Critics by theme

Question 1

Muddle

Answer 1

‘A recurrent expression of rich and varied connotations in Forster’s fiction that normally signifies some fatal obscuring of inner vision by the falsifying conventions of society.’ Avtar Singh
‘Forster wanted his people to be in a muddle; his was the study of the emotional, erratic and unreasonable in human life’ - Zadie Smith
‘so humane, so forgiving - even in its satire - of the muddles we all make of our lives’ - Rohan Maitzen

Question 2

Freedom and restriction

Answer 2

‘A recurrent expression of rich and varied connotations in Forster’s fiction that normally signifies some fatal obscuring of inner vision by the falsifying conventions of society.’ Avtar Singh
Forster ‘frames his story within the conventions of the marriage plot, and the comedy of manners.’
‘Idyllic surroundings conspire to overcome social niceties’ - Stephanie Forward

Question 3

Nature/Italy

Answer 3

‘Idyllic surroundings conspire to overcome social niceties’ - Stephanie Forward
‘The landscape [chapter 6] is given a sexual potency far stronger than the kiss… Forster invented a kind of narration that powerfully expresses male homo-erotic desire while shrewdly maintaining the veneer of heterosexual conventionality’. - Scherer Herz

Question 4

George

Answer 4

George is ‘full of contradictions’ - Stephanie Forward

‘Idyllic surroundings conspire to overcome… George’s depressive lathargy.’

Question 5

Mr Emerson

Answer 5

‘Lucy’s gradual enlightenment [is] guided by Mr Emerson.’- Stephanie Forward

Question 6

Lucy

Answer 6

‘Lucy’s gradual enlightenment [is] guided by Mr Emerson.’- Stephanie Forward
‘Lucy’s ‘encounters with Italy and George are mostly decorous, but her piano-playing hints at her depths.’
‘The idealised medieval lady and her ‘degenerate’ modern equivalent offer contrasting role models’- Stephanie Forward
‘When Lucy experiments, venturing out unchaperoned… she witnesses more than she bargained for: a murderous knife attack. She recovers from her faint and is abashed to find herself in George’s arms.’ – Stephanie Forward
‘These oppositions highlight Lucy’s quandaries’ Stehp

Question 7

Mr Beebe

Answer 7

‘Forster tends to be celebrated for his emphasis on the need for connection between different races, classes, sexes, and sides of the individual self.’ - The Cambridge Companion to EM Forster
‘We pay more attention to the narrative voice(s) than to the imperatives of the plot.’ - Claude Summers (link to journey of novel from idolising Mr Beebe to Mr Emerson)
‘Mr Beebe is the most complex’ of characters in the text
‘Victorian conventions are presented by Forster as the enemy of personal identity’ - how Mr Beebe hides his belief in celibacy, but also why he believes in celibacy to begin with (link to his possible suppression of homosexuality)