Howards End

[Angel]

Howards End

Howards End isa novel by E. M. Forster, published 1910, deals with personal relationships and conflicting values.

On the one hand are the Schlegel sisters, Margaret and Helen, and their brother Tibby, who care about civilized living, music, literature, and conversation with their friends; on the other, the Wilcoxes, Henry and his children Charles, Paul, and Evie, who are concerned with the business side of life and distrust emotions and imagination. Helen Schlegel is drawn to the Wilcox family, falls briefly in and out of love with Paul Wilcox, and thereafter reacts away from them. Margaret becomes more deeply involved. She is stimulated by the very differences of their way of life and acknowledges the debt of intellectuals to the men of affairs who guarantee stability, whose virtues of 'neatness, decision and obedience . . . keep the soul from becoming sloppy'. She marries Henry Wilcox, to the consternation of both families, and her love and steadiness of purpose are tested by the ensuing strains and misunderstandings, which include the revelation that Helen has been made pregnant by Leonard Bast, a young, married, lower-class but intellectually aspiring clerk whom the Schlegels had briefly befriended. Her marriage cracks but does not break. In the end, torn between her sister and her husband, she succeeds in bridging the mistrust that divides them. Howards End, where the story begins and ends, is the house that belonged to Henry Wilcox's first wife, and is a symbol of human dignity and endurance.


source: Drabble, Margaret; The Oxford Companion to English Literature; Oxford University Press, New York, 2000.

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[Angel]

Major Themes of the novel

Only Connect
Connecting is perhaps the most important theme of the novel, as the words "Only connect" make up its epigraph. Connections are necessary on many levels. Connecting within oneself is highly important, which is seen most clearly in Mr. Wilcox's personal development. Margaret knows Mr. Wilcox could be a better man if he could just connect the prose and the passion inside of himself rather than devoting his life to practicality and business. Forster also demonstrates the importance of connecting with others in a meaningful rather than superficial way. To achieve this, one must penetrate the inner life rather than relying on the outer life. For example, when Leonard Bast speaks with the Schlegels after his all-night walk, he references many authors and books, but the Schlegels are only interested in his personal view of the experience.
The Schlegels and Wilcoxes represent different approaches to life, that which celebrates the inner life, and that which celebrates the outer life. The novel works to bring these two concepts together, and finally unites them through Margaret and Mr. Wilcox's marriage and eventual settling at Howards End. The path to this final connection is fraught with drama and tragedy, but the end result is one of peace, happiness, and stability. Thus, in connecting to each other and embracing differences, Margaret, Mr. Wilcox, and Helen are able to find satisfaction.

Inner Life vs. Outer Life
Margaret and Helen Schlegel celebrate the inner life. In their opinion, the inner life is what defines and shapes a person. Therefore, embracing and understanding it is fundamental to developing identity and confidence. Embracing the inner life encompasses a wide variety of things, such as Margaret working to understand Mr. Wilcox, the celebration of grounding oneself in a home as Margaret and Helen do when seeing their furniture unpacked at Howards End, or expressing one's honest opinion as Leonard finally does when noting the sunrise he witnessed was fairly disappointing. Throughout the novel, the outer life is often portrayed as related to "telegrams and anger." The Wilcoxes, especially Charles, embody existences dominated by the outer life. For instance, after a brief romance with Helen, Paul immediately returns to his outer life focus, and regrets allowing his emotions to rule his action. In fact, the entire Wilcox family, except Mrs. Wilcox, is astounded and upset by Paul's impulsive actions. Similarly, when Helen and Margaret see each other after eight months of not speaking, discussion, explanations, and questions fail to reestablish their bond. To reconnect with each other, they must access aspects of their inner life, which they finally do through seeing their furniture unpacked in Howards End and reminiscing over their childhoods.
At the conclusion of the novel, the concepts of inner and outer life are finally united as Mr. Wilcox, Margaret, and Helen live happily in Howards End. Margaret and Helen embrace the new Mr. Wilcox, who develops an appreciation for the inner life, and Helen, once solely focused on an inner existence, begins to understand the importance of the outer life. Margaret, who has always been open to accepting different approaches to life, acts as the unifier between her sister and Mr. Wilcox, who began the novel at different extremes.

Daily Life; the Unseen vs. the Seen
Throughout the novel, Forster describes daily life with the color grey. Especially for Helen, life is flat and boring when there is no romance, passion, or excitement. Mrs. Wilcox, on the other hand, easily finds magic in daily life, preventing the greyness from dominating her existence. She takes pleasure in small things and makes sacrifices where and when she feels she should. As Margaret grows older, both her friendship with Mrs. Wilcox and her relationship with Mr. Wilcox help her learn to embrace daily life as something special and revered. In a letter, Margaret reminds Helen to cherish the seen as well as the unseen. One of Helen's flaws is that she is unsatisfied with the present. To grow as a person, she must learn to live daily life without such constant passion and without isolating so many people. By the end of the novel, Helen has tamed her approach, and begins to understand her sister's advice. In fact, this unification of the seen and the unseen mirrors the theme of combining the inner and outer life.

Proportion
Balancing the inner and outer life and the seen and the unseen requires accepting the importance of proportion and compromise over extremism. In an early conversation with Mrs. Wilcox, Margaret mentions that proportion should be embraced only as a last resort, but soon learns that she is incorrect. There are in fact several points in the novel when characters are living in an all-or-nothing way. The characters that end up happy in the end, however, have learned that proportion is a necessary element in life. Margaret has found proportion in her roles as Helen's sister and Mr. Wilcox's wife. Mr. Wilcox has learned to set aside some of his more uptight ideals and finally leave Howards End to his second wife and then her nephew, and Helen has learned that passion is important, but should not dominate one's existence. In contrast, Charles is unable to compromise his views. He never trusts Margaret or Helen, and sees Helen's situation as one that can be rectified with violent revenge. For this extreme behavior and inability to respond proportionately, Charles goes to prison.

Regional Politics
Howards End presents an examination of English life shortly before World War I. At the time, England was in the middle of great social change while simultaneously at the height of its global influence. Many have suggested that in writing this novel, Forster was truly trying to answer the question: "Who shall inherit England?" Therefore, in Howards End Forster carefully presents three different classes of English society. The Schlegel family represents the idealistic, literary and cultured upper class, the Wilcox family represents the materialism and excessive intellectualism of certain sections of the upper class, and the Basts represent the lower middle class of English society, struggling to maintain influence and to avoid falling into poverty. At the end of the novel, these three groups are intertwined permanently. Margaret Schlegel marries Henry Wilcox, and Helen Schlegel bears Leonard Bast's child. Margaret, Henry, Helen, and her baby boy end the novel living together peacefully at Howards End. Thus, Forster seems to suggest that all parts of English society must learn to coexist on equal ground.

Class and Culture
There are cultural differences between them, but both the Schlegels and the Wilcoxes are well off enough to live comfortably and pleasurably. However, this is an impossibility for Leonard Bast. He must struggle to gather enough money to attend a single concert, while the Schlegels have attended so many that they have lost count. Leonard longs desperately to be cultured, and is most happy when having intellectual, culturally centered conversations with the Schlegel women.
This disparity between the rich and poor appears many times, and various opinions of how to assist the struggling poor are provided. When Margaret, Helen, and their friends gather for a social occasion, this topic arises in conversation. Margaret says that the less fortunate should be given money - a means to figure out their ideals - rather than have a way of life imposed upon them. Later on, Mr. Wilcox maintains that there will always be rich and poor in the world and that that is not necessarily a bad thing, but simply a way of life. For Helen especially, Leonard humanizes the issue of poverty, and she wants desperately to help him. The novel's conclusion does not provide a final response to if and how the poor should be assisted, as Leonard dies, ironically buried under a pile of books.

Gender Roles; Sexuality
The differences between the Wilcoxes, primarily a family of men, and the Schlegels, consisting mostly of women, are undeniable. There is something harsh and unyielding about the former and a certain softness and romance about the latter, which suggest specific differences in gender roles. Undoubtedly, in the novel, women are expected to behave in a certain way. Mrs. Wilcox, though her true pleasure is Howards End, has learned how to put her family first no matter what. Similarly, Margaret plays the role of the 'silly' female when her actions at Oniton are deemed bizarre, and her mistakes are quickly excused.
Throughout the novel, it becomes clear that in 1910 England, women are expected to submit to men. For example, before staying at Howards End with Helen, Margaret must ask her husband's permission. However, even when he denies her use of the house, she rebels against him and stays there anyway. Margaret appears unwilling to accept a lesser place in society as a result of her womanhood. Similarly, Helen bravely bears an illegitimate child in a time and place where such things are unheard of, while Mr. Wilcox is simply chided for his affair with a prostitute. Clearly, men are permitted far greater liberty than women, but the Schlegel sisters are unwilling to submit entirely to society's expectations.



source:gradesaver.com

[Angel]

An Interpretation E. M. Forster's Howards End

by Rob Doll

In Forster's first three novels the middle class, of whose character and values he disapproves, is represented by suburban widows and their children, by school teachers, clergymen, and people living on inherited incomes. The Herritons, Honeychurches, Pembrokes, Vyses, Bebees, and others live off the fruits of commerce and business, but they are not directly connected to the sources of their income. By the time Forster came to write his fourth novel, Howards End, he realized that the influence of the middle class was greater than its relatively weak representatives in the previous fiction would indicate. In Howards End Forster embodies his conception of the middle class in strong, active characters—the Wilcoxes—and presents a picture of the kind of world these people have made. The novel is prophetic. Forster saw the eventual dominance of the commercial and financial class, and he saw with disturbing accuracy what this dominance would do to the world.

Associated with the Wilcoxes throughout the novel and used by Forster as one of the primary images for the influence of middle-class culture, is the automobile. These machines appear only incidentally, if at all, in the earlier novels; they are pervasive in Howards End. At the beginning of Chapter 13 Forster describes their effect in London:

And month by month the roads smelt more strongly of petrol, and were more difficult to cross, and human beings heard each other speak with greater difficulty, breathed less of the air, and saw less of the sky. Nature withdrew: the leaves were falling by midsummer; the sun shone through dirt with an admired obscurity.

It is the Wilcoxes and their class that have produced the modern civilization of which London is a product and symbol; and it is the Wilcoxes' cars that have filled the air with fumes. The Wilcoxes have the "colonial spirit"; Henry makes his money—and he is rich—from the Imperial and West African Rubber Company. Rubber, of course, was needed primarily to make tires for cars. Henry has spent his time in the colonies and has sent out his son Paul in turn. The same spirit with which the Wilcoxes have conquered the world has an influence at home, where the Wilcoxes are constantly changing houses and motoring about between them: Ducie Street, Oniton, Wickham Place, the house planned in Sussex. Not only in their habit of changing homes, but also in their leisure activities the Wilcoxes are colonial; their idea of a holiday is a motor tour. They speed in their "throbbing stinking" car down country roads, throwing up dust and endangering man and animal alike. At the end of Chapter 10, when Evie and Mr. Wilcox meet Margaret Schlegel and Mrs. Wilcox at the train station, they have just returned from a motor trip which was cut short by an accident. Evie gaily tells how "our car . . . ran A-1 as far as Ripon," where "a wretched horse and cart" and "a fool of a driver" got in the way. The old and the new have crashed; Mr. Wilcox is unconcerned about the human dimension of the event. He doesn't mention what happened to the cart and driver, saying only, "As we've insured against third-party risks, it won't so much matter—." The financial entailments of auto ownership, which distance the owner from the very real physical impact of the machine, reflect the general dehumanization.

The world of Howards End is one of "everyone moving," of "continual flux." As Margaret says, "London was but a foretaste of this nomadic civilization which is altering human nature so profoundly, and throws upon personal relations a stress greater than they have ever born before." The rootlessness of the Wilcox existence is reflected in their character. They live the "outer life . . . in which telegrams and anger count." The novel itself, which is full of letters and telegrams that shouldn't have been sent, or which are not received in time, or which are misinterpreted, reflects the growing difficulty of human communication. For the Wilcoxes "love means marriage settlements, death, death duties." Their typical family scene is a discussion of business matters, stocks and bonds, insurance settlements, the settlement of a will.
Henry Wilcox, like others of his class, sees life "steadily. He never bothered over the mysterious or the private." As he says at one point, "I am not a fellow who bothers about my own inside." "Outwardly," Forster tells us, he is "cheerful, reliable, and brave"; practical and efficient, he treats "marriage like a funeral, item by item, never raising his eyes to the whole." Because the Wilcoxes do not see life whole, do not see that there is another life where personal relations are supreme, where "one is certain of nothing but the truth of ones own emotions," they are "just a wall of newspapers and motorcars and golfclubs" behind which lies nothing but "panic and emptiness."

Forster sees "the Great Wilcox Peril" as the nearly inexorable force of the future. Charles Wilcox, the novel's greatest devotee of motoring, receives an automobile as a wedding present. Forster presents a picture of Charles and his wife at home,

sitting in deck-chairs, and their motor is regarding them placidly from its garage across the lawn. A short-frocked edition of Charles also regards them placidly; a perambulator edition is squeaking; a third edition is expected shortly. Nature is turning out Wilcoxes in this peaceful abode, so that they may inherit the earth.

Opposite to the life of the Wilcoxes, who "have no part . . . in any place" and whose homelessness is reflected in the emptiness of their character, is another kind of life, represented by Henry's wife, Ruth. The house called Howards End was brought into the Wilcox family when Henry married Ruth Howard. She was the last of the Howards; "things went on until there were no men." Ruth is the last survivor of a family that has lived on the land in one house for centuries. As Margaret Schlegel comes to understand later, "In these English farms, if anywhere, one might see life steadily and see it whole, group in one vision its transitoriness and its eternal youth, connect—connect without bitterness until all men are brothers." Mrs. Wilcox lives with and loves the Wilcoxes, yet she retains her connection to the past and to the earth—a connection which for Forster is tantamount to the inner life and the life of personal relations .

Unlike her husband and sons, who have hay fever, Mrs. Wilcox loves the meadow at Howards End; Helen describes her "with hands full of the hay that was cut yesterday . . . smelling it." Again unlike her husband, Mrs. Wilcox knows about the pigs' teeth in the trunk of the wych-elm that overhangs the house: "There are pigs' teeth stuck into the trunk, about four feet from the ground. The country people put them in long ago, and they think that if they chew a piece of the bark, it will cure the toothache. The teeth are almost grown over now, and no one comes to the tree." Mrs. Wilcox's spirit inhabits the tree like a dryad, for when Paul and Helen kiss under its branches, Mrs. Wilcox somehow knows. As in Forster's earlier novels and short stories, a nearness to earth and nature here symbolizes a life of relations untrammeled by social complexity and artificiality. Forster saw the yeoman or peasant of the past as unalienated from the source and sustenance of his life and from his fellows.

Mrs. Wilcox's marriage to Henry is an emblem of the traditional coexistence of the two kinds of life—a coexistence which Forster realizes may be coming to an end. The death of Mrs. Wilcox brings a literal end to the Howard Family; the question posed by the novel is whether the disposition of her house will bring the end of what she stands for. Even before she dies, a garage has replaced the paddock for the pony. If inheritance is uninterrupted, the house will pass to Charles Wilcox and will become, indeed, the Howards' end. Before she dies, however, Mrs. Wilcox finds a spiritual heir in the person of Margaret Schlegel, and she leaves a note asking her husband to give the house to Margaret. The dramatic conflict in the novel lies in the resolution of the problem of who shall inherit Howards End.

The Schlegels are educated, intelligent, and sensitive people, who believe that "one is certain of nothing but the truth of ones own emotions" and that "personal relations are the real life." Thus they exhibit many attributes that were characteristic of Bloomsbury. Indeed, Forster's portrait of the Schlegels, reminds many readers of Virginia and Vanessa Stephens, although Forster himself claims that he had Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson's sisters in mind as models. In any case, "they desired that public life should mirror whatever is good in the life within." Since "it is impossible to see modern life steadily and see it whole," Margaret "had chosen to see it whole." But the public life of England and the modern world mirrors the vagrancy of the outer life of the the Wilcoxes, with its core of "panic and emptiness." This very Wilcoxism forces the Schlegels to move out of their family home of thirty years, which is to be built into flats to supply the expanding population of London. Helen and Margaret Schlegel's search for a new house—which eventually ends when they move into Howards End—coincides with their love affairs with Leonard Bast and Henry Wilcox, respectively.

Leonard Bast is an unfortunate human victim of the Great Wilcox Peril. He lies at the lower end of the middle class: he is a petty clerk, living in a "makeshift" home whose heater throws out "metallic fumes" not unlike the petrol fumes in the London Streets. He eats "dusty crumbs", dusted no doubt by the filth constantly thrown up by cars of the Wilcox's and their kind. His wife, Jackie, is also a victim of the Wilcoxes' "colonial spirit"; she was formerly a prostitute in the colonies, where she had in fact been of service to Henry Wilcox himself many years before. Leonard is "grandson to the shepherd or ploughboy whom civilization had sucked into the town; as one of the thousands who have lost the life of the body and failed to reach the life of the spirit." Leonard tries to achieve the life of the spirit through art and literature. Having tea with the Schlegels, he tells them how in a certain book "you get back to the Earth." Like Rickie Elliot, who had internalized the defects of the world of his father, Leonard has become a victim of the modern world. He tries to see life whole, to get back to his roots in the earth, but he fails, dying of "heart disease" when he is assaulted by Charles Wilcox. Ironically, as he dies, "books fell over him in a shower."
Because of the casual advice of Mr. Wilcox, Leonard had been financially ruined, as in the longer run his life had been ruined by the social forces represented by the Wilcoxes. Helen's idealistic attempt to help him leads to a night of love and eventually to a child; these in turn lead to guilt on Leonard's part and a sort of wandering, homeless cosmopolitanism for Helen.

Where Helen's lovemaking has been "romance"—a response which Forster sees as increasingly difficult in the modern world—Margaret's is "prose." As he falls in love with Henry Wilcox, Margaret moves towards an understanding and sympathy for the Wilcox way of life:

If Wilcoxes hadn't worked and died in England for thousands of years, you [Helen] and I couldn't sit here without having our throats cut. There would be no trains, no ships to carry us literary people about in, no fields even. Just savagery. No—perhaps not even that. Without their spirit, life might never have moved out of protoplasm. More and more do I refuse to draw my income and sneer at those who guarantee it.

Margaret realizes that the "outer life" of the Wilcoxes "was to remain a real force." Of the "seen and the unseen," the outer life and the inner, she writes in a letter to Helen, "Our business is not to contrast the two, but to reconcile them." In her love for Henry Margaret is moving towards the vision of Mrs. Wilcox. But Margaret seems to realize that the outer life of the Wilcoxes has become so powerful and expansive that it cannot exist peacefully beside the life of personal relations and personal emotional truth. Wilcoxes are changing the world, and in order to preserve the double vision of Ruth Wilcox, Mr. Wilcox must be made to see that he has an inner life. This is what Margaret tries to do.
The morning after she has accepted Henry's offer of marriage, Margaret decides,

She might yet be able to help him to the building of the rainbow bridge that should connect the prose in us with the passion. . . . It did not seem so difficult. She need trouble him with no gift of her own. She would only point out the salvation that was latent in his own soul, and in the soul of every man. Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer.

Margaret's attempt to make Henry connect is carried out specifically when she tries to make him see that his affair with Jackie is the same as Helen's affair with Leonard Bast. It is not simply a question of Henry's admitting that he hypocritically practices a double standard of morality. Leonard Bast has been ruined by Henry—in the immediate sense of losing his job and in the larger sense of being a victim of the Wilcox world. Jackie, too, has similarly been ruined by the Wilcoxes. It is because Henry has ruined Leonard that Helen becomes involved with him; and Leonard had married the ex-prostitute more from pity than from love. For Henry to connect himself to the affair of Helen and Leonard would be to see into the meaning of his life as a direct vector of harm as well as a symbol of alienating forces in the modern world. "You shall see the connection if it kills you, Henry," cries Margaret.
Henry does not connect it all until Charles's attempt to turn Helen and Margaret out of Howards End results in the death of Leonard and the potential prosecution of Charles. Henry turns down the opportunity to take the car and walks to the police station. Later, when Margaret throws the car keys to Henry, he leaves them lying "on the sunlit slope of grass." For the moment, at least, nature is triumphing over the motorcar. Mr. Wilcox says,

"Charles may go to prison. . . . I'm broken—I'm ended." No sudden warmth arose in her [Margaret]. She did not see that to break him was her only hope. She did not enfold the sufferer in her arms. But all through that day and the next a new life began to move. The verdict was brought in. Charles was committed for trial. It was against all reason that he should be punished, but the law, being made in his image, sentenced him to three years' imprisonment. Then Henry's fortress gave way. . . . She took him down to Howards End to recruit.

Henry has made the connection, but only at the expense of being broken; in this sense, then, the reconciliation attempted in Howards End is a failure.
In the end the Schlegels have found a home in Howards End; but Margaret's marriage has not successfully brought about a merger of the inner life and the outer. For her and Helen, "The inner life had paid." But Henry has not really achieved the inner life; his hay fever still keeps him inside while the meadow is being cut. Margaret observes that she and Helen and Henry "are only fragments" of Mrs. Wilcox's mind; these fragments have been joined only tenuously. It has been established that Margaret will inherit the house and that Helen's son will inherit it in turn. As the farm boy Tom takes her son into the meadow to play, Helen says, "They're going to be life-long friends." Like Rickie Elliot, whose weak heart brought death but whose stories were affirmed by the continuing life of Stephen Wonham, so is Leonard Bast's longing to return to the earth fulfilled in the life of his son. Behind the joy and optimism of the last sentence of the novel, however, are serious reservations on Forster's part. "The big meadow! We've seen to the very end, and it'll be such a crop of hay as never." The sentence may have a literal meaning not at first apparent; namely, that this will be the biggest crop ever; there will never again be a crop as big, for, as Helen says a little earlier,

"All the same, London's creeping." She pointed over the meadow—over eight or nine meadows, but at the end of them was a red rust. . . . And London is only part of something else, I'm afraid. Life's going to be melted down, all over the world.

Charles Wilcox, with his hay fever, will get out of prison, probably hating the Schlegels all the more. Unlike Charles and his like, who "breed like rabbits," Henry and Margaret will have no children, and Helen will apparently have no more. To compete with the many young Charleses is only one bastard child.



source.emforster.info

[Angel]

Only Connect

The quotes of Howards End

Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer. Only connect, and the beast and the monk, robbed of the isolation that is life to either, will die.

She might yet be able to help him to the building of the rainbow bridge that should connect the prose in us with the passion. Without it we are meaningless fragments, half monks, half beasts, unconnected arches that have never joined into a man. With it love is born, and alights on the highest curve, glowing against the grey, sober against the fire. Happy the man who sees from either aspect the glory of these outspread wings. The roads of his soul lie clear, and he and his friends shall find easy-going.

There's nothing like a debate to teach one quickness. I often wish I had gone in for them when I was a youngster. It would have helped me no end.

In these English farms, if anywhere, one might see life steadily and see it whole, group in one vision its transitoriness and its eternal youth, connect — connect without bitterness until all men are brothers.

source:en.wikiquote.org