy unlike the sober aged ideals displayed in Windy Corner, Lucy’s childhood home in England. Another display of this conflicting culturalism is shown by the support of Lucy, Charlotte, and others in Mrs. Lavish, who was a struggling italian author in pursuit of writing a new novel paralleled with Mrs.Honeychurch’s outburst over the misuse of a woman's time and place when hearing about the female writer. Mrs. Honeychurch

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.

Charlotte routinely subjected Lucy to negative feelings and began to kill Lucy’s youthful spirit. As the novel progresses, Lucy becomes more aware of this, starting when she notices how Charlotte loved to eat up gossip as if “[nibbling] after blood” (320). A page later the narrator tells the reader that “it might be possible to be nice to [Charlotte]; it was impossible to love her” (321). Lucy could never really love Charlotte because Charlotte always tried to control her with the pessimistic views she learned as an old bachelorette. If she could never experience marriage, how dare Lucy be subjected to it, especially at the hands – or rather the lips – of George Emerson. The tension in Italy comes to a pretty dramatic head as Charlotte decides it best for the pair to hightail it out of Florence on account of George’s sneak attack kiss.

The second part of the novel marks the beginning of the marriage between Antoinette and the English gentleman (normally identified as Rochester from Jane Eyre; he will be referred to as such for the remainder of the essay).   The Marriage contract itself, interestingly, is negotiated and put into action by a series of men: Rochester's father and brother, Antoinette's stepfather and, subsequently, her step-brother, Richard Mason. When Antoinette herself puts up a half-hearted resistance to the marriage, both Rochester and Richard Mason step in to push the contract along.  Already, Rhys, within the marriage, establishes action as a male characteristic and inertia as female.

     The weakness of women is found in various forms throughout the text. Henry refers to women as “a decorative sex” and that “they never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly.” (Wilde 43) Nowhere is this better supported than during Lady Henry’s

In 1909, E.M. Forster wrote a short story called “The Machine Stops.” Interestingly, this story seemed to give a small prediction of our social media today. In it, humans have “eschewed physical interaction for solitary existences in separate underground rooms.” However, they do continue communicate audibly. This is just done through “phone-like pads and screens.” In this situation, The Machine provides everything that humans needs and it is not questioned. It is basically the totalitarian manifestation of the Internet (Allfree).

Through the Victorian Age, male dominance deprived women from a certain freedom. In Charlotte Brontë’s novel, Jane Eyre, Jane Eyre repeatedly struggles to become an independent young lady due to the troublesome men in the story. John Reed controls Jane, Mr. Brocklehurst humiliates Jane, and Mr. Rochester sees women, in general, as objects. The author manages to depict patriarchal dominance through the characterization of John Reed, Mr. Brocklehurst, and Mr. Rochester.

In this essay I will be comparing Oscar Wilde's play 'A Woman of No Importance' to John Fowles' novel 'The French Lieutenant's Woman'. I will be exploring their differing views of woman in Victorian society. Generally, woman were viewed as inferior to men, yet Wilde shows compassion for them in his writing, this can be seen through his kindness to Mrs Arbuthnot towards the end of the play. However, John Fowles, although much darker in his presentation of woman, portrays Sarah Woodruff as